Well, Ivylad and I have been married 19 years. For the past 10 or so, we’ve had separate bank accounts, and believe me, it’s cut down on a lot of the stress.
We have different philosophies with handling money. I balance to the penny every two weeks. He recently discovered he had more than $200 in his account than he thought he did. The bill responsibilities just kinds of evolved…we only have one joint credit card account, Lowe’s, and we just paid that off. He has his debts, I have mine, and while we work together to pay them off, I don’t complain about his spending money and he doesn’t complain about mine.
I think finances should be handled however works best for your marriage, but under no circumstances, if there are two breadwinners, that one breadwinner pays all the bills.
I can still see having a personal account just to keep “present money” in. For example, if I go Christmas buying, I don’t want my future husband to check the online banking and say, “hey, this purchase from MicroCenter… I didn’t make it… all right, gift for me from MicroCenter!”
All actual funds, though, joint account all the way.
It sounds to me like you need to talk to a lawyer. (Period)
Even if you are not directly responsible for this debt, it is still a hole that will keep sucking up your communal money until something is done about it. A couple can have separate accounts, separate credit cards and separate debt … but if you are going to share a life together, money is going to cross between these two areas.
My story … After we were married, I found out my wife was still making payments on her ex-husbands car! The car is in both names and she is afraid her credit will be ruined if they default on the loan. She has a kid to support and is trying to rebuild her credit, he has a drug habit to support and a car he ain’t giving up. So, it turns out I’m pay the whole mortgage so she can pay “other bills”. That sucked. There is no “separate” money in a marrage.
True, true. I hate carrying cash, though. I’m screwed if I get mugged and for some reason it’s easier for me (mentally) to use cards instead of cash. I’m odd, I know.
I think that’s the bottom line. A marriage is a legal binding of two people, including their finances. That’s why the lawyer is so important; us folks here can’t tell you how much your debts PRE marriage are going to affect your finances IN the marriage, because in the eyes of the law, you and your husband are a financial unit now. The IRS doesn’t want to know about your marital status just because they’re curious.
Exactly. And I think couples who have separate accounts and play money games and pretend that “I don’t need to know what he’s doing” are fooling themselves. When I was young and foolish and had affairs with married men, they all had separate bank accounts, and I used to wonder what the wives were thinking.
Are you serious? Have you considered the possibility that there is a lot more to running a household than earning a paycheck? Is a stay at home Mom (or Dad) supposed to get paid an allowance by the primary income earner? Talk about setting yourself up to fail.
Sorry, Nancarrow. I didn’t mean for that to sound as huffy as it did. I just wanted to convey that there are a lot of things to take under consideration when two people are running a household. It gets even more difficult when kids are involved.
The multiple accounts thing worked great when there wasn’t a lot of money, therefore there was a lot of friction about non-necessary expenses. At the time, Brainiac4 had a considerable comic book habit, and I was avoiding buying new shoes. It isn’t trust and transparency, as much as its about communication - when money is really tight, calling to say “hey, honey, do we have $10 for me to pitch in towards pizza and beer” isn’t practical - but $10 can break you. Giving each person some sort of allowance, easiest today by just having separate accounts, lets each person have their own accounting of non-budgeted “blow money.”
When there was enough money not to have to track it that closely, it sort of became silly to do so. There have still been moments of miscommunication and unclear boundaries - when Brainiac4 goes shoe shopping and I, in my shoe innocence believe this means a single pair of $70 shoes and say “sure,” and he comes home with 4 pair of shoes that cost between $100 and $300. We are still learning - and we have been married twelve years and have had shared finances for ten of those years. Separate accounts would save us the bother of having to learn.
When money is REALLY tight there isn’t any blow money - you are going to spend $80 at the grocery store and $82 is going to be a problem. It becomes moot again to have separate accounts since every penny is going to heat, rent and food. You don’t need to ask about the pizza.
The idea that you can know nothing about two people except whether their accounts are joint or separate, and on that basis alone definitely state how much trust there is in that marriage or any other… well, color me dubious about that.
I would assume that anyone who isn’t comfortable with “our money” probably isn’t going to be a good candidate for the SAHP arrangement and will not get into a relationship where that is a likely scenario.
But lots of SAHPs get allowances. That was the “traditional” arrangement for the “Leave It To Beaver” household.
