Last week I wrote about the debt I carried for years, my thrill at having recently paid it down, and my worries about building it right back up if I separate from Rob. A couple of readers noted a passing detail — that Rob and I never combined our finances — and wondered why. It's a good question, and one for which I don't have an easy answer.

One particularly astute reader asked if that might indicate there was a hesitation about our commitment from the beginning. Probably so.

I earned a bit more than Rob did when we first lived together (before we married). In fact, I remember putting rounds of drinks for his friends and me on my credit card — wracking up points with Rob, and keeping my credit card balances high to boot.

But these days Rob's salary surpasses mine by far. As this developed, and I was struggling to finally bring my embarrassing debt under control, I felt I didn't deserve any of his money. Were we to put our money together, and pay our obligations and debt together, Rob would have been paying for my past mistakes.

That didn't seem fair to me. And perhaps that says a lot about us — that we're not a partnership of two souls making their way through the world together come what may, but a convenient and safe companionship that stops short of unconditional support.