married - joining finances/seperate - HELP!

I am an attorney & a divorce mediator. For what it's worth, I have worked with many more couples who have NOT combined their finances, than those who do. Any in MHO, the couples who I have worked with who did not combine their finances also seem to have not fully committed to the concept of marriage. Marriage is a financial partnership as well as an emotional one. And, at least in my jurisdiction, the fact that the couple has not seen fit to co-mingle their incomes does not prevent the judge from doing so when they get a divorce. If you want to prevent this from happening, I have two words for you - prenuptial agreement.

was there any pre-martial counseling?

Here is my suggestion. A make 100K B makes 30 K

A makes 77% of all household income. B makes 23% of income.

If housing (rent/mortgage) costs 1000 per month A pays 770 dollars toward bill, B pays 230 toward bill

Grocery bills are 300 A pays 231 B pays 69

A still has more disposable income than B so A should be more generous at gift giving time

You are a family unit once you are married, so your finances should be joined. What happens when the wife is on mat leave and has a reduced income, should she suffer with her 'share' of the household because she is the one to bear children? My Fiance and I are to be married in June but purchased our home 2 years ago, once we closed on our house we joined everything - he got rid of all his bank accounts / CCs as I get premium rates / no fee accounts as I work for the bank, anyways we have never had an arguement over money, though most of the planning is left to me as I am a Financial Planner.

guess I'm old school but if your married, so are your finances. Whats mine is mine and whats yours is mine.

Amen!!

Joint money, joint decisions. If not, it won't work.

Money can kill anything.

I have friends that do both. Some combine and some keep them separate. In all cases one makes double than the other. My husband and I have a joint account and make the same amount of money so I can't really relate in this case. But, in my opinion the real issue is not joint or separate finances but the attitude of "I pay all the bills and you never contribute." If A is paying all the bills and B is spending all their money on stuff for themselves then I can see where this is a problem. But if B is contributing as much as they can within their financial ability then A just needs to STFU. A marriage is a partnership not a contest. If you're married then you share the finances and the expenses no matter how you choose to divvy up the pot.

I agree with one of the other commenters that suggested counseling. Money is a hard topic to discuss and is the biggest cause for divorce. It is better to get this ironed out now with a professional than doing it later after you're married. Good luck!

it is an honor and privilege to provide for my wife and home. I want to give her the home she deserves. It gives my career more purpose and meaning.

^^^This is awesome. My husband would like you. :flowerforyou:

ditto. My husband is the same way, he goes to work everyday so that he knows his daughter and I have everything we need.

My husband and I have been married for over 8 years. Our finances are separate and we intend to keep it that way. He pays all the bills, and I handle groceries and household items. However! We maintain a household budget where an average of all bills, groceries, childcare, home maintenance, car maintenance, etc are all listed out and accounted for. We each pay 50/50 on everything except the mortgage, which since it's large it's a 40/60 split based on our income differences. It's a littel quirky figuring everything out with two separate income levels, but we act like a team and work through it.

Now, since I obviously handle a smaller portion of the money going out, this means that every month I cut him a check to cover 1/2 of everything I don't pay for minus his 1/2 or what I do and my portion of the mortgage. Our bank accounts are completely open to each other and anything bigger than a breadbox or isn't coming out of bonus/overtime money has to be approved by the other partner. Example of our month: $2000 in bills/2=$1000 $1000-$100 (his 1/2 of groceries) = a check for $900

We hardly ever argue over finances, we still retain some personal freedom, and besides our semi-annual reconcilation to ensure savings and budgets are still on track, we get along this way. Now, when we started out, I was eyeball deep in debt and made hardly any money. At that point we did a ratio based on income and personal bills across the board. I think I paid about 35-40% of everything because I couldn't offer more. He HAD to be okay with that, not much choice.

