Made a shocking discovery today... what would you do?

Poppy9

You have to be open about your finances if you want a contented married life.

All of my accounts are shared with my OH. The only separate accounts we have are ISA's. I would hate not knowing how much money we had because as other posters have said being married means sharing responsibilities for debts.

Having conflicting views to money management does not have to mean arguements. Stick to your guns that you want total openness with no recriminations. Demand that the account he has which pays all the DD is made into a joint account. If he wants a separate account tell him to open another account.

Rather than work on the basis of both transferring x money into a joint account to pay bills etc. Pay all money into one account and transfer x amount into your separate accounts as your weekly/monthly play allowance.

tasha38

ashmit......i completely agree!!

nelly_2

ashmit wrote:

I can't imagine anyone ever thinking they had to provide for me. I'm too fiercely independent. When we have kids, maybe, but that's different. But I think he'll be the main caregiver. We could afford to lose his salary, just, but not mine. I earn peanuts, really, but still far more than him.

How CAN you be fiercely independant in a relationship?

Bidi-pendant (which is a word I just invented) is what its all about.

Excluding what game I next buy for my pc, every decision I make I always have the oh in mind, and I know she does too. You shouldnt have to feel any need to be independence when you have a state of mutual respect and understanding for each other.

ashmit

nelly wrote:

How CAN you be fiercely independant in a relationship?

Bidi-pendant (which is a word I just invented) is what its all about.

Excluding what game I next buy for my pc, every decision I make I always have the oh in mind, and I know she does too. You shouldnt have to feel any need to be independence when you have a state of mutual respect and understanding for each other.

Good word, will have to start using it

I think I mean financially independent rather than anything - and I think I was exaggerating for effect, too

We do have a state of mutual respect and understanding for each other. And all our major decisions (and most minor ones too... I would be quite upset if DH brought a copy of Grand Theft Auto into the house, so would expect his consideration for computer games too!!) do take each other into consideration. But it's important to me to know that either one of us could survive on our own if one of us got knocked down by a bus. I'm well covered - if I die, my student loan is cancelled, my pension pays out what I owe my dad and some money to my sisters, as well as more than enough for my husband to pay off my credit card. And the mortgage will be paid off, and my husband will be left with a pension. If he dies - I get nada. He doesn't have a pension or life insurance (mainly cause his pay is pants and he can't afford it) so I need to know that I could survive alone.

Oh, and we are going to start pooling money soon... but that's one thing I have to work up to gently as DH didn't have a bank account for years so he's still getting used to the basics, never mind sharing

And he does know that if he wants to know anything at all, I'll sit down and explain it all so he understands what's what Sooner or later I'll have to do it anyway in case anything ever happens to me.

nearlyrich

I don't think it's impossible to be financially independant in a happy and committed relationship.

ashmit

As I hoped I had clarified, I didn't mean completely financially independent:

But it's important to me to know that either one of us could survive on our own if one of us got knocked down by a bus.

And as there are no contingency plans for if it's my husband that gets knocked over by a bus, that necessarily affects me.

We have mutual consideration for each other, but separate finances, for reasons that have nothing to do with anyone but us, and I'd thank people to stop implying that we don't have a happy and committed relationship. We do, and I love him dearly.

Thefunkygibbons

Oh course it is possible to be happy

As the wife says

What's mine is hers and what is hers is hers :rotfl:


As it happens, I prefer the arrangement where she is the MD and I am the FD

Works for us

Ember999

Thefunkygibbons wrote:

Oh course it is possible to be happy

As the wife says

What's mine is hers and what is hers is hers :rotfl:


As it happens, I prefer the arrangement where she is the MD and I am the FD

Works for us

Ditto TheFunkyGibbons I am the MD at home and hubby is 2IC. Works for us! 18 years happily married and my husband has no intererest in running the finances, however, he knows what we have, wills are set up so that he gets it easily on my death and we are both insured on our life and our mortgage. In fact, if one of us died :eek: the other one would be rich, very rich indeed lol

8pnoodles

lol just caught up with this thread.

I don't mean that men still go out and provide and us girlies sit at home and do the knitting. Duh! I dunno, I'm just going on what my guy says to me (and the guy before him too) that guys do like to feel the can protect and provide for us women.

I'm a career girl, and have spent 8 years at uni. I am way more qualified than my bloke, and have more earning potential. But he still hates being in debt because he loves to spend money on me. I think tbh he would hate it if I was DEPENDENT on him, I wasn't saying this in terms of dependency. But I think he likes the idea that he could provide for me if I wanted or needed him to for whatever reason. I think guys get a sense of pride out of that, more than girls do. Yeah it's a generalisation and not everyone's gonna fit into that, but it doesn't mean that it's not true for a lot of people.

But I also think you can be completely financially independent from each other and in a very happy and successful relationship. Every relationship is different and works differently (despite my generalisations lol).

Obviously this isn't the case though for the original poster. There is a lack of trust and communication there. But that doesn't reflect badly on the relationship particularly, everyone has relationship problems, that's what a relationship is, that's why they are hard work!

System

silvah wrote:

1. That he's currently in the dark about my business affairs, as much as I am in the dark about his finances, and we can either leave it that way, or have total openness, which I think (thank you Robert) is a much better foundation for a lasting, happy marriage.

2. That if he opened up to me about the finances it would have major benefits for him: I wouldn't ask him about it every so often, and I would be much happier. (This seemed to help A LOT.)

So I think our chat had at least some effect, and he ended up confessing that he didn't want to talk to me about the finances because whenever he'd done that in the past, it always ended up in arguments and recriminations, and he hates conflict. So I took the advice from lots of people here and promised him very seriously that I wouldn't be angry or judgemental.

Hi Silvah

Just caught up with the thread and glad to hear you've talked to hubby about your concerns.

I have to say that the outcome as above sounds very fair to me. Without wishing to sound cruel, you can't have your cake and eat it - and you can't have total openness as long as that just applies to your husband.

Some people may think it a little unreasonable for him to want to know about your business' finances but this still impacts on your joint personal finances, so why shouldn't he be told how things are going? Your business' performance dictates your drawings, so it's just the same as you knowing what he earns.

Say he was given 3 months redundancy notice, would you like to be told of a business decision that will directly affect your personal finances? It's not that different from him showing an interest in your business life.

Re. your promise about not being angry or judgmental with him - this is going to be vital to successfully dealing with the situation.

Keep posting and best wishes!

Dave