One of the challenges I’ve had in being married is learning how to label things that were once mine and once his as “ours.” John seems to have a better handle on this than I do. Last night I said, “Thank you for watering my basil plant” and he said, “OUR basil plant.” I guess I did buy the plant with OUR money that is in OUR checking account, which has taken some getting used to.
At first I felt like a two year old trying to identify everything as “mine.” (“Be careful with MY blender”, “Let me get on MY computer”, “Hey, that’s MY dental floss.” You get the point.)
Combining bank accounts was not terribly hard. I just had to get used to another person spending money out of it because I was used to knowing what MY expenses were and tracking MY money. I now use OUR banking account with OUR money to buy OUR groceries and put gas in OUR cars. This is a big step because there was a time when I had a hard time disclosing what was in MY 401K to John.
Slowly but surely I am learning to share. Our living room has two couches crammed into it (because there was nowhere else to put MY couch since HIS was already there) that are now OUR couches. So we’ve combined bank accounts, furniture, assets, etc.
Last night, however, I discovered one thing that I think we are better off keeping separate—gym memberships. I went with John on a guest pass to HIS gym. He put me through a series of workouts that left me walking hunched over, on the verge of swearing, and incoherently mumbling about wanting of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Thank you very much but I think I will continue to go to MY gym and do MY workouts and let him go to HIS gym and torture HIMself.
