Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Feb. 28/2017

Yay!! The last day in February. Just March to get through and we will be into April. It happens every year, of course, but I dislike the dreary winter months. I don't mind the cold weather and I don't mind the snow but I hate the mud, especially here at the farm. Everything smells at least twice as bad when it is wet and the pastures are muck because the fences that were up to divide the pastures so the horses have access to only a portion of the fields until the new grass has had a chance to establish itself have been broken one way or another over the past 3 years or so. I succeeded in getting Nick to block off one of the fields but there are two others that need to be done and they all need some new topsoil and some seed put down. If there is going to be anything there for the horses to eat this summer - there wasn't that much to begin with when we moved in and the little there was is now weeds and bare ground - something will have to be done by May. I have put some hay seeds down all three years but I am told that this will only give minimal results without new topsoil. I think that was why we bought the box blade attachment for the tractor which might have been used once or twice to start the garden.

I got a real hit over the head when I called the bank to ask about this line of credit against our home that Nick has managed to get in order to continue his spending. When we bought the property we originally purchased it with a line of credit - we paid $340,000.00 for it and I took out a personal line of credit for $90,000.00 to use as the down payment which I was able to get because I had about $150,000.00 equity in my previous home. The joint line of credit we got was for $255,000.00 - we needed $250,000.00 to make up the difference in the price and we got $5,000.00 extra to cover closing costs.
It made sense at the time to do it this way so we could pay off as much as we wanted without penalty when we each sold our respective houses which were not sold before the closing date on the farm. About a year ago Nick and I went to the bank to do what I was believed was converting the line of credit into a conventional mortgage. I found out today from the bank that we now had something that has a fixed rate like a mortgage but still has the original amount of $255,000.00 available as credit. I suppose this is similar to re-mortgaging your home but I am assuming both people on the mortgage would have to approve this. I was incredulous that the bank would extend this amount of credit to one person without so much as a phone call to the other individual on the mortgage and I asked to have the name of the person at the branch who actually approved it. The lady I spoke with did tell me that $31,000.00 was taken as a draft by Nick and I knew immediately when she told me the date and the amount that Nick had used this money to pay off his visa. This fits the timeline of when he complained so much about the amount owing on his visa that I asked him how much it was and he told me $27,000.00. I was furious about it and asked him if there was any way I could be held responsible for his visa and he told me 'no, that can only happen if we have visa with both or our names on it'. Well, I guess he figured out a way around that didn't he? He has spent all of amount that we have paid over the last nearly five years - I was thinking it has been four years but I am forgetting that we bought the place June 30, 2012 and moved in June 1,2013. We rented it back to the previous owners for the amount of interest on the line of credit because the home they were building wasn't ready yet and with the horses they couldn't just go stay somewhere else in the meantime. And we hadn't sold our homes and weren't ready to move yet either.
So we - and I really mean 'I' - am right back to square one. Nick has taken all that money and paid off his visa with it while I am stuck with my visa bill. I can't even do the same thing he has because he has taken all the funds available except for two thousand and some change. And while I am paying most of the bills - I am paying everything joint except for the Eastlink bill which is for internet and our 2 cellphones. I paid it all along until Nick needed his phone replaced twice in a relatively short period of time and the bill ended up in his name because of a new contract being made for that reason. We cancelled our cable TV around the same time which I wanted to do because all last summer Nick spent hours a day watching Donald Trump stuff. I suppose the day is fast approaching when the Eastlink bill is hopelessly overdue and either my phone service gets cancelled or I get my own contract. I was so pissed last December when I needed a new phone and I was told Nick would have to do it as I didn't have permission to make changes to the account that I was about to go to Walmart or Costco and get one of their phones. I get extremely lousy cell service at the farm with both Eastlink and Bell, and I thought I might get better reception with one of the other providers.
I also pay the power bill, the feed store bill, the hay bill and the insurance on the farm and on all the vehicles - my car, my daughter's car, the farm truck, the car his daughter drives that is mine and even on his car. I got stuck with it all because Nick and I added the farm to the same insurance as his car when we bought it and I left my vehicles separate, to retain some control on the policies I guess. I knew they could be cancelled and put all on one at a later date. And then the bill came on the anniversary date and we didn't have the full payment so I called and arranged to have it taken monthly out of my chequing account. It has been coming out of there every since. I have also paid for the vehicle registration for everything except Nick's car. Which I don't think anyone is paying. I know Nick has been stopped at least twice in the past year for driving without current registration/insurance. I noticed the other day a letter came from Service Nova Scotia 'Collections'.

I am not sure what my next move will be. The smartest one I guess is to draft a separation agreement and get him to sign it. I was so stupid not to have done this years ago. I really thought this was the one relationship that would last, and how wrong I was. Sometimes I wonder if Nick didn't set me up for this from the very beginning. Convincing me this was such a great idea - the farm, the horses - knowing I had the money for it and figuring he could get me to finance it all. And there is one moment in particular that haunts me everyday. We were in the lawyer's office signing the papers to close the sale and I told the lawyer I wanted Nick and I to be 'tenants in common' which means that my portion of the farm goes to my daughters and not to Nick in the event I should pass away while we are still living there together. Then the lawyer asked if the portions were going to be equal and I said no. He asked how it was to be split and 90/10 is what I wanted to say, but Nick said 60/40 and I guess I will forever regret not speaking my mind. But to be honest, at the time I was embarrassed for Nick and being deeply in love with him, for that reason I kept my mouth shut. After all, we did have a verbal agreement that when it came to making repairs and improvements and do-it-yourself stuff that I would be willing to provide the financing for a project if he supplied the labour and the knowledge necessary to get the job done. And this had worked very nicely for us in the past and I had no reason not to expect things to continue as they had for the previous 3 years or so. I guess I have been wrong about a lot of things.

It is after midnight now and I asked Nick just before 10pm to keep the volume down on his computer as I was going up to bed. I always add that it will be at least 20 minutes before I will actually turn in. But I can hear talking on the computer and I can hear him walking around downstairs. I always hear him come up the stairs and use the bathroom before he goes to bed. Maybe tomorrow night I will sneak back downstairs to see what he is doing down there. I wonder if he is still closing the door to the room where the computer is. Stay tuned.