Someone please explain me marriage in America

[Anonymous]

My husband and I have his, hers and ours as far as accounts go. We each contribute to the "our" account which is for all household expenses every month, eg. mortgage, utilities, cell phones, groceries. The reality is that all of it is our money. We discuss how we spend large sums of money and we have a shared credit card. I'm in charge of all the day to day household accounting. My husband doesn't want to be bothered with paying Pepco. We make decisions jointly on our money and large purchases. (e.g. we just bought new furniture for our living room)

We each have spending money, but we aren't really guarding it as such. If we have an added household expense, one or both of us contributes to pay the bill. I don't discuss other stuff I spend money on, like if I spend 200 on clothing. As long as we have the cash it is fine. Neither one of us is frivolous with our cash and we don't use the credit card unless we know we have the cash to pay for it.

The three started out as an accounting mechanism because I was in charge of the household stuff and my stuff, but I now keep track of all 3 and tell my husband approximately how much he has in his account.

We share the household stuff but we don't get bent out of shape if some things don't get done. We have a cleaning service. Whoever has more time that week gets the laundry done. Most of the cooking falls to me because I work at home and household repairs fall to him because I can't be trusted with a screwdriver.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I have his, hers and ours as far as accounts go. We each contribute to the "our" account which is for all household expenses every month, eg. mortgage, utilities, cell phones, groceries. The reality is that all of it is our money. We discuss how we spend large sums of money and we have a shared credit card. I'm in charge of all the day to day household accounting. My husband doesn't want to be bothered with paying Pepco. We make decisions jointly on our money and large purchases. (e.g. we just bought new furniture for our living room)

We each have spending money, but we aren't really guarding it as such. If we have an added household expense, one or both of us contributes to pay the bill. I don't discuss other stuff I spend money on, like if I spend 200 on clothing. As long as we have the cash it is fine. Neither one of us is frivolous with our cash and we don't use the credit card unless we know we have the cash to pay for it.

The three started out as an accounting mechanism because I was in charge of the household stuff and my stuff, but I now keep track of all 3 and tell my husband approximately how much he has in his account.

We share the household stuff but we don't get bent out of shape if some things don't get done. We have a cleaning service. Whoever has more time that week gets the laundry done. Most of the cooking falls to me because I work at home and household repairs fall to him because I can't be trusted with a screwdriver.

Thanks for sharing the details... how do you decide how much goes into the "ours" account vs how much you keep in yours?

[Anonymous]

OP you are right. The mindset now to being married is "not being all in" in case you get divorced and that's very likely. Who thinks this way and has a happy life and marriage.

Self fullfilling prophecy!

[Anonymous]

My husband and I have a variety of financial accounts (checking, money markets, mutual funds, etc.). Some are in my name, some in his, some in both names. It's really a practical matter. We established some of the accounts for tax benefits when he was working (non-US citizen) and I was a grad student, since my tax rate was lower if we filed separately. Frankly, in the our case, I don't see it as emotional. We make joint decisions on all large purchases regardless of where the money comes from. But there is some mellowness in not having him track all of my expenditures or vice versa, just as I don't feel the need to have access to his schedule to know where he is at all times or vice versa.

I guess for us, part of our commitment has to do with giving each other private space and breathing room, including in the financial sphere. It is sometimes also convenient to have just one name on an account so if, as has happened on more than one occasion, one of us needs to make a large financial transaction and the other person is out of town, we don't need to wait for the other person's signature. I think of our separate accounts as similar to each of us having our own physical credit card for our joint credit card account. I can move freely and so can he, but we trust and check in with each other as needed. Does that help you to understand at least one mindset in handling things this way?

We've been together for 18 years, married for 14 with two kids. It doesn't bother me that other couples handle these things in a different way. As long as your system works for you, go for it.

[Anonymous]

separate accounts is usually a result of trust issues. Once you are married everything is equal unless on doesn't trust the other.

[Anonymous]

For myself, and most of my friends, we graduated from college and grad school before getting married. We had careers before getting married as well. Then we had apartments and set up our own retirement funds, etc before getting married. When we got married we didn't just put everything in one account and call it a day. We have mine, yours, and ours accounts just like another PP said.
Conversely, many of my friends who were married immediately after college but before establishing their own career only have joint accounts. For what it's worth... all of these friends are either on their second marriage now, in process of divorcing, or divorced.

I think this has a lot to do with education, station in your career and what age you are when you get married. I think it has a lot less to do with an emotional attachment to a bank account.

[Anonymous]

Here's an explanation: inertia. It's a hassle to change names and bank accounts, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:separate accounts is usually a result of trust issues. Once you are married everything is equal unless on doesn't trust the other.

Agree with this. And with the PP who mentioned couples that have to actually discuss "who" is going to pay for dinner. I can't imagine that.

We traveled with another couple and they debated and kept track of who paid every single expense -- including a $3 cab ride!

[Anonymous]

A lot of people have totally joint accounts. But a lot of people married later in life and had been managing their own money for years before they met. It can be hard to all of a sudden merge all your money when you have two different spending/saving styles. Easier for some couples to have some joint money and some individual money. I'm single and 39 so if I married, I'd do it this way - I will never be comfortable with an 100% joint account. (and I have assets and a child to protect.)

[Anonymous]

It's all "our" money in our household but when we were first married, we went out to dinner several times with a married couple who when the bill came he paid his portion and she paid hers. They divided everything in their life like that. He made a lot more money then she did so he seemed to have a lot more disposable income, but it seemed to work for them.

I also know a couple who have two children. They are "engaged" and she has a ring and everything but the man has no intention of marrying her ever because his first wife got a lot of money in their divorce settlement because of it, he refuses to marry again. She left her job and is a SAHM to their kids. I hope she has found a way to protect herself financially in the event of a break-up.

