married - joining finances/seperate - HELP!

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.

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.

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?

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. :^(

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.

This is what we do. We each have our own checking and savings accounts, money that we do not have to answer to anyone about. We have our own bills, that we pay on our own. For our combined expenses, we set up a house hold budget and we each contribute as we are able. These are amounts that are negotiaded. Since we are also in different pay grades similar to your example, it is a different amount that we each contribute. We call it the "house account". This way we each have our own finances and do not have to answer to each other, the only amounts we answer to is the house account.

Expenses for the house account, mortgage, food, electric, cable, heating etc. Since you have childcare, I would put that in the bucket also. For my expenses, my personal credit cards, auto loan and other stuff I agree to pay solely. And he has his seperate bills.

I believe that we each need our money to do with as we please. But we should each contribute to our life together.

I hope this helps.

"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.

Yes - and in THIS country at least A's bucks would be predominantly Bs because B has children to take care of for at least 18 years!!!

My wife and I have a similar situation -- i'm the one making more $$. No big deal to me since we are a married couple. Sometimes I pay for everything and usually pay the majority of the expenses.

We both have our own checking accounts for spending what we want and maintain a separate joint checking account which we make donations in ratio of what we get paid and the size of the bills. Someday the situation might be reversed.

My husband and I still have separate checking accounts. He pays the mortgage and I pay all the utilities and groceries. He pays more but also makes more. Every paycheck we each put money into the 'house' account since we just bought a house about a year ago and still have a lot we need to work on and decorate,and things break. He never makes me feel bad for making less and contributing less, we are a team. I think A & B really need to have a serious talk about the issue and make it work.

B could get out now before things get worse. A's attitude is not that of a loving spouse. A may have insecurity issues, and putting it in B's face that A pays most of the bills makes A feel more powerful. It's also a control issue, A pays most of the bills, therefore A feels entitled to make most of the decisions, have A's way. This is not an equal partnership and in my experience, A is not likely to change the attitude.

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>> Back to my first sentence. Sorry to be so blunt.