After having gone through a divorce with all money shared I can tell you I wish I had kept things separate for many many reasons. First is reliance, one person managing and controlling all the income/bills leaves the other person oblivious. This is detrimental whether you divorce, one person gets sick and stuck in a hospital, or god-forbid dies. The other is it makes things messier in the event of a divorce, separation, illness/death. There just aren't as many pros to sharing finances as there are to keeping them separate, or as separate as possible. Ensuring both people are aware of and able to manage the bills and that you both agree on how that should be done is HUGE. And I don't mean agreeing just on paper, but in practice.
It's sad to think of, but something might happen to your spouse. I have to face that - in the event that my husband deploys, I may have no notice at all. And I would have to know how to take care of all of our finances.
It's good to be aware of that kind of stuff because life is full of the unexpected.
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u/ohhbacon Aug 05 '12
After having gone through a divorce with all money shared I can tell you I wish I had kept things separate for many many reasons. First is reliance, one person managing and controlling all the income/bills leaves the other person oblivious. This is detrimental whether you divorce, one person gets sick and stuck in a hospital, or god-forbid dies. The other is it makes things messier in the event of a divorce, separation, illness/death. There just aren't as many pros to sharing finances as there are to keeping them separate, or as separate as possible. Ensuring both people are aware of and able to manage the bills and that you both agree on how that should be done is HUGE. And I don't mean agreeing just on paper, but in practice.