I love living with him, that’s fair to say. I’m just having some issues with some adjustment things. It’ll work through in time, I guess.

You’re right that the washing machine and the TV can be replaced. I guess I see them as expensive items though and I’m gambling on being in a position of being able to pay for them if I need to in the future.

We didn’t share a bank account until we got the mortgage together,8 years into our relationship, when our first child was 3 months old. We still have separate accounts too.

Whatever works for you, works for you. I know there are trust issues there, but it doesn’t just have to be about you trusting the relationship will make the distance. It’s also about maintaining your identity so that you feel like the best combination of the person you are in the relationship, and the person out of the relationship.

Having said that, ditch the washing machine! Sometimes stuff is just stuff, and if it’s something that would be fairly easy to replace, get it out of your lives.

Having said that, Finchy won’t throw away ANYTHING mechanical, regardless of whether it still works or not. He got sad when I ditched a pair of apple earbuds the other day, when the sticky tape holding them together finally failed. Because, you know, they were the FIRST pair of apple earbuds he owned. He bought a new printer and won’t set it up until the old one fails, which it refuses to do.

I love our TV. It’s the first thing I bought myself for our shared household, from my first ever novel cheque. It’s huge but clunky and I will be deeply sad on the day we finally retire it in exchange for one of those swanky slender ones. I earned it and paid for it, at a time when I wasn’t able to contribute much else to the household so yes, I sympathise too.

Feeling emotionally attached to appliances is apparently a more common thing than I thought!

DVDs, I remain undecided on. Having 2 copies of each of the LotR movies, plus special editions, does take up quite a bit of room on the shelf.

Funnily enough, though, I remember having those sorts of dilemmas. My TV and microwave were so much smaller and crapper…but I worked my ass off for them! And all my beautiful matching ivy-patterned crockery…that was really only suitable for a single person, childless household, but that Mum and I bought together when I moved out of home, a symbol of my adulthood and independence.

Now I’m starting to sound scarily like you, you crazy collector I DID give away most of my stuff. I traded my ivy-patterned crockery for indestructible plastic.

And this living together business IS quite difficult sometimes, but other times you go, well, I could wake up to the sound of my canary singing and have classical music playing while I sit at my computer with honey-slathered toast on ivy-patterned crockery and write in peace, OR I could wake up to the sound of shrieks of laughter and find my husband and daughter pretending to be unicorns in the kitchen with a pair of wooden spoons and no chance of getting any writing done until 10pm.

Ahh, happily ever after

What was Cinderella’s life after she got married? I bet she was still having to clean the hearth out. What about snow white?

Happily ever after is suck a crock. You have to work to get that happy moment, and work constantly at reminding yourself that you’re worthy. It’s far too easy to forget.

On the subject of doubles .. what are the *important* doubles? Books are important. Washing machines (and TV’s) can be replaced (or at least that’s how it works in my head. I cannot live with giving a book away). Decide what you have to keep and let go of the rest.

Mit