The same but different

[altivo]

"I now own three horses. "

"What?" you say. "You already owned three horses."

"Well, not exactly. I owned two of them jointly with my mate. I just bought his share out and sent in the transfer papers."

"Oh... Wait, you're not splitting up or anything are you?"

"No, not at all. He was having trouble paying the hospital bills after his bee sting incident last June, and refused to let me help. So I told him I wanted to buy the horses out from him and he agreed to that. Half of what we paid for them just happened to cover most of his outstanding bills."

"That's dumb. Why wouldn't he just let you help him out?"

"Polish stubbornness, I guess. And the stupidity of a society that won't recognize our relationship so that I could get him onto my health insurance plan."

[This is all true, BTW.]

Comments

[corelog.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I'm familiar with such stubbornness. :)

[duncandahusky.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't consider that dumb at all. It's an equitable arrangement that leaves everyone involved happy. (And I count myself fortunate indeed that takaza's employer, Siemens, has benefits that covers domestic partners!)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I had that when I worked for Columbia College. He was covered then. But when they flushed me down the toilet, the COBRA was going to be $750 a month.

Now I'm a municipal employee. No such thing as domestic partner benefits here.

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

Best thing is, he gets to look at them and enjoy them no less than he already was.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah. And he still gets to help take care of them I hope. ;p

I am going to insist on paying all of the vet and farrier bills now too, but he doesn't know that yet. And the feed bills. I expect to have to fight with him over some of that. I was paying 100% of that stuff for my mare up until now, but we split the cost for the boys before now.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

Cuuuuuuute. ;)

[ducktapeddonkey.livejournal.com]

Bought out his share?


....weird.



Dog and I only have one bank account.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

We have three. A joint account for household and other shared expenses, and we each have our own separate accounts. We've always done it that way.

There are lots of reasons. Both of us had experience with relationships that fell apart in the past, and keeping finances separate makes it cleaner and avoids recriminations. When we bought our first house back in 1984, I underwrote all the closing costs and down payment, even though he earned a higher salary, because I had the liquid cash and he did not. So he wanted to keep things separate until he paid me back. That took several years and by then it was habit.

Having a shared household account makes accounting simpler too, and lets him play with Quicken all he wants without messing around with MY accounts, which I do in my head. ;P