If you are married or are looking to get married, you might be wondering how to avoid conflict in your relationship. I would venture to guess that most people do not enjoy arguing with or upsetting their spouse. We like to get along and work together to accomplish goals, not tear each other down. One way to avoid having large confrontations or arguments is to get ahead of them. You can do this by talking through topics that could and will cause arguments in the future, and getting on the same page together.
There are a lot of reasons that couples fight, but there are a couple major ones that seem to resurface if not resolved. One of those main topics is money. Money is an odd thing here in the United States because we operate with Fiat Currency system. This means that our currency has no backing, no real value. We used to operate on different standards, some of which are silver and gold. The metals have value and are useful, but we do not back our money this way anymore. Oddly enough, the reason that a $1 bill is worth $1 is because we choose to believe that this is the case.
To further grasp this idea, I like to imagine a broken future state of our country. The economy has crashed, stores have closed, and people are left on their own. Someone approaches me and asks me if I have any food that I could trade for one of the goods they have obtained. I have to protect and feed my family, so I choose to trade them a chicken for a package of seeds. The seeds have value to me because I can plant them and wait for harvest, gathering more food and seeds in the process. This will keep us alive and my family healthy. But what if I would have traded my chicken for a stack of $100 bills? I could probably use them for starting a fire a couple times, but they are not of any great value to me for my survival.
So why are we attached to money? I think one major reason that we are attached to money is due to the fact that we as humans like stuff. We like to have nice cars, houses, clothes, and electronics. We like to have nice watches and big TVs that we can show off to our friends. Money is the gateway to these things. Yes it is true that we need money to survive in today’s society, but it shouldn’t be everything that we are working toward. If our life is centered around things like money, it can cause issues that spread to other parts of our lives. What can we do in our marriage to avoid conflicts pertaining to money?
Open Joint Accounts
I believe that as married people we are to become one, and share everything with each other. I do not condone having separate bank accounts in a marriage. The main reason I do not like the idea of separate accounts for spouses is it creates secrecy within the relationship. Just like when we were kids we thought “secrets don’t make friends, but friends make secrets” was true, it is relevant today. Secrets and keeping information hidden that is relevant to the spouse can drive a wedge between you. It is also important to note that there is never a state of perfect equality in the world, and that is also true for spouse financials. One spouse will always make, spend, save, invest, or give more money than the other.
I did a fair amount of reading online to see other perspectives on this subject. Oddly enough, there are not a lot of writers out there supporting joint accounts. I went to my search engine and looked for “Should my spouse and I have a joint bank account?” and was surprised to see the top recommendations to read. The first three results talk about how to merge accounts, then the results turn into why we should not have joint accounts and the question of which is better, joint or individual? I will leave it to you to read, but the information given has one common theme. It is centered around “me” and most of the reasons lead to divorce. A popular reason to have individual accounts is, “when you get divorced, it is much more complicated.” I would hope that by choosing to get married you are not looking at it with anticipation of an upcoming divorce. Marriage is a lifelong commitment that needs your full commitment to function and thrive.
I understand that one spouse may be working providing income and the other may not, as in my case. A couple may be in a situation where both are working providing income at the same or differing rates. Having separate accounts in any fashion raises questions to me. Why is the one more entitled to money than the other? Why would the non-working spouse need a separate account or an allowance from the working spouse? If we are to be “one” with each other, how can that be if we are keeping things separate? The answer is that we can’t. We can’t be together and fully trust in each other if we have separation.
If it deals with money, make sure that both spouses have direct access. Some major accounts that we have are 1 checking account, 2 savings accounts, a credit card, and an investment account. Both of us have access and can see everything that is going on at all times. We also use a money management app that allows both of us to see our student loans and any other debt.
On a checking account or credit card account, make sure that both spouses have a card, and communicate what they are going to purchase. This may seem redundant or burdensome to continue to talk to your spouse every time you to make a purchase, but it is important in being transparent with your spouse. What happens if one spouse has their pay going into their account, and not a joint account? If the other spouse does not have access, the spouse depositing money is not really sharing. They are providing money to their spouse or family as a ration, or when they want to. It is usually an indication in a marriage that there is a lack of trust between spouses.
