Stop including your spouse’s net worth as part of your own!

[Anonymous]

We have been married for 34 years. Everything is joint. Every account. Every asset. Everything. We have never had “my money” or “your money”. It’s always been “our money”.

[Anonymous]

You are wrong, OP, unless you've signed a prenup that blocks access to your spouse's money.

[Anonymous]

So 5 people living in the same house, each with a net worth of 200k, is the same thing as one person with a net worth of 1 mil. GTFO

[Anonymous]

What on earth? Money and assets are SO comingled once you marry. Joint filings, shared accounts, shared credit cards, shared investments. Your Elon Musk example has been proven wrong -- when Bezos and Gates split up, their wives indeed were still billionaires!

[Anonymous]

I live in CA. Community property state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's right people. We should stop speaking about money that is legally ours and which would be awarded to us in case of divorce because someone on DCUM finds it annoying.

Nope, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m the OP.

All assets accrued during the marriage, whether resulting from one earner and one SAHP or two earners, belong to both spouses. However, each spouse should consider only 50% of those assets as belonging to them individually. So if your net worth collectively at the time of marriage was zero and is currently $2 million (inheritances aside), you should consider yourself as having a net worth of $1 million.

[Anonymous]

It’s very obvious what’s going on here: OP is either not married or divorced but in either case is currently single, and it irritates OP that other people talk about net worth by including their spouse because she or he feels like they can’t compete with that and it makes them feel inferior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's right people. We should stop speaking about money that is legally ours and which would be awarded to us in case of divorce because someone on DCUM finds it annoying.

Nope, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m the OP.

All assets accrued during the marriage, whether resulting from one earner and one SAHP or two earners, belong to both spouses. However, each spouse should consider only 50% of those assets as belonging to them individually. So if your net worth collectively at the time of marriage was zero and is currently $2 million (inheritances aside), you should consider yourself as having a net worth of $1 million.

If I were divorcing that would be true, but I’m not. If I later end up divorcing (unlikely) I understand it needs to be split. You make no sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's right people. We should stop speaking about money that is legally ours and which would be awarded to us in case of divorce because someone on DCUM finds it annoying.

Nope, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m the OP.

All assets accrued during the marriage, whether resulting from one earner and one SAHP or two earners, belong to both spouses. However, each spouse should consider only 50% of those assets as belonging to them individually. So if your net worth collectively at the time of marriage was zero and is currently $2 million (inheritances aside), you should consider yourself as having a net worth of $1 million.

Why? I'm entitled to use our entire house, not just half of it. I can spend any amount of our joint accounts, not just half of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s very obvious what’s going on here: OP is either not married or divorced but in either case is currently single, and it irritates OP that other people talk about net worth by including their spouse because she or he feels like they can’t compete with that and it makes them feel inferior.

Yep, this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's right people. We should stop speaking about money that is legally ours and which would be awarded to us in case of divorce because someone on DCUM finds it annoying.

Nope, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m the OP.

All assets accrued during the marriage, whether resulting from one earner and one SAHP or two earners, belong to both spouses. However, each spouse should consider only 50% of those assets as belonging to them individually. So if your net worth collectively at the time of marriage was zero and is currently $2 million (inheritances aside), you should consider yourself as having a net worth of $1 million.

PP with separately managed assets. Why would I take out collective net worth and divide it in 2, apart from our house which I co-own with DH? My separately managed assets are worth double what DH's are.

[Anonymous]

When I’m reading the threads about how much is needed to retire, etc. I do find myself looking to see if someone is talking about the amount for themselves or a couple. So in that sense, it kind of does make a difference when referring to net worth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s very obvious what’s going on here: OP is either not married or divorced but in either case is currently single, and it irritates OP that other people talk about net worth by including their spouse because she or he feels like they can’t compete with that and it makes them feel inferior.

Apart from the “feeling inferior” part, this is correct. I’m the OP, I’m single, and I do find data around net worth to be of little help.

Do you believe that one person with a $2 million net worth is in the same financial position as a husband and wife with a combined $2 million net worth? Because that would be pretty ridiculous IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s very obvious what’s going on here: OP is either not married or divorced but in either case is currently single, and it irritates OP that other people talk about net worth by including their spouse because she or he feels like they can’t compete with that and it makes them feel inferior.

Apart from the “feeling inferior” part, this is correct. I’m the OP, I’m single, and I do find data around net worth to be of little help.

Do you believe that one person with a $2 million net worth is in the same financial position as a husband and wife with a combined $2 million net worth? Because that would be pretty ridiculous IMO.

Take a marriage where one person makes 50k and another 150,000k... It's not as though one person is living a middle class life and another an upper middle class life. Two people in a marriage are both in the same economic class.

(Btw, this was me and my husband. And it is trippy to make that leap at first, but 10+ years into the marriage, I fully feel that the money is shared. It just is! I can see how as a single person it is hard to grasp, by when you are married the whole premise of your post feels wrong We have shared investments and rental properties and the money earned from that goes into a shared account -- how do we mentally divide that?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I’m reading the threads about how much is needed to retire, etc. I do find myself looking to see if someone is talking about the amount for themselves or a couple. So in that sense, it kind of does make a difference when referring to net worth.

No, it doesn’t. Again, it’s not like being a couple is twice the cost of being single. It’s not even close.