Should husband and wife keep their money separate or combine their accounts and assets?
Should husband and wife keep their money separate or combine their accounts and assets? It seems that the person whom holds the most currency is the quickest to say, “Keep the money separate”, as they perceive that they have the most to lose.
If a couple decides to keep their money separate (assuming this is a mutual decision, as one might want to keep their money separate and the other doesn’t agree) should the person who makes or owns the most money control it and decide how it’s spent? If so, what about those unwanted circumstances such as a spouse loses a job. Or what about when children come into the equation and one parent stays home to raise the kids? Does the partner earning all the money control it and decide how it’s spent even under these circumstances? It seems to me this would create lopsided power in the relationship, and even worse, a parent-child relationship if one spouse is forced to ask for money whenever he/she needs it. It’s not the fact that one or the other makes more money but the fact that they have full control. I think the power should be equal and having lopsided power in the relationship is a recipe for a divorce waiting to happen.
How would it be decided who’s going to pay on date nights? Who pays for dinner and a movie? Who pays for the late night Dairy Queen Blizzards? How does a couple whose finances are completely separate decide this? Personally, I wouldn’t want to have these conversations. If money is valued as the families then these issues wouldn’t even arise. Date night, weekend getaways, etc. are taken together, as a couple. I think it would just plain suck to have the “money” conversation every time I wanted to get a blizzard.
Would each partner be responsible for exactly fifty-fifty of the bills and each gets to keep what they personally have left over? Or are only mutual bills paid fifty-fifty and each spouse is left to pay their own left over school loans and earlier debt? Is each spouse responsible for his or her own investment decisions? If one spouse makes significantly more than the other, is it fair that he or she should have a much nicer car, nicer clothes etc? I don’t think so. So why do some marriages work and others don’t when couples decide to handle their finances this way? I suppose it’s the way couples communicate that ultimately decides.
Why don’t couples choose that all money that comes into the relationship, no matter from where, be considered family money and as a couple decide how it is spent? I think when a couple gets married at that very point in time, each partner should have decided that everything they own is no longer “mine”; it’s now “ours”. The problem is that people are so worried about divorce. I think people should be focusing on the fact that their partner is worth more than any assets they own and take a risk at making the relationship happy. See, I would rather lose my money than my spouse. We are so obsessive with the mine-yours relationship, what ever happened to partnerships? If couples worked and made decisions as a team, both would be working towards the same goals and same financial dreams. Both would have the same budget to stick to and the same responsibilities and equal power. Wouldn’t that make your relationship stronger?
Filed under: Uncategorized on March 30th, 2006
I’m not sure if there ever were “partnerships”. I think that is a relatively recent construct among people that are married or living together. It wasn’t that long ago that women had no rights to property. Either their husbands or fathers had control over any real property. I’m not saying this is right, only that that is the way it was in this country and for many outside of the U.S. it still is. Regardless, I think the solution is to have a joint account that handles the household financial obligations and a separate, personal account for each of the partners in the relationship. For the joint account, you could pro-rate the amount that is fed into the “kitty” by each contributing member. Most of us don’t make equal amounts of currency. I am really lucky that R and I have not had real money issues. He is a very generous person and I am very cheap…Ha-ha. Good Luck.