When "mine" becomes "ours"

I bought my apartment a little less than a year before I met Chebbar. When we decided to live together, because I owned and choosing a place together was a little too involved, he moved in with me.

I wanted him to feel at home, like this was his space, too. In hindsight, it was naive to believe he could slip into a fully furnished, decorated, and paid-for space that I had occupied for nine months before he came along. Of course, much as the adage goes, hindsight is 20/20: every time he would refer to the apartment as mine, I would get upset (and of course, that just inspired the little devil to do it on purpose).

We've moved past that somewhat. Every now and then when he's being a smart ass, he'll pull out the "YOUR apartment" card, but for the most part this is OUR home.

Fast-forward to the end of February when "we" bought a new car. This has brought about a whole new conundrum. For all intents and purposes, this is MY car: the dealership ran the application in my name alone first, so the debt is in my name; as well, we sold MY old car, leaving me wheel-less. However, true to my mama-always-taught-me-to-share nature (and because the payment comes out of our account), I was referring to it as "our" car. But Chebbar, well, he kept calling it MY car.

I guess my poor little brain was confuzled.

We were out with friends and Chebbar was driving. He pulled a silly stunt that caused me to shriek at him for driving MY car that way. He fired back with, "Oh, it's YOUR car is it? Well, then. I guess *I* don't have to help you PAY for it then, do I?"

Yeah. And I thought *I* had the market cornered on foot-in-mouth disease. *eye roll* (Misunderstanding that was rectified in no time, let me assure you.)

Fast-forward again to last week when he asked to take the Mazda to work, and I found myself struggling mightily with the selfish feeling of not wanting to let someone else drive my car (specifically while it was still so new -- new car scent: I haz it!). We did have a discussion about the car and whose it is, coming to the conclusion that WE bought it for ME.

I just refer to the car as "it" or "the Mazda" now.