“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.” — Marcus Aelius Aurelius

The phone rang yesterday and it was my ex-girlfriend wishing me a Happy Birthday. We’ve had our ups and downs over the years with trying to be friends. Most lesbians are able to be friends with their exes… I guess it’s one of the rules in the handbook.

I struggle with her because as the saying goes, “Hell has no fury like a woman scorned.” The gory details are better left to imagination, but we are at a point in life where we’re trying to be friends again and that’s probably a good, healthy way to handle the past. It was a long time ago… she’s been forgiven but for some reason it has taken me years to finally forget.

As I rebuild our friendship, the refresh button gets pressed and it brings up many issues about our breakup. The hardest part was not the “other woman” but how vulnerable the experience felt with trying to separate our finances. Our assets were entangled (house, cars, checking accounts, health insurance) and it was what straight people consider being a messy divorce.

So when it came time to shack up with Jeanine, you could say, I was a bit gun shy. But I went into this partnership with a much more educated and safe approach.

MP Dunleavey at MSN Money gives a few good pointers with her article entitled, Protect Your Finances When You Move in Together. She writes, “Many of the legal advances in the field of nonmarital relations were in large part pushed along by the needs of gay couples, who often don’t have the option of marriage yet still need protection.”

“But most couples, when they decide to live together, don’t think they need a contract (either oral or written). Moving in together is often seen as a prelude to marriage, so treating it as a legal step on its own seems: a) unromantic and b) unnecessary.”

“Yet cohabiting couples will often embark on all kinds of financial entwinements — joint bank accounts, joint credit cards, joint purchases of big-ticket items like sofas, stereos, cars, houses and Hawaiian vacations — without batting an eye.”

“So, as unromantic as it sounds, most experts on the unmarried state advise those of us contemplating it to make some kind of contract, even an informal cohabitation agreement, that will protect each person’s assets and document key expectations.”

She goes on to give four good tips: asset protection, debt protection, earnings protection and setting expectations. Get the details here.

Also, keep in mind, that if you live in a state with domestic partnership rights, then there are additional benefits. More on this topic in a later post.