married - joining finances/seperate - HELP!

tinalatina
tinalatina Posts: 499 Member
edited November 9 in Motivation and Support
I need advice people!!

If you are married/living with a partner and have different paygrades; lets say for example A) makes 100,000 and B) makes 30,000

Before they got married they kept finances seperate. But now that they are married their finances are still seperate. Except A)pays most of the bills and B) pays for the childcare, groceries and home exspenses + cooks & cleans. A & B still have their own seperate bills from before they were married too!!

It is causing problems because A) always puts it in B)'s face that A) pays most of the bills! When & where do you draw the line? Is this not healthy or fair? Should their finances be combined!? I need help....

Thanks!
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Replies

  • EmCarroll1990
    EmCarroll1990 Posts: 2,832 Member
    The way I see it is up until marriage all finances could be kept seperate. Once married, finances should be joined. You are a "joined" couple, so everything should be joined.
  • bikermike5094
    bikermike5094 Posts: 1,752 Member
    guess I'm old school but if your married, so are your finances. Whats mine is mine and whats yours is mine.
  • EddieG77
    EddieG77 Posts: 185 Member
    A should be lucky A has B to even contribute and shut A's mouth up.....perhaps a separate ""bills only" account where both contribute.....
  • MissFit0101
    MissFit0101 Posts: 2,382
    I think that is pretty dysfunctional in my honest opinion. Having separate finances is fine, but it's a partnership now, not an "I do this, and you only do that" sort of thing. I mean, A & B need to sit down and have a serious discussion about this marriage... that just sounds, incredibly awkward to me.. the whole situation.
  • MadeToCraveHIM
    MadeToCraveHIM Posts: 213 Member
    From experience I can tell you that marriage is absolutely a partnership. Money is a huge part of it and you have to learn to trust eachother about everything, especially your finances or it will never work.
  • dealluver
    dealluver Posts: 45 Member
    IMO I think when two people join lives, they also join finances and debt. They are supposed to work together toward a common goal. Good luck working things out!
  • Renee0608
    Renee0608 Posts: 138
    I personally just don't understand if you are married, why things aren't one. Hell, me and my husband's finances have been joined even before we were married. I see it as you saying, I love you enough to marry you, but do not trust you enough to give you access to my money....A marriage takes two people....so should your finances, IMO.
  • MrsRobertson1005
    MrsRobertson1005 Posts: 552 Member
    My fiance and I joined because we were paying 50/50 but i make more. We look at it as it is our moeny, doesn't matter who makes more, we're in it together so we pay it all together. I know other people that have it separate and it works for them.. To me it doesn't seem like the money is they problems, it's the attitude about the money.
  • Mommawarrior
    Mommawarrior Posts: 897 Member
    Personal opinion here and I will catch all kinds of flack for it I am sure however...here goes. If you love someone enough to marry them, why keep everything separate? I am 39 years old, been married over 20 years and not one day of our marriage has anything been separate.
    You want something to last, don't go into keeping things separate and having an easy way out of things.
  • lmg1980
    lmg1980 Posts: 4
    I think that once people marry that finances are no longer separate. Marriage is two becoming one so therefore nothing is separate. Also depending where you live, for example if people get divorced everything is split down the middle.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,454 Member
    "A" is being a bully. Once married, legally the money belongs to both.

    I guess some counselling is in order. "A" should be able to recognise the fallacy in his argument. . .this is a power struggle.
  • jjblogs
    jjblogs Posts: 327 Member
    Joined.....fer sure.
  • tiptoeketo
    tiptoeketo Posts: 271 Member
    I think that is pretty dysfunctional in my honest opinion. Having separate finances is fine, but it's a partnership now, not an "I do this, and you only do that" sort of thing. I mean, A & B need to sit down and have a serious discussion about this marriage... that just sounds, incredibly awkward to me.. the whole situation.

