One thing that I have learned throughout my career as a wealth management advisor is that money management looks all kinds of ways in all kinds of relationships. 

Although we came into the marriage with separate investment and retirement accounts, my husband David and I pool all our other assets to save, budget, and spend jointly from a shared pot of income, checking, and savings accounts. We have no money secrets from one another, proven by the fact that birthday and holiday gifts have many times been ruined by our joint credit card. Although he can’t go to the obsessively granular level of detail that I can in reciting what we spend money on, he knows what bills we pay, where things are going generally, and how much money we aim to save every year across our retirement and taxable accounts. 

This system works for us, but I find it equally common for couples to maintain separate finances. This generally involves putting a specific amount of money into a joint account for shared expenses, assigning leftover expenses individually to one partner or another, and leaving each partner the freedom to spend the remainder of their money as they see fit.  

Other couples may keep finances totally separate, assigning expenses to one partner or another and then keeping a log of reimbursements to move money back and forth. 

However your family chooses to manage its finances, there are three key rules to promoting a healthy money attitude in your relationship:

1. Watch out for Gendered Spending

In my experience advising heterosexual couples with children who maintain separate finances, women often end up paying a significantly higher proportion of the child/dependent expenses from their “personal spend” bucket. When diving into spending discussions, I have seen the tendency to dismiss these expenses as “unimportant” or “excessive” expenditures by male partners.  

I’ll shout it here from the rooftops - expenses incurred for your children are joint expenses! Agree on spending parameters to feed, clothe, entertain, educate, nurture, et cetera your child(ren) and consider these expenses as joint expenses - splitting them as you do your other joint expenses, or assigning one partner an equal level of expenses from other categories. 

2. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate 

Even if you and your partner keep your finances totally separate, it is essential to agree on how much you will each commit to joint household expenses and how much you need to save together in order to meet your financial goals. 

Money stress is often cited as one of the leading causes for divorce, and wealthy couples are not exempt from these stresses. Hiding financial information from a partner or refusing to contribute in a fair way to shared expenses are both trust violations that can have long-term consequences within a relationship. 

We all have different money stories that inform our investing, spending, and saving habits. These stories are unique and may not perfectly align between partners, but a skilled advisor should be able to help you work through those differences and create an open line of communication to start building a shared financial future. 

3. Learn and Grow Together

Money stories consist of some of our earliest memories about money - the financial situation in which we were raised, how we talked (or didn’t talk) about money growing up, how our families dealt with having, or not having, enough. 

These early experiences have a huge impact on our relationship with money as adults and shape financial attitudes in ways both conscious and unconscious. Differences between financial attitudes is a huge source of money stress in relationships. With the right help in your corner, it doesn’t have to be. 

For couples who experience money tension within their relationship, diving into attitudes about money is an excellent first step to addressing issues and creating a path forward. The only way to start changing your money story is to understand and acknowledge both where you originated and where you would like to go. For many couples, diving into their money stories together with a financial advisor is enough to create a new, shared narrative and begin directing shared financial decisions in a new direction. For others, a referral to a qualified financial counselor may be a more appropriate approach to conduct a deeper exploration of ingrained attitudes and beliefs. 

Even couples with healthy money relationships are tested when new financial stresses arise. Stay tuned on the blog to learn how to start, or continue, conversations with your partner about your financial goals and areas of concern.