A lot of men I know keep their income and their finances a secret from their
spouse.  Their wives do not have any access to the family savings and are
effectively earning their own money or else put on an "allowance."  I find
this beyond belief but, believe me, it is not rare.  

Do those of you who are married or otherwise attached, share all aspects of
family money management with your spouse?  If not, could you share with us
why?

13 responses total.

My wife takes care of all bills and money...This is my choice...I am terrible
with handling money and to her it just comes natural...Dont get me wrong all
our finances are right here in the computer where I can look at them if I want
too...

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Would this have changed Valerie if you had gotten married?

I think the people who don't share financial info, go out and cash their
checks on payday and don't use any kind of bank by mail, autodeposit, etc.
.  Others may not review the financial info, but there is no effort to hide
income and/or spending.

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sorta like prenuptial agreements?

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it does in fact make sense....my wife and I were married at a young age...and
as I have mentioned earlier we do share the finances...

The implications for what can happen seem a bit frightening.  What 
happens if the husband dies, or is incapacitated?  Will the wife have
to go through probate to get enough money to eat and pay the mortgage?

I do most of the money processing in our household, but keep my wife
actively involved in making plans and deciding on stratagies and
priorities.  Or at least I try to.

What do you mean by finances?  I know a couple where the woman balances
the checkbooks but the man writes the checks and if they go shopping
together, he always goes up to the cash register to pay for things.  Would
that be considered "sharing the finances"?  (This said woman doesn't write
a check unless her life depends on it) 

Re: #5, #7

I know a couple who keep separate bank accounts because they needed that
"insurance" when they were first getting married.  It is the second marriage
for both of them and I know the first one for both of them resulted in
disaster, so they wanted to have a "back-up" in case things went wrong again.
However, things haven't gone wrong and they have been married almost 14 years
now.

My first marriage, we shared a bank account.  It was a disaster.

This time, I have a savings account and my husband has a checking account.
Each of us have our names on the other's account, just for safety, but I don't
write checks and if Larry needs more cash for the bills, he asks me to
withdraw the money from savings.  I have my paychech electronically deposited,
half in checking and half in savings.

Why?  Well, I have never been good with money.  I found it was much better
for me to avoid checking accounts, so I had the savings account when we were
married.  Larry had the checking account.  One of his gifts to me has been
the luxury of not having to deal with the money stuff.  I know how, but I hate
it.  It makes my stomache hurt and gives me a case of the jitters -- probably
in part because of the disaster money was in my first marriage.  Larry is much
better at dealing with that stuff and it doesn't bother him.

He likes to say that we split the financial burden equally: I earn it, he
spends it.  ;)

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Is that a common joke I'd somehow missed?  <blush>  And here I thought he was
being clever.

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