Two are better than one (Eccles. 4:9). Many couples in the Western world are financially divorced; they live together in the same room, eat from the same plate, and even sleep in the same bed, but they keep their finances separate. In most cases, couples who manage their finances separately often do not know what each spouse does with their money. This is a recipe for disaster in the family’s financial affairs. It will be challenging for couples who manage their finances in this manner to maximize the benefits of synergy in financial planning and investments in marriage.
Very often, children raised in this type of “financially divorced environment” will replicate their parents’ behaviors in their own homes. Couples with comparable incomes who jointly manage their finances tend to achieve better financial outcomes than those who manage their finances separately. To manage money effectively in marriage, it is most helpful for couples to share common values, such as a shared religious faith and investment plans. These values will guide their spending decisions and help them develop a positive outlook on their shared financial plans in marriage.
Combining your finances with someone else is one of the most challenging aspects of a marriage. Joint investment in marriage leads to higher levels of marital quality and satisfaction. Couples who manage their finances together create a stronger bond in marriage than those who manage their finances separately. Separate financial couples often distrust each other and raise children who will likely follow the same financial behaviors in their own lives. Most importantly, couples who handle their finances separately tend to have lower marital satisfaction and poorer methods of resolving financial conflicts in marriage.
Couples should agree on how to pull their finances together for the benefit of the family. Couples can agree on how much each spouse can maintain in a separate account to cover minor household expenses during the marriage. This arrangement must be made mutually without mistrust. Your marriage is unique, so why wouldn’t your finances be the same? What is important in marital financial planning is that you and your spouse feel good and happy about your finances, with open and honest communication about financial affairs in the family.
Joint bank accounts in marriage are easy to maintain because each spouse can access the money at any time to make payments for the family. Since both of your names are on the account, neither of you requires written permission from your spouse to access it. This method of organizing money in a marriage can be beneficial if one spouse is unreachable. Having your finances in a joint account makes your financial life easier, as you don’t have to track multiple accounts in your marriage. A joint account simplifies financial management in marriage, eliminates the need to juggle multiple accounts, and reduces the risk of exposing your family finances to fraudsters.
Another benefit of couples combining their finances in marriage is the tax advantage this arrangement offers. The United States tax system provides more benefits to couples filing their taxes jointly than those filing their taxes as married filing separately. Asset-building capacity, which refers to the efforts made to develop productive assets such as savings, post-secondary education, a home, a business, and productive investments, is more easily achieved by couples who pool their finances together. Some objectives in life require joint efforts and the pooling of resources together.
Your spouse can be your most valuable partner in marriage. Financial planning in marriage is made significantly easier when couples maintain a joint account, especially when they plan to leave assets to each other or to their children. With a joint account in marriage, your assets will pass automatically to your partner upon your death and vice versa. However, this can be problematic if one spouse intends to leave money to a different beneficiary, such as a child from a previous marriage. Even if your will dictates that your money should be transferred to a specific beneficiary, any asset held jointly in marriage will be transferred according to the laws of joint tenancy rather than according to your will. Financial issues are woven into the very fabric of every person in a marriage, including those in the family household, and can even affect their own individual identity and personality. The cultural background of couples in marriage plays a significant role in how they manage their finances. The financial planning solutions couples adopt in marriage often stem from the learned experiences of their parents and their personal and family-of-origin backgrounds.
Maintaining a separate account in marriage can create suspicion and distrust unless couples agree on this and have special reasons for doing so. When there is no joint account in a marriage, couples often spend a significant amount of time discussing finances. However, because couples do not have access to each other’s bank accounts, they will need to communicate more frequently regarding spending, investments, and financial issues related to supporting their children and achieving financial goals in marriage.
There is no one-size-fits-all strategy for managing money in marriage. Financial stress in marriage may be intensified due to intrapersonal issues, such as each spouse’s value expectations, generational and culturally learned financial management skills, and attitudes toward money. For marital peace to thrive in marriage, couples should choose a method that works best for them as a couple. We should always remember that our decisions have consequences in life. There are opportunity cost principles in financial decisions in marriage; either you will achieve one or forgo the other.
Marital life can be challenging enough without having to worry about financial conflicts in marriage, and the benefits of a good marriage are more than worth the efforts required to make it great. Couples should strive to eliminate one of the major sources of conflicts in marriage, which is money. It will be helpful, especially for newly married couples, to take some financial management classes together and discuss ways to manage their finances and make sure that they share the same objective and agree on a single vision for where they want their new family to be financially. In our contemporary culture, finances in marriage have become a symbol of worth, power, competence, freedom, prestige, masculinity, control, authority, an instrument for manipulation, and security—all of these can become areas of marital conflicts. Financial issues in marriage may symbolize internal conflicts among spouses, such as over-reliance on each other, responsibility, exploitation, pride, and power struggles.
Once couples have a game plan for their finances, they should stick to it. If they get off track on any of these plans, they should not point fingers at each other; they should just adjust these plans as necessary as possible to ensure their desired results. Designing a plan for financial success in marriage is not as difficult as staying true to that plan, but couples must acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses to each other so that they can work better as a team. Marriage and finance are a roller coaster ride and a part of marital life. Couples should know that there are ups, downs, and fast curves coming their way, so they should hold each other tightly and prepare as best as they can to get through financial conflicts in marriage.
When couples are committed to marriage, it becomes hard to separate financial discussions, especially if they live together and share everything. A worthy piece of advice for couples is to develop this mindset: “It’s not your money or my money, but our money.” Couples should not feel bad about spending money on themselves if they are responsible for expenses and understand that how they use money in marriage affects their partners. Communication about money in marriage and being honest about it is a sine qua non for marital peace in the marital union. It promotes healthy marriage and harmony and enhances your romance in marriage. When couples come together in marriage, their spouses’ assets and debts are theirs unless there are prenuptial agreements before marriage. Conflict resolution about money in marriage is possible if couples understand themselves with love, caring, and compassion. Your love for money or material possessions pales in comparison with your love for your spouse. Material things may not last in your marriage, but your spouse, whom the Lord brought into your life with a solemn oath of “for better and for worse,” will be there for you in good times and in bad times until death separates both of you, and that is how it is supposed to be.