Are you worried that your spouse will overspend? I think that this is a common situation between spouses that pushes them to want individual accounts. They feel that their spouse does not have the self control or good money management skills, and would prefer that they don’t take their money. This is an issue that needs to get worked out another way as it can’t be solved by creating a barrier in your relationship.
We can overturn the argument for having separate account very easily by adding a baby to the situation. Who will buy diapers? Who will buy food? The baby is technically a 50-50 split between mother and father, so are you going to track expenses and make sure each parent spends exactly 50% of the cost to provide for their child? What if one spouse isn’t working? Are you going to have each parent pay into their child based off income? It seems to me that this is nearly impossible to do without arguing or causing conflict. There is no way we can draw the line equally, which leaves us to put it together and work with each other.
Communicate Purchases
Something that we enjoy doing is letting each other know when we are going to spend money. This is not really a situation where we are asking for permission as much as relaying information. My wife is in school and I work. So I am the only source of income right now. That being said, I don’t require my wife to ask for money or need permission to spend it. We choose to ask each other if we can make larger purchases, over $20, and inform each other when we are going to have smaller purchases. It is a situation where we work together to make sure that we stay on budget, and can continue to do fun things together. Having a joint account that our spouse can see helps to stay responsible. We are working for common goals, and are united in our trials and times of celebration.
Some examples of when we just inform each other (while staying within our budget) would be when she wants to stop and get coffee. It’s a purchase that is $5 tops, but keeping each other in the loop helps us to budget. When I want to make larger purchases, like $100 on hunting equipment, I ask her if that is okay so that we are on the same page. If the purchases are really big, like $1,000, we take the time to sit down and discuss why we want to make the purchase and how it will be beneficial to us.
Budget Together
I find it best to work together to figure out how much money should be spent on different categories. Some major categories are rent/mortgage, utilities, food, insurance, debt, and extra expenditures. All of these have variable costs, and we can pick how much we would like to spend. Do we want to live in a smaller house? Bigger house? Apartment? Maybe we want to have nicer food? Cheaper food? Or maybe we want to take trips every month and put it down as extra expenditures. Everything has a price, and we can choose how much we want to pay (to an extent) and set ourselves up with different products. I urge you to sit down with your spouse and dig through financials before spending. An even better plan is sitting down with your fiancé and hashing this out before getting married. There are a lot of things out there that cost money, and it can be difficult to figure out what we should purchase. Not only do you have the benefit of making a budget together, this will give you an opportunity to learn more about your significant other. We tend to buy things that we think are important.
Disclose Your Debts
One important thing to me when people are getting married is that they are transparent about all finances. If you have debt, just like with money in our account, you need to make sure your soon-to-be spouse is aware. It would be quite a surprise to get married, then find out that your spouse has $40,000 in debt that they did not tell you about. This can cause a lot of stress in your relationship, and being transparent about debts can save a lot of headache and build trust. You are married to this person, and they need to be in your life more now than when you were dating. Having a spouse in medical school, I have become very familiar with loans and debt. Taking these loans upon myself in addition to her is a commitment that I made to my wife when we got married, and having this debt is OURS, not just hers.
Our experiences
My wife and I got married in college. She went to school for free, and I took out loans. Getting married during college means you are “rich”, so we had that going for us. We have strived to be transparent with each other about what we spend and our debts and have kept our arguments to a minimum so far. We have only been married for a little over 4 years, but our financial situation has changed quite a bit from college. We’ve adjusted to these changes by changing our budget and discussing our new financial goals. There is no way to completely avoid conflict, no matter how well you are being transparent.
We live in a world that is increasing promoting separation of property between spouses. Over half of the marriages in the United States consist of separate bank accounts, and the divorce rate is about 50% across the board. Are they correlated? Maybe. It’s hard to tell, but we are being influenced to keep our lives separate and be selfish over our property. It is crucial to me that each spouse works for the other person, and not for themselves. That doesn’t mean that they never get to do anything for themselves, but they should be conscious of what they do or buy.
I urge you to work for a common goal and do your best. Keep communication open and trust each other. Build the kind of relationship that will allow you to share and not worry about your spouse. Working together will make your life better and help you create a better life in marriage.