Doing Everything Wrong

In an earlier post I mentioned all my research on cohabitation. I think I read four different books on the topic which equates to literally hours upon hours of reading, taking notes, etc. Despite my anxiety about living together, it has been relatively easy so far, which is probably why I keep breaking all the rules. Will I regret this in another couple of months, when the "honeymoon" period ends? Quite possibly, guess I'll have to deal with the consequences then though. I'll just have to be conscious of the fact that numerous authors and contributors "told me so" and it's no one's fault but my own.

So let's see...top 4 rules we've broken so far:

1. Not signing a cohabitation agreement. This is essentially a less-sophisticated prenup and more sophisticated roommate agreement like you might have in college. Granted, with my family's wonderful history of lasting marriages, perhaps I should have been more insistent about signing one. My mom already told me to do a prenup before I get married. Glad she has so much confidence in our relationship. Anyways, a cohabitation agreement essentially outlines who is paying for what, what will happen if we break up, and any other rules we decide to include. Whether its legally enforceable depends on the state and I haven't gone so far as to research it in Illinois. I did download a template though and filled in most of it, until it got to the parts about dividing specific spending categories because we hadn't talked about it at the time...and of course I haven't looked at it since.

2. Not following the chore chart. This was, when we moved in together, something I obsessed over. I made a nice excel chart, color-coded it, hung it on the fridge, everything. Dan thought it was ridiculous. After living with roommates for the past couple of years though, I recognized that there's always an uneven split of chores, no matter how hard you try to divide things evenly. In the hopes of avoiding arguments and being on the same page about how frequently things should be cleaned, etc, I created this chart way before Dan even came home. And of course, we're not following it at all. For the most part, we've been good about splitting chores. Dan loads the dishwasher, I unload it. He's in charge of taking the garbage and recycling out, I pay the bills. I do more of the cooking and kitchen cleaning, he does the dishes that need to be handwashed (mostly his stuff...I put everything in the dishwasher). So far so good, but we'll have to see what happens in the next few days since its his turn to clean the bathroom!

3. Sharing credit cards. I tried to come up with both simple and safe ideas about sharing expenses. Obviously for financial safety concerns (especially between couples with unequal salaries like us) you're not supposed to combine bank accounts, credit cards, or allow access to each other's money in any way, shape for form. This leads to an awful lot of work at the end of the week, month, whenever to reconcile who paid for what and such. We also do finances differently. Minus my monthly bills, I put almost everything on my credit card that I can. It provides the financial benefit of getting points and improving my credit score because I'm good at paying it off every month. This is what my parents have always done, and I therefore took after their example. Dan's not a credit card user at all and prefers to just use debit card for everything. Since I'm managing all of our shared expenses, I determined it was easier to just order copies of my credit cards for Dan as well and we figure everything out at the end of the month. This way if he goes to the grocery store for both of us, or uses a card at a shared dinner, I only have to add up costs in two places that I have access to, instead of 3 or more.  Thanks to Chase Quickpay, its pretty easy to get money as needed at the end of the month. I just feel like I've gotten comfortable managing my own finances in the past few months, so its certainly been an adventure to complicate everything again.

4. Our new resident in our apartment

Pets are a definite no-no for two reasons. One, its just one more thing to argue over once the honeymoon period is over. A pet inevitably requires additional work around the house, just something else to add to the chore chart that's not being followed as is. Two, if we were to break up, a pet ends up in a custody battle, which sounds ridiculous to me now, but I guess I can see how that might happen. Although I'm definitely a dog person, after having my dog here for just a week, its impossible for me to have a dog in the city at this time in my life. I felt awful leaving Patches in a small space all day, there's very little grass around me, and I'm never home to take him out. I had to come home right after work and cut short my lunches to make sure he was alone for the minimal amount of time possible. So, a cat it was. Now, I'm technically allergic to cats, but it hasn't been a major issue for me in the past. We intended to borrow Dan's brother's cat to make sure I'd be okay, but time didn't really allow for that. Its kitten season right now, so there is a better selection of cats at shelters than at any other time of the year. In my mind, that's the only reason we didn't wait. Well that and Dan begs as well as anyone I know. I feel more than a little guilty that we're living in the city for me so that I'm close to work and friends and he has the commute from hell-about an hour drive in the morning and more than that coming home at night. I knew that coming home to a cat would make him happy. So Piper (named for the airplane company) joined us yesterday after over 3 hours at PAWS. She's not quite a kitten, but at a year and a half she seems like the perfect age for us. She's very well trained-uses her litter box, doesn't jump on anything, and hasn't tried to use our couch as a scratching post. She's also a lot more mellow than some of the other cats we saw and hasn't shown a lot of interest in any toys besides a shoe lace. She spends most of her time under our dining room table (For reasons unknown, the carpet is not comfortable) or sniffing around all the closed doors to try to discover what's behind them. Certainly a curious one!

Stay tuned for more rule-breaking...it's going to be a busy September so we'll see how all of our social events turn out!