. . . to paraphrase Tolstoy . . .

Yes, my wife and I have been separated but living in the same place for many many years. A unique and somewhat embarassing situation.

Yes, we did it for the kids, although as they are all basically adults (age range 17 to 23), though all still living at home, I think sometimes I deluded myself that what my wife and I have done was truly beneficial for them.

When we were in our 30s and 40s we knew a lot of couples with kids the same age as our kids who broke up, starting a several-year period of kids shifting from home to home. Some of the break-ups were more congenial than others. But I look at these kids and the ex-couples now and, in amny cases, they have all weathered the storm.

And my wife and I have never left the eye of our storm, where it is relatively calm, but if we stray too far one way or the other, we will be whisked to oblivion.

Anyway, as I noted before, the responsibility for paying the mortgage and the property taxes has shifted from my wife to me.

We have been homeowners, i.e., mortgage payers, for almost 20 years. For most of our marriage, we have kept separate checking and savings accounts. For the first 10 years or so, the mortgage came out of my checking and we pooled resources to pay the property taxes. Early on, we had an escrow account, but not for many years.

For the last five to seven years, my wife paid the monthly mortgage and we split the property taxes. I paid for most of the kids' things -- books, braces, summer camps, clothes, etc.

The purpose of my first post today was to bring people up to speed and to demonstrate the place I would be in if/when my wife moves out. That would be the reality of my financial situation once she moves on.

Which could be next month or, who knows -- we have lived in this Twilight Zone of a relationship for 10 years.

Which means that in the very short term, she is in the house and does have an income, which means we won't starve. But I have to look beyond when she is here and figure out some way to survive. I have about $130 a week now for gas money, groceries, etc., but three weeks of that could easily go to dental co-pays tomorrow.