Isn’t the usual outcome of most divorces that both ex-spouses become worse off financially, after spending a lot of money on divorce lawyers and the added cost of maintaining separate households versus sharing a single household? (Of course, usually much worse for the formerly stay-at-home one when it was a single income situation.)
Somehow, the same assets are split more ways with 2 household instead of 1 even if no attys, so logically, unless new assets appear from a new source (eg new partners, unexpected raises, etc), it would seem that there is less to provide the standard of living each person may prefer.
We have an agreement that our personal savings accounts can be used for whatever, whenever, but that our combined account must only be used for shared expenses. Given that I manage the combined account I know that she does not cheat, and I am too ethical to cheat!
And even though we can do whatever we want from our personal accounts, we usually tell each other what we are spending money on out of courtesy and transparency. I think she probably sneaks money to her sister from time to time without telling me though since she knows it annoys me (her sister is stupid and lazy). 
My husband has been contemplating buying an Apple computer for months. I have told him to just do it already. Just a few minutes ago he was typing on an Apple computer, talking about how much he liked it. I said “you finally got it?” He said, “no, I would have talked to you about it. This is a work computer.”
H and I tend to talk about purchase if we believe there is any interest by the other party. Our rule tends to be, whomever cares the most does the research and buys what they want, after running it buy the partner, out of courtesy.
Most purchases of under $300, neither of us bats an eye about but we generally share it with the other so we can both enjoy the new acquisition.
I kept a lot of financial details from my wife early in our marriage. With small kids, lots of student loans, and living in a high COL area, it was a constant shell and pea game to keep things going. She’s a bit fragile, had some hard times growing up with family money problems, and I thought I was protecting her from the stress.
We’re deep into the 1% now, not struggling at all, but she still doesn’t know or care at all about money. I make all the money, I pay all the bills, and it kind of sucks. I wish she cared or was interested. She lets me know if she is spending more than $2000 on something but other than that, we don’t really talk about money.
I used to not get involved with furniture purchases but wound up with a dining room table that cost more than a year of tuition at a lot of nice schools. After that, I decided to tag along on the furniture shopping trips even though I would rather get a root canal.
"Isn’t the usual outcome of most divorces that both ex-spouses become worse off financially, after spending a lot of money on divorce lawyers and the added cost of maintaining separate households versus sharing a single household? "
Well, duh, ucbalumnus. Money that was supporting one household is now divided among two. Unless there is some magical divorce dust that doubles money.
The financial cost of divorce? Depends, but generally both parties are at least a little worse off. The emotional benefit of divorcing a spouse who lies, cheats, and neglects his wife and children? Near priceless.
I’ve been a SAHM/homeschooler for ~20 years. When my daughter graduates I want to return to work full-time. I think it’s a good example for our children and the additional money will give us extra flexibilty. We consider ourselves a team and any income is “ours,” no matter who earns it. My MIL was a SAHM and my FIL made it clear that he thought all the money was “his.” I couldn’t live like that.
My husband and I discuss finances regularly, but we don’t discuss every purchase. When we first married we had a single joint savings/checking account and a joint credit card, but that became difficult during the holidays. (I pay the bills and I like surprises, so it was no fun knowing all the places my husband had been shopping.) Now we have 2 joint accounts. He manages one and I manage the other, but we each have online access to both. We have a set amount we can spend without checking with the other, but we go over the finances together every month so we end up knowing how much was spent anyway.
We still have one joint credit card that we pay off every month, but I have one just in my name too. We got it when the children were young (before I stopped working) so if anything ever happened to him I’d have my own credit. My car is in my name because I think every woman should have access to her own transportation. Our house is in both our names and I’m a beneficiary on his retirement account and pension. If we ever divorced I’d ask for equitable distribution of our assets. I think that’s just good business.
@GMTplus7 wrote
Well, I’m assuming a divorce would lead to a huge mess financially no matter whether the parties have been squirreling away money or not, but I also think secretive behavior leads to unhappy marriages, which leads to divorce.
