Right? This was my first thought, too. They definitely should have.

My husband and I do the same and it works great for us as well :)

That is not true. In the event of a divorce the only items that get divided between the couple are items which they purchased after getting married. Anything you brought into the marriage, is legally yours after the marriage dissolves. If the couch belonged to you before you and your husband got married, then it's yours after the divorce unless you discuss otherwise. A joint bank account may be divided down the middle but even then the courts do look at financial records and all that if they are asked to and determine that one has more claim than another. It's just all a long complicated process and most people don't want to drag it out for very long. The people who think everything is automatically divided a certain way have either never been divorced, pushed for a "quick" divorce which basically means that they cut corners and don't actually fairly decide everything, or they didn't get an actual divorce attorney.

#39, OP is from England, #18 is from somewhere else in west Europe and you are explaining American laws as if somehow they applied to either case.

The division of assets from prior to marriage is pretty much the same for both. If you brought something in, you take it out. The exception is if an item has increased in value since you got married. If that has occurred than the difference in value is counted as part of the assets acquired after marriage. They do have better laws for the division of assets acquired after the marriage that help protect stay at home parents, but the laws regarding items that you already owned before you married are pretty much equal.

Even in the United States divorce laws vary a bit from state to state. Ohio, for instance, is a community property state where almost everything is divided down the middle. Even retirement funds.

I've known lots of people with great marriages, so I disagree there.

Good luck finding a guy to sign up for that. Pull your weight or gtfo

"They go half and half on expenses and who does that? Roommates. In my opinion, you shouldn't have a roommate type of relationship with your significant other. Doing so, you set the relationship up for failure from the start. Married or simply committed, if you want something solid you have to become one. " Yes, this way every time you want to buy something you need to clear it with your partner. The smart thing to do is have his account, her account, and our account. That way you can put all the money for bills, groceries, and the like in the our account that both of you have access to and the "fun" money in the individual accounts. That way you don't wind up with issues like Jane accidentally spending money that was earmarked for a bill Tim was paying on a bottle wine while out with her friends. She only spends the money in her account. He spends his. Together they spend theirs. It also keeps one from being able to deprive the other of any privacy at all by snooping on their purchases and finding out their birthday gifts early.

I'm only speaking from experience and I'm married so it works for myself and the "guy who signed up for that." I saw it work for my parents and my grandparents. Couples I know struggle with their relationship because they are set on dividing everything. It's not even about not pulling your own weight. It's about pulling the weight TOGETHER but that seems to fly over people's heads. Either way, I only gave my opinion on the matter.

#40 I actually agree with your way of going about it, I see that working just fine. But in the end it's whatever works for each couple and I'm fully aware of that.

I'm not against separate accounts, but Those are piss poor excuses to not have a joint one. You can circumvent someone snooping to find out their presents by withdrawing and making purchases in cash. You can avoid the issue of money for bills being spent on other things through good old communication. Thinking your other half is going to spend the bill money or snoop through the bank records is more or less a trust issue and in my opinion is potentially indicative of an underlying problem in the relationship.

I think that whether a couple gets a joint bank account or not really depends on their situation. Joint bank accounts don't automatically mean more trust, just like separate accounts don't automatically mean less trust. For example, an abusive partner could use a joint account to monitor his spouse, and a loving couple could have separate accounts and still trust each other. Some might say "if you really trust your partner, don't you trust them enough to share accounts" the same as one could say "if you really trust your partner, don't you trust them to keep their own account." It's all a matter of perspective. In any case, depending on their situation, either joint or separate accounts may be advantageous to a couple, so I don't think it's wise to judge a couple solely on their bank account. I think the FML part of this post is not that the husband didn't want a joint bank account. I think the FML is that the mere suggestion of it was enough to make him want a divorce (how shallow must his love be!) and that neither of them had the foresight to discuss finances BEFORE getting married.

#58 While I do plan on getting a joint account in the future, I can understand how (depending on their situation) a couple might benefit from separate ones. For example, one bank might offer one partner the best deal for their situation (ie student), and another bank will offer the other partner a better deal for their situation (ie work related). They each might prefer different banks for whatever reason: family tradition, different perks offered, great past service, better human relations versus better account benefits, etc... Maybe one of them entered the relationship with a terrible credit rating, so the spouse with good credit keeps a separate account to facilitate getting loans. Perhaps they have separate mother tongues, and while they do speak a common language, when it comes to official/legal business transactions they prefer being served in their primary language. Maybe one of the spouses has some sort of money-related addiction (ie shopaholic) and they've mutually decided to keep separate accounts (as a precaution) while they work on the problem together. Maybe they just don't care whether it's one way or the other. The list goes on :P My belief: to each their own!

"You can avoid the issue of money for bills being spent on other things through good old communication. Thinking your other half is going to spend the bill money or snoop through the bank records is more or less a trust issue and in my opinion is potentially indicative of an underlying problem in the relationship." You can have very open communication but still have one person in the relationship who can't handle being trusted with money. I know a couple different people who are chronic "I'll just pay it back before blah blah blah" people and they are constantly failing to get the money to make up for what they spent. I also know someone who is just plain awful about keeping track of their spending. They try but still screw up their check book on a regular basis. As for the snooping, that is not circumvented by cash purchases because then you still get the fun job of explaining why you withdrew however much money you did. People are often nosy. I also never said those were the only reasons to not have only one bank account that you also share with your partner. They are just very obvious ones.

All I have to say now is that if you love your money more than you love your spouse, don't get married. If you want to live like roommates, don't get married. Just live together, shack up, whatever that way you won't have to worry about a messy divorce either. If you want your independence so bad, don't get married! It's quite simple. If you're not ready for the commitment or trust your partner enough with something as petty as money, don't get married. I don't care what anyone says, the moment you let money define and divide your relationship, you're already ******.

You can trust your partner with many things but still not trust them with other things. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. Loving someone doesn't not suddenly make their faults go away. You can love someone and because of that love know them well enough to know they shouldn't be trusted to handle the bills. The same way you can know that someone shouldn't be trusted to do the laundry because they always manage to dye something or shrink something. It can also be equated to knowing that someone runs perpetually late so you start telling them that things start a half an hour sooner than they do. If you love someone you adjust for their faults and they adjust for yours.