I suggest you sit down with the husband and you both go over the in/outs of the money. He's obviously feeling like he's paying more than you are, and whether he is or isn't you need to take the time to go over all the monies and straighten it out. Don't let it become personal or get defensive/offensive, just treat it like a job that needs to be done. Any maybe you can't truly walk away with a 50/50 because sometimes that just doesn't happen, but you need to at least agree that's how it has to be for the time being, and both understand where the other person is coming from.

The OP's problem has very little to do with what kind of checking accounts the couple has. The issue is with the one party being an a-hole.
My husband and I had a joint checking and savings account when we got married. It didn't work for us, so we went back to separate checking accounts (but kept the same joint savings account). Since my husband makes a lot more money than I do, we went through all of our monthly expenses and split them based on percentage of income. We actually need to redo this again, since I am making less money now than I originally did when we started. :sad: We are both able to write on each other's accounts and able to view the accounts online, though, truthfully, he doesn't like to look online and always asks me to do it for him when he needs to know something. We don't have a set plan for who buys groceries or pays for dinner or whatever. Truthfully, he pays for most "dates" because he likes to do that. This has worked well for us. There are times (like when I was unemployed) that I needed help paying some of my bills and he helped. There may come a time when he needs help with something and I will help. That's what marriage is about, regardless of what kind of banking system you have set up.

As for OP, couple A and B need to get to a therapist/counselor/mediator STAT. It doesn't sound like the offending party (sorry, can't remember at this point if it's A or will be happy with any compromise the other comes up with without help. Good luck.

I make more than twice what my partner makes (and work more hours). But what works well for us is that we pool everything and pay for everything out of that pool. We each get X dollars a week cash for spending. Minor purchases, ie: an occasional meal out, or a shirt or something, comes out of the pool. Anything major (over $50) is discussed and agreed to before doing so. We are working towards certain financial goals, so we both know and agreed to limit our spending and save as much as possible. We are not married, but have been together for 9 years.

In my prior marriage, the household bills were estimated and we each deposited 50% of that into a household account, from which the bills were paid. We each kept our extra cash. The problem arose when all the children's expenses fell onto MY back. I was supposed to use my spare cash for the his, mine and our children's expenses such as medical, school clothes, presents (Birthday and Christmas), and entertainment. While HE spent his extra cash on personal toys such as racecars, jewelry, tools, classic cars, etc. Talk about major issues and dsyfunction!. Bet you can imagine what the property division was like in that divorce!

Fact of the matter is, these things need to be addressed and discussed and agreed to before joining together in a marriage. And I would have a big problem with anyone who threw the income differential in my face.

I don't think this is a matter of what is fair or how should the finances be doled out ... if A is putting it in Bs face and being a dillhole about B's income, then there needs to be some conversation about respect and being a team.

Been married for 18 years and had a shared account from day one, just works for us. Everything comes out of that account, no separation, ratios of bills vs pay grades I mean we are not in business together we are married. Sharing everything in life why put money as an exception?

We have (and prefer) separate bank accounts at different banks (same as before we lived together or were married). In my situation it works great and we rarely argue over money. I'm a balance the checkbook (to the penny) kind of girl and my husband 'wings it' with his debit card and checks online to see how much is in his account. If we had to maintain a joint checking account in this day and age of debit cards and direct deposits, it would be a giant pain in the behind.

Our names are on each others accounts for emergency purposes, and we keep an Excel spreadsheet budget that tracks what we each have coming in and going out. We each pay different household bills, and this changes from time to time when one of us has any adjustments to our financial situation and (we keep our budget updated monthly).

Personally, I find the whole shared checking account concept to be a bit outdated these days, but obviously a lot of people still think its a good thing. To each his own.......

IMO

A is a control freak and needs to establish dominance over B. A is also selfish and should never have married. A will end up a lonely old...A in the end. A may have come from a broken home or other unstable life when younger. This is not an excuse to say it's okay, but an indication that A needs counseling to get over the tendency to keep everything possible to A's self.