What kind of things do you do in your marriage/relationship that you believe is different from most couples? I'm not talking about things like group action or anything like that (although feel free to share). I mean how you handle the more mundane aspects of being a couple. The one that comes to mind for us is that we don't have "my car/your car", we just have vehicles, and drive them based on what the trip entails (SUV grocery-getter vs. Mustang for fun). Some friends of ours have a total separation of their money. When they got married they decided which bills were his vs. hers, and the rest was up to each of them to use as they saw fit.
My wife manages the money because she's a huge budgeting nerd and I couldn't care less. All of our money goes into one pot and every single dollar we earn is given a task as soon as it comes into our account.
We don't do Christmas, birthday, or anniversary gifts.
Not to bring gender sterotypes into this, but they are there for a reason, right? I do all the cooking. Wife does all the finances. I do all the grocery shopping. Those would be the 3 outliers from your typical male/female marriage I can think of.
My wife is a high school athletic director. I do a lot of our laundry, dishes, and cleaning just because her schedule is a little out of sorts.
She still manages to do a lot of the grocery shopping - I despise grocery shopping.
She is also very assertive and willing to embrace confrontation, I am the opposite - pretty easy going and want to make sure everything is just going smoothly.
She cooks and cleans.
I do the grocery shopping, all of the finances, outdoor stuff (mowing/yardwork), grilling and help with cleaning (emptying litter boxes, etc).
We both do laundry.
I do 100% of the driving. She just got her license last year and she's still very iffy behind the wheel.
#1 goal this summer is to fix that.
We never argue about money, ever. It all goes into one pot and the family shares. All purchases are transparent to both and thus no one abuses it.
No Christmas, birthday or anniversary present. Occasional surprise presents however.
She handles all the finances. My teaching salary goes 100% into the account….my mowing, umpiring go into my side stashes.
We both do laundry. She cooks 90% but in summer I’ll push a larger %. I always drive. She gets the new cars and I drive the old ones already paid for. I do most everything outside other than she does the pool and hot tub upkeep.
My wife did our bills and budget 100% for the first 17 years of marriage and she was a stay at home mom through 90% of that time.
Single checking and savings the whole time.
A few years ago she got major anxiety and depression, a lot of it surrounding money and bills, and asked me to not only take over it, but also separate the accounts so she has zero access to our checking (bills) and savings accounts. She gets a side joint account with a set “amount” per week, even though she now works full time.
So when I was the only one working a job she was the one in “charge” of getting everything paid and our budget.
Now that we both work full time she gets what amounts to an “allowance” each week. Most modern people would think we are now like in the 60s and I am “controlling” but this was all at her request to quell her anxieties about money.
She can ask any question at any time about our other accounts and bills and I will tell her and show her if she wants.
She basically got to the crippling anxiety point that it doesn’t matter if we have $1 in the bank or $100,000 in the bank she gets anxiety over seeing the numbers.
I don’t understand what changed but it’s all good, she’s happy, her anxiety is nearly gone, and all bills are paid automatically weeks ahead of time. Once I set it all up with a new online banking account I don’t have to do shit. Just automatically sends out our bills the same days I get paid.
I was raised that no matter who makes what in a marriage the money is “our” money so I had a REAL hard time being ok with this as we had ALWAYS had joint bank accounts.
She nearly had to beg me to do this, to take her off the accounts and just tell her things are paid and ok. It definitely was an adjustment.
I also had to add language to the Will about where all the accounts are now and how to access them as well as where the bills/passwords were. I also wrote specific instructions on what my life insurance pays off first and then what financial advisor to get ahold of to help with the rest and budgeting (old friend from HS).
My wife does all the driving. She gets car sick easily, and I'm apathetic about who drives, so she does it.
She also prefers to do all the gardening and yard work. I do anything that requires more landscaping, but week-to-week, she likes mowing and weeding.
I do bath and bedtime for our daughter. It's often the only time I get with her after work, so I relish
Separate bank accounts, just split the bills 50/50.
We actually live very separate lives anyways as we both work night shift with kids. Typically when I’m at work, she’s at home with them (8yo and 4yo) and vice versa when she’s at work. We’re probably only home (at night) together twice a week.
Split up the laundry and shopping. Neither of us cooks much. She could probably live off doordash Chipotle.
It’s unconventional but we’ve made it work for almost ten years.
Married 30 yrs. Joint accounts my wife wants nothing to do with finances. She just wants to enjoy general freedom with discretionary spending but checks in with me for larger purchases. I do most of the cooking its something I enjoy and always been a show of love to my family. We do not do gifts to each other. Just our children, grandchildren, and parents. My wife is very creative and selects any home decor or furnishings.
My dude and I have been together for a LONG time. We are not married. He has his house/property and I have mine. And now that I no longer take care of parents (they're dead now) and his daughter is grown and moved away, we are in no hurry to move things along. We actually like having our own houses to ourselves and absorbing the quiet times.
He does some yardwork for me a lot of times and I do cooking for him a lot of times. We do lots of things together, as any married couple would do. We go out to eat, watch a ballgame, ride horses, etc. We're just enjoying this time in our lives where we are separately independent.
That may change some day, but not today.
Out of curiosity, for those here that are married and have split finances - what is your reasoning?
posted by birddog23Out of curiosity, for those here that are married and have split finances - what is your reasoning?
I listed mine earlier.
Short version, we had joint finances for 17 years and my wife did all the bills/budgeting while I made 100% of the money.
She developed crippling anxiety over money so I took it all over and we took her off the bills and savings accounts at her request.
It definitely has quelled her anxiety to just “know” I got it taken care of.
posted by O-TrapMy wife does all the driving. She gets car sick easily, and I'm apathetic about who drives, so she does it.
She also prefers to do all the gardening and yard work. I do anything that requires more landscaping, but week-to-week, she likes mowing and weeding.
I do bath and bedtime for our daughter. It's often the only time I get with her after work, so I relish
An O-Trap sighting? Holy crap!
In my old marriage what was hers was hers, and what was mine was ours.
posted by birddog23Out of curiosity, for those here that are married and have split finances - what is your reasoning?
We have a joint account. But we also maintained our individual checking accounts out of ease of not swapping all the direct payments. As its been almost 10 years now, almost all things are delivered into the joint that need to be and withdrawn from joint that needs to be. But, we just never got rid of individual. But we dont keep track of who pays for what. If I need some extra money for a large credit card statement, Ill transfer from joint, etc. But for the most part, 60% of the paycheck goes to joint to pay for all the bills, and then the other 40% goes to individual for credit card statement.
