We Almost Cut Down the Mulberry Tree

We almost cut down the mulberry tree. When we bought the house, the bushes and trees had all but consumed it. No one had touched them for years and they'd freely developed their green kingdoms for feral cats and precocious rats. One bush had been about the size of a dump truck and sprawled across half the front lawn.

My dad had came to town and bought my husband a chainsaw. Lopping down one tree quickly exposed another leggy monstrosity. Years without sufficient light and competing so ruthlessly for resources had left the bushes and trees ugly and misshapen. Jacob decided on the trees that had to go, but once they were gone it was as if he had taken the skirts off of the rest of the trees and exposed a forest of gimpy legs.

In one weekend the front yard became a forest of spikes. The trees we kept didn't look quite right. Many were growing at strange angles that made sense when they'd been skirting a rather gluttonous/greedy bush, but now they jutted out with no purpose, Vs and Ps, like letters fallen out of their words, memories of the old lawn, incomprehensible pieces of a forgotten story.

He left three small trees at the northwest corner of the house, and they stood there through the winter awaiting the second reaping. But come March we saw the mulberries. Like some offering of gratitude. The branches bowed to the ground laden with the berries in their natural ombre of green to pink to black. The squirrels and the birds mostly had their way with the ripe berries before we could, but we heeded the tree's gesture.

And we didn't cut it down.

Whose the Money Person in your Family?

When Jacob and I were engaged, he let me start peeking at his finances.

By this I mean that he gave me all his passwords, and I fed my number hungry braincells on his entire financial situation. Student loans? Credit Cards? APRs? Spending habits? I wanted to know all of it.

We lived in Los Angeles at the time, and we made very little money. I was a private tutor who was about to start a Master's degree in English Literature (chaching! -_-) and he was an assistant in a film production company. I think he made around five hundred dollars a week. Money was tight and student loans were abounding, so we needed to get our financial plan on lockdown.

As I scrutinized his credit card statement, I stumbled on a $643 charge from some kind of online auto parts store. I didn't know anything about this expense, so I asked Jacob about it. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Do you know anything about a $643 charge at Autoparts.com?

Jacob: Hmm. Can't remember.

Me: You don't have a car.

Jacob: Yeah. Hmmm. Maybe?

Me: Last week. Six HUNDRED dollars on parts for a car you don't have?

Jacob: Yeah. Sounds fishy, huh?

I knew Jacob and I had different money approaches, but this one shook me up. His credit card number had been stolen, and he might have paid it off without blinking.

So from that day forward I took the financial reigns in the family. In taxes and in refunds. In medical insurance claims and retirement accounts. It's mostly an OK set up. He makes most of our money, I dole it out as I see fit and sit on the rest. I try to make him stress about our money; he tries to loosen me up. He insists we go on vacation; I insist we max out our IRAs. From speaking with other couples, I've gathered that marriages often divide themselves into the spender and the saver.

A good friend of mine has the opposite situation: she is the spender and her husband is the saver. They were having a lot of financial tension until her husband decided it was her turn to handle all the finances. After a few months, she happily handed the responsibility back, but she had a much better perspective on their situation and was able to help find ways to compromise their financial incompatibility.

Who does the money in your marriage?