It's a nice idea to be able to build your very own house. I love having a trophy room and armory. Plenty of space to display the many trophies and rare items I've collected during my adventuring. I built a bedroom and fully stocked the homestead with every sort of provision. I picked Heljarchen Hall because of its central location and proximity to Whiterun. I now have two kids, Lucia and Samuel, who play games and welcome me home; Meeko, my dog, who is a protector to my children and occasional travel companion; Oriella, my bard; steward Lydia and housecarl Gregor to look after my family and estate; and my wife, Aela, who...........complains.

She apparently is mad at me for sending the family to live way out in the country to get attacked by wolves, giant spiders and bears. I decided that if I cleared the area of all threats (the giant and bandit camps, caves, ruins and anything else nearby) she would be happy. Nope. I thought, "Well, I can move back to Breezehome in Whiterun. My family will be safe and my wife liked that house." Yeah.....no. "It's too small", my wife informs me. So, off to Windhelm, my former trophy house. It's fairly large. Surely that will be a fine home to raise a family. "This city is filthy" and it's all she can do to keep the kids safe. Okay, how about Lakeside Manor. More wolves, spiders and bears to worry about! Windstad Manor? Wrong again.

BY YSMIR'S BEARD, WOMAN! Can she be happy anywhere? She's not happy in any city, but doesn't want to move out either. Let's think about this for a moment. Aela -- the woman whose name-title is "The Huntress", a senior member of the companions, a werewolf, one who dreams of the eternal hunt after death -- doesn't like living out in the country and is afraid of wolves, spiders and bears. I want a divorce.

I really hope this is a glitch. It makes more sense to me that your spouse would be concerned about the family's safety until you get someone to protect the homestead while you're away. Like a steward and/or housecarl. After that, he/she should be fine with it. If it's not a glitch, it's stupid. Why have us go through all the trouble of building a huge house just to have our wife/husband hate us for the rest of our life?

My man likes to go outside and mine clay. He seems pretty happy to me doing that.

Though all of a sudden, everyone in the cities will comment to me as if I had a dead thrall around, even though I currently don't.

The ladies love Proudspire.

Yeah I find it a bit annoying when I ask about my child and all I get is WELL SHE'S GOOD WHEN WE AREN'T FENDING OFF BLAHBBLAHBLAH!!!!

Ok woman, I have a bard, a steward, and a horse all willing to go to battle to protect the house. If it's a wolf/spider/animal THEN STAY INSIDE AND LOCK THE DOORS. Wait until I get back and I'll slay them. OR you could pick up one of my many AWESOME weapons and use its great and mighty power to slay the beasts yourself.

I don't like crybaby NPCs. I deal with dragons, the living dead, vampires, ghosts, giant metal machines, falmer, forsworn, etc on a daily basis and sometimes many of these at once and you don't hear me cryin!

From what I've been reading, it seems like certain spouses enjoy living in your player-built home, while others don't. I've seen Ysolda reported as an example of a spouse that will comment positively on living out in the wilderness. Would be nice to get a list going for the people who take their roleplaying seriously and worry about that sort of thing. I don't really do that myself, but I can see how it would kinda ruin it after all that work.

The only other thing I can think of is that maybe their disposition changes for the buildable homes once you do a certain thing after moving them and the kids into the house. Do you remember if you already had a housecarl/steward before moving them in? Maybe you need to move them in and then get a steward/housecarl for the more positive dialogue to trigger, or vice-versa?

Would anybody else who has Aela as a wife be willing to do some testing along those lines?

This is why you should get your wife a shake weight....

Generally, lots of six tends to make your spouse happy. <.<

She isn't Aela the huntress anymore, she's generic wife #442, all that independence and rough n tumble attitude disappeared at Riften, sorry.

If you don't want your spouse to be a homemaker don't leave them at home.

My wife is Sylgja and she's perfectly happy in our home in Falkreach. The children love it too. My wife also likes any home we go move into and doesnt complain... My kids do though.

You should ask Johnson, he knows what the ladies like.

Damn, I'd have thought Aela would be happy out in the wilderness.... This does not bode well... will have to wait and see what the modders can do to change this nonsense.

@Icedus, I already had my steward when I moved in my family but didn't get my housecarl until after.

@Frank.White, that's probably true, but it kind of defeats the purpose of building my own home. Know what I mean?

I guess I need to be like, "This is happening. Deal with it, lady." It would be funny if I got served with devorce papers by courier. At least I know she wouldn't want the house.

*divorce

I don't think there's anything they can really do. Unless I'm mistaken, they only complain if you choose the dialogue option that asks them how the kid(s) are doing; otherwise they seem pefectly content. The only thing to do would be to disable that option from appearing in dialogue, which you can just choose to not select in the first place. I'm thinking the voice actress for Aela and possibly other potential spouses didn't record any "positive" dialogue, so if that's the case, what can they do?

I got sick of being married to Aela awhile back, so I tried to just adopt kids and move to Lakeview Manor by myself, but she just had to show up. And all she does is complain! How ungrateful!

Does she complain in random dialogue or only when you ask her about the children?

Aela just talks about something shifting in the moons, Joris is my sword and sheild apparently and the kids are only there to keep the payments from the Jarl ( gov) coming in.