Comments on: Should a Married Couple Combine Their Finances?

By: kdub

kdub — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:17:53 +0000

I completely agree and I especially like the part about “Two people with shared common goals can accomplish a lot more than two spouses going off in their own direction”, this is very true! My husband and I have agreed since day one this was how we'd handle our finances, that way we are both in sync with the direction of OUR financial goals that we've set TOGETHER. There is no 'mine', 'yours', because everything is ours. When you make the commitment to be married, trust should be established on every level; whether it be trusting your spouse about hanging out with friends or about money. If you and your partner can't establish that level of trust, you're probably with the wrong person and just shouldn't be married. If you think about it, being legally married puts your life decision in your spouse's hands in the event that you become mentally incompetent, that means you trust your life with your spouse but not your money? Sounds like you're married to the wrong spouse to me. Bottom line is this, you have to truly believe that when you take that leap into the sanctity of marriage, you are ready to be completely committed to making decisions that will be for the greater good for the two of you as a partnership and a family, not as individuals; otherwise, you might as well skip the marriage and just be roommates (by cohabitating and splitting bills, that's what you essentially are) rather than make a mockery out of the marriage and ruin it for the rest of us who are in it for its real meaning.

By: Heather

Heather — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:34:58 +0000

I disagree with this article and the way most Americans handle this situation. My boyfriend and I have been together for 12 years now and have never combined our money. Guess what? We have never had a single fight regarding money. Seriously. The number one cause of arguments and divorce is over money. I believe that has been a big reason for our success as a couple. Granted, we are not married, but we have been in a committed relationship for 12 years and living together for almost that long for that matter, how many marriages last that long? The average length of a marriage is 7 years. We even bought our house together. It’s that only thing that we have gone in together (besides our apt leases, of course).

By: Nicole

Nicole — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 16:41:00 +0000

I just linked over from Lazy Man and wanted to take a minute to comment and let you know I completely agree with you. Now I’m off to explore your site!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 23:38:00 +0000

The same issue was raised at another finance based blog I subscribe to where the author was of the position that separate is equal (or whatever…). I posted my comment in which I reespectfully voiced the opinion that combined finances are a much better way to go. Author guy didn’t be liking that too much and accused me of being ‘judgmental’. Take a look.

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/03/12/love-marriage-and-money-should-a-couple-combine-their-finances/#comments

-keith

By: Sunny Ellis

Sunny Ellis — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 19:04:00 +0000

In my experience, there is no fair way to split bills when a married couple tries to manage money independently.

Another great issue to bring up is should engaged/living together couples manage their money together? I think that they should manage their money separately because, well they are not married yet. They have not become one. There is still a chance of one or the other backing out. There is no us or our yet.

It's an interesting world where engaged couples want to manage their money together and married couples want to manage it separately