The answer could be money. But it could also be a car or computer or blanket or a whole lot of other kinds of “stuff”. The things I share with my spouse are love and life and hopes and dreams and all those really important, completely intangible things. I refuse to elevate money to that same level.

Money is just abstract stuff. You can use it to buy stuff or give it to someone to do something for you and then they can use it to buy stuff. In my mind, that just makes money a substitute for any kind of possession. Once you start thinking that way, it becomes really hard to take people seriously when they start implying that you are “less married” than they are because you don’t have a shared checking account. It’s like commenting on my marriage based on whether we share a computer or each have separate ones. For the record, I also own my own socks, shoes, and formal dresses. Is that enough to completely negate my marriage or shall I go on?

http://www.mytotalmoneymakeover.com/index.cfm?event=dspAskDave&intContentItemId=120524

Flash forward 16 years of marriage and i found myself BROKE as my now ex-husband cleaned out our joint accounts, cashed in IRAs, even cleaning out our sons college account and maxed out our “joint” credit cards– all so he can fund his much younger mistress’s every whim and desire. Further, unbeknown to me, he also had separate secret accounts in addition to our joint ones. I found out about the affair thanks to the credit card trail, which included using my identity to book airline tickets for his mistress.

I am now older and WISER and yes DIVORCED from a man who betrayed our family physically, emotionally, mentally and financially, all for the sake of a vagina half his age.

At the age of 43 i found myself starting all over again in life with my beautiful children in tow. You see my ex also managed to wiggle himself out of paying full child support for two children. His objection–”If i pay x amount of child support there wont be enough for my girlfriend”.
He was no longer the man i married. Something dark happens to men when “another woman” enters their life.
They lose the ability to think rationally, and become willing to give up everything for the “other woman”. Who in the end turned out to be nothing more than a gold-digger arriving as suddenly, destroying everything in her path and leaving as swiftly as a tornado. And yes it wasn’t until 2 years post divorce(and after he had moved her into our home) that my EX finally saw her for what she was when she left him for yet another married man with more “assets”. Everything we had built TOGETHER was gone just like that! The damage was already done by BOTH OF THEM.
Worse yet– I was left to pick up the pieces of my children’s broken hearts & feelings of betrayal all while sitting dead broke in an apartment in the not so nice part of town (The spouse and mistress got the house since i didn’t have the cash reserves for a long drawn out battle in court thanks to him cleaning out our “joint accounts”.
To celebrate they took a little trip to Hawaii with the money from, you guessed it, our JOINT ACCOUNTS.
Thank God i at least received physical custody of the most precious things in life to me–my children. Flash forward 5 years later and i am finally back on my feet–well almost.
For those of you who brush this little tale off with the attitude “she just married a creep” think again. He wasn’t always this way. He changed- quite suddenly- when snow white entered the picture. I call her snow white because that’s how she presented herself to him–as innocent and virginal as fresh fallen snow.

The moral of my tale? NEVER EVER EVER have a JOINT account with ANYONE. Especially if you have children. For their sake just say NO. You see the only BEHAVIOR and ACTIONS you can control are your own.
The danger of a spouse going “renegade” years down the road, for whatever reason, is very real in today’s day and age, where sex and affairs can be had anywhere by the click of a mouse and major purchases are as simple as handing over a check.

Here i sit 5 years post divorce typing this. I now have my self esteem back, a new career, no debt, a new home (in a nice part of town) and a wonderful man in my life. More importantly, my kids have adjusted well and attend wonderful schools in an upscale district. I got lucky. Things could have turned out much much worse for me and my boys. My faith in God and in myself and wanting better for my boys motivated me to bust my butt working crazy hours and crawl out of the hole we were in.
I warned my fiancée early on in our relationship that i will never have joint bank accounts or joint credit cards with anyone– ever again. I no longer believed it to be a an important factor of a happy marriage. In fact, if anything, it’s more of a detriment and a risk to financial security or each spouse.
Since he knows about my past circumstances- he was very understanding about it and his reply was simply “I don’t blame you one bit for not wanting a joint account!”
I have no problems assigning beneficiaries to my account and a Will–in the event of my death or incapacitation. But i WILL NEVER HAVE JOINT ACCOUNTS.

People are so unrealistic these days…….. times have changed ppl.

I would say that getting married is an emotional decision, where how to handle finances is a logical decision. But I take your point. If I wouldn’t change finances without a reason, why get married without a logical reason? To that it’s easy to point out that there are legal and social benefits to being married which are fairly obvious.

To address your concerns on frivolous spending, living within your means, and commitment to saving goals – we both stick to an “allowance” system. Our regular expenses, including ‘frivolous spending’ tends to be half to two-thirds of our income, so we’re doing more than fine. We both direct anything left over towards whatever goals we have at the time. When you do it that way, it’s very easy to see that spending an extra $200 on something now, means taking $200 away from a goal. With our system each of us is “in charge of” coming up with a certain amount for our goals. It’s usually half of the total, but not always. Each of us trusts the other to come up with that amount and not leave the other hanging. Not keeping your part of the deal is seriously taking advantage of the other person and really almost like stealing. Which is HORRIBLE when applied to your spouse. That’s why we don’t ever have that problem.

Recently, he’s been wanting an iPad. He talked about using some extra money like part of the tax return for it, but felt like he should be working on paying down some debt we’d planned to get rid of before buying a house. So instead, he’s saving his allowance money. When all your extra money is what you use for goals, it’s really easy to remember that anything extra you spend now, means you’re putting off whatever goal.

Now, for a one income family, I admit that it makes no sense to maintain separate accounts. I would probably argue for a day to day spending account for the stay at home spouse, but otherwise, it simply doesn’t make sense. I will never say that everyone should have separate finances. I just argue that it’s an equally viable and ACCEPTABLE way of handling things. Also, I totally advocate staying home with the kids. I would personally stay home full time until they’re school age and then work part time while they’re in school if I were to have kids.

Your comments on the car conversation imply that we wouldn’t step up and help the other where its needed. That is an erroneous conclusion. When my car died a week after graduating college, and 2 weeks before even starting my new job, he offered to help me put together a down payment. When he lost his job a few years ago, we figured out how long WE could survive without his pay. When he was thinking about quitting his job because of a hostile work environment, we figured out how to handle our expenses just on my income and both of our savings.

This is exactly my point. We DON’T have a separate agenda. We got married last year and paid for it entirely ourselves, except the flowers which were a gift from my mother (who IS a florist). This year we are paying off certain debts and will then increase retirement savings (my roth, his 403b). He will buy snow tires for his car. We are going camping rather than on an expensive vacation. Next year we will begin saving for our house. We will either go camping again or go on an inexpensive vacation to visit his mother. Once we purchase our house, my husband will set up shop and start working on a business on the side. During this time, we will work on paying off all other debts, saving a larger emergency fund and paying down the mortgage. He will gradually transition over to his new business full time. If needed, I will handle all our personal expenses from my income as long as his business is at least breaking even (not because I wouldn’t help, but because it’s too much of a stretch for my income). The cars we currently have should be fine at least until after we have the house, likely longer. We will reevaluate at that point and work the purchase (cash this time) into the plan if necessary.

This is what I don’t get: Why does having a checking account with my name on it mean we AREN’T working together?