[downut]

42 years in and it is still one pot of money. My wife makes the money now, and has for 15 years. But we have swapped a half dozen times over the years. For instance when the child was born and she took 3 years off, or I got a relocation and she took a few years off. I can cook and clean and do all the work around the house and whatever meta overhead needs to be done, so it has worked out fine.

Right now she is sick of her job, and FINALLY, I have got a FAANG free idea that I feel confident about launching as a business. Oh christ have they crowded out so many things. As soon as this idea is break-even, with upward trajectory, she's quitting and becoming the support person. Hard agree from me.

Everybody we have ever known over those 42 years who partitioned the pot: divorce. It's just money. Why would you do that? Why is money more important than your spouse?

(I'm replying in complete agreement, if it's not clear.)

[citizenpaul]

I think you are understating the value of having a similar mindset. If I gave my SO full access to my money we would be broke in a week. She is utterly incapable of controlling her spending. Oh that $6000 couch we bought two years ago got a scuff so I got a new one. Its cool they gave me a $500 credit on the $8000 couch I replaced it with so it was basically free... Long term planning is not even possible for her, she spends ever dime she makes. Every lump of money has a list of earmarks that are already spent before she gets it saved.

I guess my point is perhaps it is less the separate bank accounts and more the incompatible mindsets that lead to the divorce.

[tstrimple]

I am the sole income earner in our household, but my wife and I have separate checking accounts. It’s not a matter of whether it’s my money or hers, but just a convenient way to isolate spending to reduce lines of communication. Early in my career I wasn’t earning a lot, and having to coordinate spending around a shared account led to more than one overdraft charge. Yes, this could be solved with careful communication and planning but that’s overhead we didn’t need or want to deal with for day to day spending. Larger purchases we have to coordinate on, but the communication is important there and less so on whether me splurging on a nice lunch with friends is going to impact her paying for school clothes.

Technically both accounts are joint accounts so it’s definitely not about hiding purchases or income. It’s just a logical partition around our daily spending habits.

We have been married for 16 years and together for 23. We don’t ever fight about money.

[jotato]

We do the same thing. We have a main account for bills and any essential items. Then we each have an account (still joint, but separate) and we put money in both every pay. Think of it as an allowance :)

I don't care what she spends hers on, and she no longer comments when I buy a new tool. Win/win/win

[futureshock]

I am bristling a bit at the suggestion that split finances lead to divorce. I honestly don’t think it changes anything fundamental. You either agree on your priorities and approach to life and finances, and therefore spend your money in a roughly compatible way automatically, or you don’t. Keeping money in one pot does not automatically align or keep you aligned. It’s either a problem or it’s not. Doesn’t matter where you put it.

In my relationship, we avoid force or ways to control the other person. It’s a voluntary relationship. Love is the glue, not a shared bank account or financial dependence.

[ericmay]

I bet split finances is a risk factor leading toward a divorce though. This is probably a higher risk factor if your incomes significantly diverge. If one spouse is making 2.5x the other one and they’re splitting their budget (if they budget… lack of one is probably another risk factor) like college roommates that screams “problem” to me. One spouse is basically living a whole different life. It just isn’t going to work most of the time.

[schwartzworld]

Having split finances doesn't necessarily mean going Dutch on everything. When my wife made more than me, she carried more of the bills. Now that I earn more, I carry a bigger percentage of the necessities. We're still a team, but we have our own bank accounts.

[ericmay]

I interpreted split finances as each person pays "their half". If your spouse who presumably makes more than you (not you specifically) pays a lot more and backstops purchases, having your own bank accounts is more of a habit than a practical necessity right? We used to have our own bank accounts too, but then I or my wife would transfer money to one another and we eventually just asked "what's the point of that?" if no matter what happens we're sharing our expenses... Obviously that's what works for us and doesn't apply to everyone, but just wanted to shed some context on what I thought split finances meant.

[dougmwne]

Half is basically impossible. That’s not what people mean at all when they say split finances. It means that people retain their own personal money in some form instead of it fully being community property. I would consider having a joint account that’s only used for regular expenses to also be split finances if people have their own savings and investments.

The ratio of the split floats around for us, usually depending on income and desire to pay. The important part is that my money is mine and in my name. If I want to spend it on caviar or video games, good for me. If he wants to spend his on a new car, cool. If he wants money for that car he knows he can ask and probably get it, but then I get an opinion too.

