chapter 3: part 3

continued from Chapter 3: part 2

Along with the abrupt change in our lives, I came to realize what a passive person I was. Opinionated but truly passive.
I had been raised in a completely father- dominated household where a woman’s views were not to be taken seriously and certainly not worthy of respect. I dragged along this attitude into marriage despite having a husband who believed in total equality.

In the past although we took turns with the household accounts, I was satisfied to leave any other business decisions to Hal when he would have been happy to turn them over to me. Business decision-making was of the few things he wasn’t good at and out of necessity around this time I took more and more responsibility and eventually I was pretty good at it.

These questions were no longer items just for Hal's consideration; is the house in both our names? Is the car? Is the cottage? Okay we didn't have one but if we did--
Alan reminded us that you can get tangled in estate problems if you don’t carefully examine the pros and cons of your particular situation

We had one joint checking account for bill paying, but then we branched out into “his” and “hers” Christmas accounts, “rainy day” funds and heaven knows what else. Despite the fact that we had made each other our beneficiaries, Alan advised us to condense our personal bank accounts and make them joint accounts so that the survivor would be the sole owner without legal intervention.

We took his advice with the tacit understanding that we would leave one another’s accounts alone. The exception was an account that Hal maintained for gifts for me and he wanted his name only on this one. Closing out this account after his death caused me uncountable pain. I had to take to his bank a notarized copy of his will, his death certificate and his bankbook. I’m not that private a person but handing these things over to a stranger was terrible. The bank clerk stood in front of me and read the will from cover to cover, despite the fact that I was named sole beneficiary at the top of page one.

to be continued in chapter 3: part 4