When people first get married or move in and merge finances, there is excitement and nerves. They look around at their dishes and the bottles of wine they anticipate drinking together and think “This is it, darling,” in the victorious and invincible bliss that is a new relationship. There are growing pains as you sort out who is the saver and who is the spender and how to make joint decisions together, but even these are charged with the promise of a new life with someone else. This is often not the case when untangling all of the dollars you spent together, but it must be done.

My ex told me on a Saturday night that she was through with our marriage, and by Tuesday I had sorted out our savings, moved money, renamed accounts and changed account access. The more changes one makes immediately the better. If I had waited, things may have not been taken care of by the time our parting became a bit dicier. I made decisions as fairly as I could and sent off an e-mail to her. That was Step One. Step Two involved plans to move out and divide up our things, so after a week of grieving I began looking at apartments. I would not realize the intricacies of just how much we had tangled ourselves up together for a few more months.

In a gay divorce, amicability is priority one. There is no government agency or protocol to guide the process, since we never were actually married according to Uncle Sam – or our state. We did an admirable job remaining amicable despite the circumstances. We went to cast our votes for Obama that Tuesday and stood in line discussing who wanted what: I wanted the bed, the blender, the dishes; she wanted the red couch, the coffee table, the duvet cover. It was odd and yet fortunate to operate out of shock in this way in the very beginning. But soon enough I wanted out of the apartment. I was coming home to the place where we had laid plans together, while she was staying elsewhere and had had enough.

She was going to transfer the lease to a studio in the same building, and I was moving out. There were the expenses of moving to think about, a security deposit to come up with, and the new things I would need. I needed to take care of this in the midst of the final month of a semester of graduate school, while taking two classes and working full time. For the security deposit I dipped into savings that were supposed to be untouchable long-term savings, but desperate times….

My parents helped me pay for movers; it was December in Chicago and there was no way a do-it-yourself job would have cut it. My ex did not have to come up with a security deposit to transfer leases but would receive the security deposit we jointly paid up front upon moving out, so she agreed to give me half of it up front. My paycheck was also disturbingly small, as her tuition reimbursement was still being deducted from it and would continue to be deducted for the next two paychecks, so I did my best to figure out what that amount was and she reluctantly agreed to pay me for it. She was on my insurance at work, so I reminded her that I’d be canceling it and she made a final dentist appointment.

These were just the basics. I was reminded that “at least I didn’t have to go through a ‘real’ divorce” by well-meaning friends and acquaintances, and for the costs involved I’m sure that’s true. But that validation would have been welcome, much as I once desired the validation of marriage. I still had the closing of bank accounts to look forward to, the termination of employer and county-based termination of domestic partnership forms, the dissolution of medical power-of-attorney and the new financial commitments like my own renter’s insurance (and canceling the old plan), sole responsibility for all bills, changing of beneficiaries and trying like hell to take it easy on the purchase of wine – but thankfully Trader Joe’s helped me out on that front with their two-buck chuck and Barefoot Bob’s lines.