“Please bear with me, this one has been building up for quite a while… One of my biggest pet peeves is not being seen as equal to my partner. Not being able to access our information without his oral or written permission.
It started when we moved to the US. We put all our new accounts in my husband’s name because he’s the one with an income. Phone company, cable, gas, electricity, you name it. But every time something needed to be changed or checked, I would either have to pretend to be him or he would have to tell the company it was okay to discuss matters with me. The fact that I’m his wife and that we share everything didn’t make a difference.
Here in India I’m faced with the same problem. Recently, our bank practically denied me access to our joint bank account. I pointed out that we share the account, but noooo, my husband is the main account holder! I needed a letter signed by him in order to deposit our money into our account. That just makes me explode! What good does it do me to be a joint account holder, if I can’t access the account…?
Okay, sorry, it’s out of my system now. Rant over.”
Janet Wassink
Janet Wassink is a Dutch expat partner who lives in Bangalore (India) with her husband and a ‘weird’ cat. She previously lived in Canada and the United States. She writes about her experiences abroad on her blog: planet-janet.weebly.com