[Anonymous]

Separate bank accounts are fine. They are not indicative that the marriage is bad or not valued.

What's important is that the married couple have common financial goals and values. Those don't require joint accounts.

[Anonymous]

12:25 here. We figured out how much we needed in the household account to cover everything plus some extra. I make more money than he does so I put in approximately 600 more per month than he does. I don't remember how we came up with the original figure. We just divided it up. We up the contributions periodcially. For example, we decided to buy a new car a few years back so we upped the amount we put in monthly to cover the payments. As our (his lately, I'm a fed so my salary is frozen) income has increased, we just put more money into savings.

Honestly, at this point we probably could just have one account for everything but inertia has kept it this way. The accounts are all linked and when you log in you see all of them. My account has been the one that my paycheck has been going into for years. I don't really want to deal with HR at my agency if I don't have to. I just transfer funds every two weeks into our house account. I transfer funds for my husband's paycheck too. He usually just asks me if he has the cash to cover whatever he is thinking about buying. In fact he asks my opinion on buying this or that for his hobbies. I don't consult him if I buy clothes or makeup or get my hair done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, we have separate accounts, and honestly, it would feel weird to me to do things the way you do them, the same way it would be weird to share an email account with my husband or to have a shared cell phone. I have my bank account, where my checks go, and he has his. We don't share credit cards. Our names are both on the mortgage and the utilities, but that's it. It works for us to have one person designated to deal with mortgage, one person designated to deal with the power bill, water bill, daycare bill, etc.

I say "it would feel weird to me" because while I love my husband and our marriage is great, it is important to me that we also maintain our independence. People are probably going to throw out ideas like "what if you get divorced" and I agree that in the extremely unlikely event that we were to divorce, you would have a harder time separating financially from your husband than I would.

To me, getting a joint bank account when I got married felt exactly the same as changing my name. Why would I give up the name I've always had? Why would I close the bank accounts and credit card accounts that predate my marriage in favor of a new, joint account? It was not a symbolic gesture that I wanted to make.

If it sounds like I am judging the way you do things, that is probably a little bit true, but your post seems to assume that my marriage is "abnormal" because we don't share a bank account and that's ridiculous. My bank account number has NOTHING to do with my marriage.

Thanks for being kind and honest. That's exactly the point I can't understand. What's the point of being married, then? If you're not "all in"?

In my country you get to choose who will change names and you don't need to do it. It's not necessarily the wife getting the husband's last name so I'm not familiar with that. I didn't adopt DH's last name for other reasons (visa issues and inability to recognize our marriage in our countries), but I understand that some people feel the need to keep their individuality... what I can't understand is why people get so caught up in preserving something (the individuality) and end up sacrificing the relationship.

I don't understand how having separate bank accounts means that I'm not "all in" or that my marriage is less sound or that I have trust issues. I would agree that if we had joint accounts and then all of a sudden we started maintaining separate accounts, that would indicate an issue with trust. Honestly, though, OP, we just did not combine in this way. We lived together for 4 years before getting married. We've known each other for 12 years. When we moved in together, we combined our furniture, our kitchenware. We started sharing closet space and space in the bathroom cabinets. Those were things that practically, we had to do. Changing accounts to have a joint account would have been a change. It would have required switching direct deposit. It would have meant getting new checks, etc. I'm not saying that those things were difficult to do - they just were not a priority for us.

We don't haggle over a cab ride or dinner. Sometimes one of us pays, sometimes the other one. Usually it's him, because he makes a lot more than I do. Money just isn't an issue for us. We make enough to be comfortable, live within our means, and save well. If we were living paycheck to paycheck, we would need to think about it a lot more than we do. It just sounds like for you, this is a big important issue. That's fine. To each her own. For us, it's not something that we feel like we need to combine/change/whatever. I don't think it's better or worse. It's just how we have always done it.

[Anonymous]

My mother was married for 22 years. Their accounts were all joint. He took care of everything. She had, and still doesn't, have any clue how to budget, set aside for retirement or savings. She had no part in the money management process throughout their entire marriage.

I don't ever want to be that way. There. That's why we have yours/mine/ours accounts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, we have separate accounts, and honestly, it would feel weird to me to do things the way you do them, the same way it would be weird to share an email account with my husband or to have a shared cell phone. I have my bank account, where my checks go, and he has his. We don't share credit cards. Our names are both on the mortgage and the utilities, but that's it. It works for us to have one person designated to deal with mortgage, one person designated to deal with the power bill, water bill, daycare bill, etc.

I say "it would feel weird to me" because while I love my husband and our marriage is great, it is important to me that we also maintain our independence. People are probably going to throw out ideas like "what if you get divorced" and I agree that in the extremely unlikely event that we were to divorce, you would have a harder time separating financially from your husband than I would. To me, getting a joint bank account when I got married felt exactly the same as changing my name. Why would I give up the name I've always had? Why would I close the bank accounts and credit card accounts that predate my marriage in favor of a new, joint account? It was not a symbolic gesture that I wanted to make.

If it sounds like I am judging the way you do things, that is probably a little bit true, but your post seems to assume that my marriage is "abnormal" because we don't share a bank account and that's ridiculous. My bank account number has NOTHING to do with my marriage.

So, you really were NOT "all in" on your marriage.

How is PP not "all in" on her marriage? What's wrong with being independent & protecting yourself? People change - sometimes in different directions. While it's syrupy sweet to think love lasts forever, it's really naive, as many of us will end up divorced. I already know 4 women in that situation, and all four are grateful for their decision to keep their financial independence/jobs.