That would be a very strange idea indeed, and anyone who thought that could be accused of being shallow, with some justification. As you can see, I said I felt it was “an indicator.”
I’ll second the advice to talk to an attorney, however I’d be prepared for the answer to be “yes, unless you want to end the marriage right away.” IME (I am not an attorney, nor do I play one on TV - but I’ve been through a marriage with debt and watched by BIL go through this a few years back - similar situation - married a woman who he didn’t realize was in debt) the longer you are married, the more difficult it will be to tell whose debt and whose assets are whose - and the more likely that you will be held responsible - either in a divorce through the equal division of assets/debts or just through marriage - if he’s forced into bankruptcy, you’ll go there too. If they put a lien on his property and its in your name, its a lien against yours. An attorney may have some useful advice for both staying married and keeping his debt from your life - but it may be “have all assets in your name, he doesn’t hold a job or have any income, therefore there is nothing to garnish” but a solution like that is going to involve you functionally supporting him forever.
When my BIL got married, he discovered a few months later a lot of debt - some understandable student loan debt - a lot of more disturbing credit card debt. Far in excess of what his wife made in a year. He bailed her out, went through bankruptcy with her, started to sink back into debt, got divorced, and still paid some of her bills. Fortunately, there was some equity in the house, so in the end, he didn’t leave in debt, but he didn’t have anything left. His “I brought assets in, she brought debt in” wasn’t worth squat after several years with no prenup.
I think that having “separate money” is an attitude or a state of mind. A couple can have separate accounts, if that works better on a practical level. But when you start thinking “I’m not paying HIS debts” or “I’m not paying HER mortgage,” that’s when you have trouble. This is one area where I think later-in-life marriages actually causes more problems than it solves, because people come into relationships with their own money and with financial commitments, debts, etc.
But, anyway, as far as your issue, Indygrrl, I do think you need to talk to a lawyer ASAP. And talk to your husband. But I’m not sure going to your in-laws is such a hot idea. I know you’re mad, but complaining to his folks is not a way to solve this. If he needs to ask them for money, let him do it, but don’t get in between them…it’s only going to inflame the situation between the two of you, and that’s not going to help solve the problem.
Just the opposite: it proves that trust is there. We tried the “our money” stuff and we fought like demons over the issue–in good times and bad. I finally opened my own account, which gave me at least the illusion of control over some of “our” money. He also opened his own account. True, we do not know how much is in either one’s personal account, but we share a joint checking and savings. The arguments about money have been cut to about a tenth of what they were. I am more comfortable, he is more comfortable and our bills are paid on time. No one should spend more than they are able–but Americans (myself included) love credit and “toys”, and not thinking about tomorrow (or retirement).
The guys that cheat are going to cheat–having a separate access to money is not going to change that one bit. There are all manner of ways to lie to a spouse about money, even with only a joint account.
We never quibble about money issues. We find having independent accounts in addition to our joint checking account, practical for other reasons. Almost everything goes into the common pot, but when it comes to financing our personal interests and hobbies, it’s more practical to have separate accounts, primarily because it’s easier to track.
For example, I was saving up for a kayak and Fianceephone was saving up for a new road bike. It was easier to keep track of how much I had set aside for the kayak and whether or not I was ready to buy it when I had a dedicated account to save up for it. Ditto for her and her road bike. But we still completely share it. When she found a great bike on Craig’sList, we raided my Kayak Account because her Bike Account was short and the opportunity was too good to miss.
It’s also more fun around gift-giving times to feel as if I’m buying her gift with “my own” resources rather than buying her gifts with “our” money. Something about using the joint account makes me feel like she’s partly paying for her own present. Basically, it feels good to say “I’m going to use my kayak money to get her something instead.”
No trust issues invovled. All the bank statements are kept in the same file folders, she can examine them any old time, or log into to online banking to access the Kayak Account whenever she wants. It’s not a secret and it’s all fully transparent, it’s just more convenient and easier to track our personal dumb-fun stuff. It causes less confusion.
I wouldn’t say that is fundamentally different from what we do. No, our accounts aren’t separate, but we decide where all of our money goes ahead of time. We have an amount set aside that we can blow on fun stuff (like kayaks, incidentally), but that money comes out of the line on our budget.