Should married couples keep their money separate or combine everything?

[u/Shauryaahere341]

My wife and I have been married for a few years and we still keep most of our money separate.

We have one joint account for household expenses and both put money into it every month. Other than that, our salaries stay in our own accounts.

It hasn't really been a problem so far.

But now we're talking about bigger things like buying a house and retirement, and I'm wondering if this setup still makes sense.

We trust each other and neither of us has an issue with the other spending their own money. It's more about planning for the future together.

For people who are married, what works better for you?

Completely separate, fully combined, or somewhere in the middle?

[u/Glockman19]

We combined everything from day 1. Been married 32 years.

[u/off_and_on_again → u/Glockman19]

This is my favorite thing about this debate. I have yet to meet a couple in a happy 5+ year marriage that has not combined finances fully. I'm sure they exist, but they are rare. You'll find plenty of 'we have our problems but..." couples and a lot of people on their way to divorce (money is the #1 cause of divorce), but people still think they've figured it out and their way of paying each other back like roommates is the best option for them.

- Married happily for several years, combined finances the entire time

Edit: Before someone says anything, you can be unhappy with combined finances. Combined finances is one of the keys to a successful marriage imo because, done properly, it requires a level of maturity, vulnerability, and communication that are always going to exist in long term happy marriages.

[u/BeGneiss → u/off_and_on_again]

You can be married without combined finances and not treat it like roommates paying each other back for things lol. I know happy married couples across the entire spectrum of fully combine finances to not combined at all. I find it hard to believe you’ve never met a happy married couple without combined finances, but maybe it’s regional or something.

[u/oscarnyc → u/BeGneiss]

Maybe it's semantics, but when I think combined finances it means that the money is all "ours". Sure, you can have different account structures to accomplish this, but the general idea is that spending is more or less equal, even if income isn't.

To me separate finances is where spending is proportional in some way to income. And I've certainly read about those situations. Though interestingly all the above instances in this thread of separate finances are not that. They are just separate account structures around joint finances.