    This.
  • reba0473
    reba0473 Posts: 2 Member
    it looks like its not healthy because one of you is unhappy. Compromise is the key to any marriage. I say A sits down with B and talks about what is going on and how it makes B feel. I have been married fr 17 plus years and we have always had our pays and bills put together. It's not his and mine it's ours. Our bills our money our house our kids our lives.
  • Mandypt
    Mandypt Posts: 173 Member
    I just got married in November and it was discussed in our marriage preparation beforehand. A should know that B doesn't make enough and should be considerate. A and B become AB once they are married so A and B's finances should be AB. That is old school, but also old school hardly ends in divorce.
  • Bethee101
    Bethee101 Posts: 99 Member
    I have been married for nearly 5 years and we still have separate finances. We both make about the same amount of money and we each pay our certain bills... it just works for us.
  • xsmilexforxmex
    xsmilexforxmex Posts: 1,216 Member
    To me personally I would set up a budget based off percentage earned.. so A pays X% of bills while B pays X% .. sounds like you are kind of doing that alreadyso if that's not working I would set up a joint account specifically for joint bills only and both add to it whatever number is agreed upon, your own bills would be paid yourself.. that way there will be no discussion there. That's why my husband and I both do, always put Xamount per check into the joint account.. some weeks I have less money and he's willing to cover, other weeks he has less. It works out pretty well. That was my solution bc I don't trust people with 'my' money :/ Even him. I pay the bills for us.
  • mill1295
    mill1295 Posts: 120 Member
    My husband makes like 2.5X what I make. We both like to be in control so our compromise was to both contribute a percentage to a joint account where the joint stuff is paid out of - mortgage, bills. We pay for our own extras. I buy the groceries but he pays when we go out to eat, movies, concerts, etc. . He also pays for our vacations and stuff like that.
  • mudar146
    mudar146 Posts: 146 Member
    I'm a firm believer in combining however keep a set amount seperate each month. My husband and I have a joint chequing and saving's account but each month we have an alloted amount for each of us (Cash!!) this way though everything is combined you still have some independence and freedom with some of your own money. ie lunches or dinners out, shopping or gifts around holidays etc...
  • hottamolly00
    hottamolly00 Posts: 334 Member
    Combine the finances. You're married. You are now one entitiy.
  • GreatSetOfBrains
    GreatSetOfBrains Posts: 675 Member
    It's more logic to pull percentages out of paychecks in my eyes. Honestly my husband and I still have our own accounts. We do have a joint accont we both agrred to put a certain amount in each month. Then I went back to school so that flopped. Now I pay for my school and my gad, that's about it. But that is just what works for us. If you take a percentage out then person A will still be paying more than person B, but its not right, in my eyes for person B to struggle if person A has extra cash. . .
  • sassylilmama
    sassylilmama Posts: 1,493 Member
    When you marry your lives intertwine, including finances. Throwing money in ones face will just lead to big relationship trouble and is very disrespectful IMO.
  • UponThisRock
    UponThisRock Posts: 4,519 Member
    When I got married, we were so broke if we didn't join our finances, it wouldn't have been enough to open a checking account.

    But seriously folks, this doesn't sound like a healthy relationship in regards to money.
  • jmaffett
    jmaffett Posts: 68
    I work in finance so see a lot of difference combinations of separate/together. I personally would not have married my husband if he expected us to keep our finances separate. He has always been a couple of paygrades about me, but when we married we became a UNIT. His debts are my debts, my debts are his debts. There is no "you pay for this, I'll pay for that". I married this person to be his PARTNER, not his roommate.

    Our paychecks go into separate bank accounts but both are joint accounts. We have agreements on how we spend our money, and we both get an "allowance" each month for spending with no questions asked. Everything else (groceries, utilities, car, gasoline, vacations, mortgage, insurance) comes from our pooled money.
  • bergsangel
    bergsangel Posts: 131
    A should be lucky A has B to even contribute and shut A's mouth up.....perhaps a separate ""bills only" account where both contribute.....

    ^Yeah, i agree.
    I have been both a full-time SAHM and a full time teacher and teaching is much easier. It sounds like you are working too though, not sure it is full-time? Either way, once you marry someone, you really have no business making them feel bad about their income. And just because A's income is higher DOES NOT mean he shouldn't be helping out. Now, if he works double your hours or something, I can see that. Time to join finances, this is ridiculous imo.
  • Queenb62303
    Queenb62303 Posts: 77
    my husband and i have always had sepereate accounts..but we pay the bills together...and its not my money, your money, its still our money... its easier for us to keep track of spending by having seperate accounts and not wondering what is this charge?? etc.. i make more than my husband, because of the job i have. i never have, and never would throw that in his face, because i know he works just as hard if not harder than i do and we are in this TOGETHER .. sounds like maybe you guys need some counceling? :)
  • grobbygru
    grobbygru Posts: 292 Member
    A should be lucky A has B to even contribute and shut A's mouth up.....perhaps a separate ""bills only" account where both contribute.....

    I'll bet B is doing most other child care and house jobs as well!!!

    I would say DIVORCE SOB
  • frosty73
    frosty73 Posts: 424 Member
    My spouse insisted on joint finances when we got married. I kind of wanted my own little "nest egg" but now I'm glad we are together on this. He pays the bills, I do all the housework, childcare, etc. I am a SAHM.

    If you are not married, then I would definitely recommend separate finances. And if person A keeps throwing it in your face, then perhaps you need to re-think your relationship. :^(
  • jrnygirl
    jrnygirl Posts: 183 Member
    A and B should look at their bills together and determine which ones can be paid off first and work towards a common goal of eliminating all unnecessary debt in the household.

    Sounds like A resents B's lifestyle/career choice, etc.
    Marriage is a partnership and just because one person brings in more money than the other doesn't mean that the lower-earning person contributes any less. Money is only a fraction of what makes a marriage and lifelong partnership.
    Perhaps financial/marriage counseling will put things into greater perspective for A?
  • vellacraptor
    vellacraptor Posts: 68
    I personally think it should be more cooperative once you're married. Stuff that you both use you share the cost for, and stuff that only one of you use only that person pays for is how I would want to do it. But I guess it just depends on the relationship.

    At any rate they should not shove it in your face, that's unhealthy in any relationship especially if you're not really doing anything wrong. Maybe sit down and talk about what he wants from you to stop him from doing that, or what he expects? You might be upsetting him somehow, or maybe he's just being unreasonable entirely.

    In any case, I'd think communication is key.
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