[em-bee]

exactly this.

we didn't create a joint account because we never even bothered to think about it. it would have just been an extra hassle without any practical benefit. things were paid by whoever was doing the payment. if one account was running low but a payment from that account needed to be made, money was moved.

more of a concern was that i was used to meticulously tracking my expenses, while my wife hated the idea. so we didn't do it as a family, and only did rough budget calculations to see if we spent more than we earned as a compromise.

[royaltjames]

Split finances leading to divorce sounds more like a symptom of incompatibility rather than causation.

Staggering that I have newlywed friends who still haven't - even after 4 years - decided on kids or not, finances, everything big. AND NOW WE WAIT...

[readthenotes1]

We split the money because my now ex would have squandered it all otherwise

[downut]

Exactly: partition => divorce. The arrow symbol '=>' is not causal; the partition did not cause the divorce, but where there was a partition, the divorce, in our experience, inevitably happened.

I don't even want to elevate our lengthy relationship as something superior. Hardly anyone, including us, started out in their teens understanding what makes a good relationship. We probably stumbled into the single pot model because each of us had so little, then.

[tonyarkles]

We may be the exception, although it’s only been 13 years so far. Her and I didn’t ever combine our finances other than to open a joint savings account, so it’s never been a discussion of “we need to partition our finances”, it’s just never been a discussion of “we need to collapse our finances into a single pot”.

We do have a significant income disparity (on our taxes I believe it was about 3:1 for me this year), and navigate it mostly by just having an asymmetric set of financial responsibilities. We’re both responsible for our own individual expenses (e.g. cell phone bill, car insurance, credit card debt). She covers the mortgage for our modest house, I cover pretty much everything else (house and cabin insurance, property tax, car insurance for our shared POS construction-hauler van, natural gas, electricity, water/sewer, charitable donations, etc). I know what the mortgage costs, she probably doesn’t know exactly what most of the stuff I pay for costs but I’d be open with her if she was curious.

After all of the expenses are covered, we’re pretty much free to do what we want with what’s left over without consulting with the other person. We’re both also, I guess, sufficiently responsible that it’s a rare situation to run low. We’ve had a few unexpected expenses over the years that left the joint account in a bit of an ugly place but refilled it over the next few months and lived a little lean to make sure the emergency fund was there.

For COVID, her monthly income was reduced to almost zero. We’re in Canada, so she had CERB ($2k monthly). I topped up the joint account and told her she was welcome to take what she needed. She did transfer maybe $1k a few times to cover a few things, but mostly was self sufficient.

I dunno! Maybe it’s not a situation for everyone but it’s been super smooth. When we first started dating and moved in together, I was a grad student with a paltry scholarship, but our expenses were quite low as well. She got by and covered a few more things than I did, and now it’s going the opposite way and there’s no resentment or anything as far as I can tell. We’re both pretty good about sharing when we’re feeling something’s out of balance, so I suspect I’d know about it if she didn’t feel like I was pulling my weight.

[scarface74]

My parents are 78 and 80 years old. They have been married 53 years and my dad took my mom to his high school prom. They retired at 55 and 57. They have always had separate accounts and coordinated spending. It’s not because of lack of trust. They’ve been on the same page financially since day one. Neither of them had anything but their own cars when they first got married.

[Kon-Peki]

My parents celebrate 50 in a few months. Having separate accounts is a major factor in them staying together. But! It was horrible growing up in such a family situation. I hated it.

[scarface74]

It is about coordination. When you have two people constantly withdrawing from the same account - especially before the days when you could just look at your account online - it’s easy to overdraw. You know exactly what’s in your account when you’re the only person withdrawing from it.

Especially with my dad doing shift work where he was working different hours every week

[silisili]

Add me as a data point. Wife kept overdrawing account, split finances, divorce. All within like 3 years.

[professoretc]

That's the missing ingredient that can make merged finances work: both partners have to have the same respect for money and not spending it unnecessarily. My wife grew up in a wealthy household where the attitude was something like "Who cares if you break/lose it, you can always buy a new one/pay someone to fix it." Whereas my family was fairly frugal, always tried to make do with what we had before buying anything, etc. This has caused some friction since she's been staying home while I've been working.

[telman17]

Congrats on 42 years! I look forward to being able to say the same.