Oh no! Our joint bank account must mean my worst impulses are sending my abusive spouse and I towards mutual destruction! If you are truly living together as a family then separate finances are a farce and the matter of separate or joint accounts is immaterial to the function of the household. Perhaps instead of insulting people for doing what works for them, you should just do what works for you.
This guy came to us all for advice because what he was doing wasn't working out and we all supplied advice that worked for us. $8k worth of goods and burger wrappers didn't just appear on his doorstep overnight so this pattern of behavior could have been caught sooner if he could monitor their finances. A joint account is a perfect way to accomplish this because he would have caught the spending the first month she made the minimum payment on her shiny new credit card. How he was otherwise oblivious to how she spent her time and money throughout the day may be another concern, but he'd have had one fewer problem with a joint bank account from my experience.
If you are truly living together as a family then separate finances are a farce
"if you really loved me, you wouldn't have your own money." this is the exact phrasing an abuser uses to keep their victim from pursuing autonomy. it's called economic abuse and it's real, whether you want to believe in it or not. forced pooling of funds is a crucial tactic of abusers.
this situation came up because one partner engaged in reckless spending and the immediate damage was limited by the OPs ability to zero out high interest debt. now they can work on their relationship, strategize a way to rebuild the nest egg, and find out what happened without forking over 22% interest to chase bank or whoever.
having only a common pot would not have prevented this, as one partner could always go out and open a line of credit on their own without telling their partner or creating an opportunity to monitor its use. or are you imagining that having only a joint checking account prevents a partner from getting their own line of credit? them having all their money in a single joint account would give full access to the emergency fund to the reckless partner.
Abusers can manipulate normal social behavior to their own ends. That doesn't mean normal social behavior is automatically abuse. Separate accounts aren't a panacea against abuse either. An abuser could use income disparity and separate accounts to justify luxury expenses for themselves as their partner scrapes by. In a household contending with bills, children, groceries, home repairs, and transportation costs, too many expenses are shared to keep your finances completely separate. If you don't have shared expenses, you're more roommates with benefits rather than a couple.
And I guess an irresponsible partner could open a line of credit and never pay the minimum balance either, but you have to resort to crazy extremes in order to make your point. What does that say about you or your point if outliers are the only cases that justify it?
so, because you can't imagine how a couple can maintain separate finances except in one single common pot, it's impossible...? despite others in here saying they do it?
the logistics are simple: party A has their account, party B has their account, and there exists a joint A-B account. mutual bills are paid through the joint account. mutual goals are saved for in joint savings accounts. individual goals are saved for in personal accounts. surprises/gifts, miscellany/discretionary spending come from personal accounts. couples with unequal income can arrange whatever distribution and management responsibility through automatic direct deposits and create individual/shared budgets with total transparency, or they can just hash out shared expenses / proportional responsibility for them and keep the rest to themselves.
nothing i am talking about is an outlier. financial troubles are consistently in the top 5 reasons for dissolution of marriage and even among those that remain together, financial troubles are a consistent source of unhappiness. while there are structural causes of this, humans do get manipulated into surrendering independence in abusive relationships. impulse control disorders are real and can manifest suddenly. these are things that happen every day to people.
you're the one insisting that all other couples keeping personal accounts makes those relationships "a farce". yours is the extreme position here. and, FYI, your complete inability to recognize other, common household financial arrangements as being part of a healthy, committed romantic relationship among equal partners while lashing out at everyone with rude dismissals and personal attacks is saying something about you.
your complete inability to recognize other, common household financial arrangements as being part of a healthy, committed romantic relationship among equal partners while lashing out at everyone with rude dismissals and personal attacks is saying something about you.
Oh no! Our joint bank account must mean my worst impulses are sending my abusive spouse and I towards mutual destruction! If you are truly living together as a family then separate finances are a farce and the matter of separate or joint accounts is immaterial to the function of the household. Perhaps instead of insulting people for doing what works for them, you should just do what works for you.
This guy came to us all for advice because what he was doing wasn't working out and we all supplied advice that worked for us. $8k worth of goods and burger wrappers didn't just appear on his doorstep overnight so this pattern of behavior could have been caught sooner if he could monitor their finances. A joint account is a perfect way to accomplish this because he would have caught the spending the first month she made the minimum payment on her shiny new credit card. How he was otherwise oblivious to how she spent her time and money throughout the day may be another concern, but he'd have had one fewer problem with a joint bank account from my experience.
"if you really loved me, you wouldn't have your own money." this is the exact phrasing an abuser uses to keep their victim from pursuing autonomy. it's called economic abuse and it's real, whether you want to believe in it or not. forced pooling of funds is a crucial tactic of abusers.
this situation came up because one partner engaged in reckless spending and the immediate damage was limited by the OPs ability to zero out high interest debt. now they can work on their relationship, strategize a way to rebuild the nest egg, and find out what happened without forking over 22% interest to chase bank or whoever.
having only a common pot would not have prevented this, as one partner could always go out and open a line of credit on their own without telling their partner or creating an opportunity to monitor its use. or are you imagining that having only a joint checking account prevents a partner from getting their own line of credit? them having all their money in a single joint account would give full access to the emergency fund to the reckless partner.
Abusers can manipulate normal social behavior to their own ends. That doesn't mean normal social behavior is automatically abuse. Separate accounts aren't a panacea against abuse either. An abuser could use income disparity and separate accounts to justify luxury expenses for themselves as their partner scrapes by. In a household contending with bills, children, groceries, home repairs, and transportation costs, too many expenses are shared to keep your finances completely separate. If you don't have shared expenses, you're more roommates with benefits rather than a couple.
And I guess an irresponsible partner could open a line of credit and never pay the minimum balance either, but you have to resort to crazy extremes in order to make your point. What does that say about you or your point if outliers are the only cases that justify it?
so, because you can't imagine how a couple can maintain separate finances except in one single common pot, it's impossible...? despite others in here saying they do it?
the logistics are simple: party A has their account, party B has their account, and there exists a joint A-B account. mutual bills are paid through the joint account. mutual goals are saved for in joint savings accounts. individual goals are saved for in personal accounts. surprises/gifts, miscellany/discretionary spending come from personal accounts. couples with unequal income can arrange whatever distribution and management responsibility through automatic direct deposits and create individual/shared budgets with total transparency, or they can just hash out shared expenses / proportional responsibility for them and keep the rest to themselves.
nothing i am talking about is an outlier. financial troubles are consistently in the top 5 reasons for dissolution of marriage and even among those that remain together, financial troubles are a consistent source of unhappiness. while there are structural causes of this, humans do get manipulated into surrendering independence in abusive relationships. impulse control disorders are real and can manifest suddenly. these are things that happen every day to people.
you're the one insisting that all other couples keeping personal accounts makes those relationships "a farce". yours is the extreme position here. and, FYI, your complete inability to recognize other, common household financial arrangements as being part of a healthy, committed romantic relationship among equal partners while lashing out at everyone with rude dismissals and personal attacks is saying something about you.
anyway, i'm done. good luck or whatever.
Projection much?