So, maybe I am foolish for trusting my husband, but I do believe he extends the same trust to me, and this helps reinforce our marriage. If it means that someday I’m a foolish old lady who gets taken to the cleaners, then so be it-I’m wired to either trust implicitly or not at all-there’s no gray area for me (and I recognize that’s a little weird, but I’m fairly binary with most things).
@ucbalumnus wrote
Yeah, that’s what I think, too. It’s just an ugly thing all around. Hiding money during the marriage isn’t going to make it less ugly, imo. It just taints your worldview of love and trust.
I know of a situation where it was yes AND no. Wife was a SAHM (but had a college degree, in what I don’t know). DH was CEO of a company in a very lucrative field. They lived very well. What I didn’t know until later, however, was that the DH was very controlling and abusive. I don’t know if it went into physical abuse, but apparently he was extremely jealous and controlling. Anything could set him off, he was very unpredictable, and she was always mentally on guard, not knowing when the *&^% would hit the fan. One time he went into a rage because the Starbucks guy smiled at her and said “You want the usual?” DH wanted to know how this guy knew so much about her, was she screwing around on him, etc.
The DH, after much time and effort, ended up getting some kind of bonus in the amount of 50 million dollars. DW may have been biding her time, waiting for this to come through, because shortly after this, she filed for divorce. She came out of the marriage with about 29 million dollars in total.
She has her freedom away from extreme unhappiness, a huge chunk of money, and the ability to live each day without walking on egg shells.
Totally uncommon scenario, I know, but it came to mind when I read that post.
SAHM here. I don’t worry as my H will never leave me. He knows I would take him to the cleaners.
^ I wouldn’t count on that.
I would because 1) we have a great marriage and 2) he saw first hand what a high priced Park Avenue divorce attorney did to my ex BIL
I was stupidly ignorant of a lot of our household finances til a few years ago. I paid everyday bills and knew what we made but didn’t have insight into the bigger financial picture. I contemplated leaving H for reasons irrelevant to this post and got smart about the finances. (They were never a secret - all the info was sitting right there in our file cabinet - it was my own laziness that stopped me,) Anyway - it was stupid on my part and every woman should keep up to date on finances, even if the spouse does the managing.
I worry about how my mom is going to handle finances once my dad passes on. He’s been managing ALL of the finances in their 50+ years of marriage. Then again, I worry about how my dad will manage household operations if my mom goes first. I don’t think he even knows how to turn on the washing machine.
My dad never did a load of laundry in his life and only knew how to heat up a hot dog in the microwave. My mom did little jobs here and there but never really made much money. Dad died first and wrote her detailed instructions on all the bills and had everything set up automatically. My brother eventually took over for her. He gave her a budget and she lived fine on it. She didn’t want to worry about bills.
I recently learned that my former in laws, who lived a comfortable life are running out of money. I am not sure what happened other than not planning to live as long as they have. This has influenced my daughter’s wedding plans in terms of where to have the wedding.
I seem to recall he held the purse strings and she went along with it all. They had two homes and time shares…now a small condo only.
After a while, maybe 10+ years, of having a joint checking account with untractable combined expenses, we now have, last 10+ year, three separate checking accounts, his, hers, ours, and three separate credit cards, his, hers, ours.
We direct deposit the same amount into “our” checking account from which mortgage, utilities, grocery, school lunches, etc are paid.
The rest of the money is direct deposited into separate checking accounts.
He does not need to know where I splurge on (kid stuff, J. Crew clothes, summer camps.) I do not need to know how much he spends at starbucks or hardware/drill set.
This works perfectly for us.
I expect when we retire (some day?) we would get social security/pension/annuity checks (if any?) deposited into his, her, our accounts.
How do you handle saving and investing? Do you make a similar salary if you are splitting the expenses of running a household down the middle? Do you each buy your own cars?
For those of you who have separate accounts and have an income disparity, is your household contribution proportional to your income? In our family, $ has always been 100% pooled so I’m trying to figure out how it works where its not combined.