Mary let herself into Jim's place and was greeted warmly by her two cats.  They miaowed plaintively, almost asking to be fed.

It was eight o'clock and Jim was nowhere to be seen. Mary placed her early morning shopping in the kitchen then crept upstairs while the cats tucked into their breakfast.

As she had expected Jim was still fast asleep, blissfully unaware of Mary's presence.

She busied herself with preparing his breakfast of bacon, eggs, tomatoes and mushrooms, with two sausages, Jim's favourites.

When she delivered it making a lot of clatter as she did so, Jim stirred, rubbing his eyes and struggling to prop himself up.  But fond of sleep as Jim was he was even fonder of his food and it was not long before he was tucking in zestfully, enjoying every mouthful.

"Oh, this is so good" he smiled broadly at Mary and she replied by saying "you stayed up watching the football, didn't you?" and Jim had no choice but to admit it.

She ruffled his hair playfully and if he hadn't been eating he would have responded with a passionate hug.  But much as men love sex, they really do like their food and they both laughed.

"Where's yours", Jim queried.

"I had mine at the hotel, of course, unlike you I hadn't spent the night watching the footie"

"Come down as soon as you're finished and decent, we have our talkfest to do, remember"

Mary settled herself with the cats, waiting for Jim's arrival.  Half an hour later he joined them.

"OK, then, what's to talk about?"

"Like where we are going to live, money, wills, how does that all sound?"

"Terrifying" from Jim adding "it's so early"

"That's what is good" said Mary, "usually it's too late"

"You don't want to live here do you?"

"No, I love my house, and I've spent so much money and I love the large backyard and the animals and I want two dogs and I love my two little jobs, and my new friends and my art class, I can't do anything like that here, can I?"

"Well, you could do some of it, but I admit we do have a problem.  I'd always thought I'd live here with my wife when I was married, but I guess I'm marrying a lady of means, and I don't even know what those means are, well, a lot of them, anyway."

He went on to tell her what his wages were and how he owned his own place and he had thought he'd build a house a little later on.  But Mary's circumstances had changed all of those ideas and he admitted that he now did not know what to do, as driving back and forth to Mary's place every day seemed far too onerous, and very tiring.  He really did need to concentrate a lot on his job and he was actually expecting a promotion quite soon and that too mad things difficult.

Mary went on to acquaint him with her circumstances but when she mentioned the mortgage she'd taken out and the way her financial advisor was working everything out for her, he started to become very confused and started to wonder just what he was letting himself in for financially.

"You're never going to want to give up your house, are you Mary?"  She agreed and he let out a huge sigh, all of this was really quite hard to cope with.

"I don't want a part time marriage and a part time wife", Jim said despairingly.

"And I don't want a part time husband"

Both agreed they should go to see Mary's finance advisor as Mary didn't seem to understand much about money.

"You're right, Jim, I never want to sell my house, I love it too much, but I can understand the difficulties that is creating."

"What say I come to stay with you Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, you come and stay with me Friday, Saturday and Sunday and we'll each be alone Monday night?"

"Well, that sounds reasonable, perhaps we should give it a try for a while, anyway" and he put his arms around Mary, and gave her a great hug but she pulled away fairly soon, saying there was still more to talk about.

"Have you got a will" she queried

"No, why, have you?

"Yes, but it becomes invalid when we are married, I'll need a new one and you'll need your first from the sound of things"

"Don't we just leave everything to each other"

"Well, generally, but I think that until we have a family that won't be necessary, I don't want your money and you don't exactly need mine, we should both discuss this with a lawyer, I've already made arrangements for mine which I'll update after we return from out honeymoon.  Incidentally, just where are we going on our honeymoon?"

Jim just shook his head.

"Jim, you were going to organise all that, remember?"

Jim went on to say all the things he had organized, which actually meant his mother had but she could hardly be expected to organize the honeymoon.

"Jim, you have to get cracking"

"Yes", he agreed, and we do need to talk more about that, too.

It had been a good morning, but it was just the beginning of talking things out and they decided they'd go for a run to the beach and each try to relax, the tension was starting to get to them both. 

They had a pleasant weekend together and when Mary left to go home on Sunday Jim said he'd come up with some plans for the honeymoon and think about a will, adding he'd think about what they should do about getting a house in the future but explained he'd like to wait to find out about his promotion first.

It had been a positive weekend in learning how to communicate better and Jim had to admit he'd not been pulling his weight.

He kissed Mary good-bye, longingly, he was so looking forward to finally have his love sleeping with him in his bed.  As far as he was concerned that could not happen quickly enough.