Don’t Be The Sole Investor In A Joint Property With Your Spouse

Being in love is a wonderful feeling, right? Yes, it is. I am not denying it. I was in love too. Head over heels kind of love, you know? The kind where you feel like you’re one with the universe.The kind which makes you do all sorts of crazy stuff. The kind that hijacks all your common sense and the analytical side of your brain and transforms you into a weak, hopeless romantic zombie. Yeah, all of us have been there and done that. There’s no escape from it, is there?

We’ve always wanted to have a kid together. I thought she would make a great mom. We got married. Life was good for a year or so. The next logical step was to buy a house. We wanted to move to a bigger space for a better life and to raise a kid or two. This is a very logical and next step in most relationships.

I come from a family that’s better off than my wife’s. Being the only son of my parents, they obviously wanted to help us with financing a big chunk for our new home. She or her family couldn’t chip in any money. They simply didn’t have it. I knew it. But I didn’t bother with this. She was my wife, after all, the love of my life. We were going to have a family in our new home and life was going to be as sweet as honey. I simply didn’t think about all the what-ifs?

What if we decided to separate one day sooner than later? What if we had to sell our home? Most of the money was from my parents and the rest was mine. The love I had for her masked all my logical thoughts and common sense. It was love, the head over heels kind, right?. I didn’t, for once, think about the very nature of humans-they change, don’t they?

We bought the house and lived in peace for another year. It was joint property. The thing about buying a house on a mortgage is that it’s always easier to get it approved if the incomes of both the man and woman are declared to the bank. Buying it as the joint property was our only option, being a middle-class couple. So we did the same. We did a lot of renovations and bought a lot of stuff for our new home. You know the drill, right? We moved in and life was good for a year or so.

One fine day, my wife told me that she didn’t want to have a baby and that it was her decision and she would stick to it. Despite giving her all the time in the world to reconsider her decision, she stuck to it. I wanted to have a baby and she didn’t anymore.

A few months and a number of discussions later, we chose to go for a divorce. It was good for her and for me. A wise decision. It was time to sell our joint property. It was at that moment that I realized all the repercussions I would face with selling the joint property.

Both the divorce and the selling of the house went smoothly, for her. She got half of everything. She was, after all, my better half, right? My parents lost a very big chunk of their savings and I lost a considerable amount too.

I have to emphasize here that my wife was a good woman. She wasn’t a gold digger or anything. She was just a decent, working-class woman. She did not betray me deliberately. Life happened, you know. We had to part ways.

People, at the end of everything, always choose what is best for them. I realized it a bit later in my life rather than sooner. So, think twice before you leap into investing your hard-earned money or your parents’ savings for retirement, in buying land or a home with your spouse. Don’t make the blunder I made. Romantic relationships are rapidly becoming unpredictably fragile, and people are becoming easily dispensable commodities.

Sign a pre-marital contract as to what would happen to the invested money in the event of selling the joint property. Be sure about who gets what and other matters of significance.

Try to look beyond. Always look at the horizon. Look at the stars. Look at the bigger picture before investing your bucks. Share this message with everyone you love and care about.

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