Wife offers deal

[revots33]

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It's only complicated if you let it be complicated.

I've been married for over 5 years, I handle all finances (bills), we have one joint account and it's perfect. I say, "Hey, I'd like to buy this Civilization 4 expansion" She says "Cool" She says "There's a craft fair I'm going to on Saturday, I'm going to take $100" I say "Awesome"

I don't know why I like to pop in to these threads to defend marriage, but it can be pretty damn awesome...

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I agree with this and my wife and I are exactly the same way, but some people are so damn weird about money.

For ex. my sister-in-law and her husband each have annual "budgets" for things like clothes, haircuts, sporting goods, etc. It's freaking insane for a grown, gainfully employed man to have to check his "haircut budget" balance before he can go get a haircut.

[Zetack]

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Wow, marriage sounds awful after reading this thread. So complicated.

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It's only complicated if you let it be complicated.

I've been married for over 5 years, I handle all finances (bills), we have one joint account and it's perfect. I say, "Hey, I'd like to buy this Civilization 4 expansion" She says "Cool" She says "There's a craft fair I'm going to on Saturday, I'm going to take $100" I say "Awesome"

I don't know why I like to pop in to these threads to defend marriage, but it can be pretty damn awesome...

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For the folks for whom its easy, good for you. But money is the number one source of arguments in marriage, and it should be incredibly obvious why this is so.

Just a personal example. My wife and I had a mountain of credit card debt. We spend two years paying it down. And finally I wrote a check and got to say to my wife, one more month! Next month we pay the credit cards completely off! And then the cards came the next month and there was 15 hundred dollars of new spending on the cards and we couldn't pay it off that month. (about a hundred of that was money I'd spent).

Now there was nothing unreasonable about what she'd spent money on and while I was disapointed that it took us another month to get the things paid off, there wasn't a problem. But suppose there'd been something on there that seemed ridiculous, like a pair of $500 shoes or something.

Isn't the potential for friction obvious?

But she's also a grown woman and if she weren't married to me, and she wanted to spend money on, or even run up some debt to buy some $500 dollar shoes, she doesn't have to defend her decision to any body. Should she have to now that she's married? Does it matter whether a purchase is "frivilous" or important, a necessity, necessity we can get by without, or merely a desire? Does it matter if we have enough cash on hand or whether we have to go into debt to do it? Does it matter that I make the money and she's a stay at home mom? How about me, can I buy that $2500 big screen I've got my eye on? Can I blow 600 bucks in a poker game? What kinds of things do we need to talk about before spending money on, and what can we just pop for?

Now my wife and I manage with our money just fine, but the potential for conflict is so obvious, that I'm surprised its not taken as a given that this is an issue that needs to be worked with.

And no, it doesn't make marriage a nightmare, but its just one of the adjustments that comes with joining your life (and finances) to another person. Your decision making factors simply can not remain the same.

--Zetack

[MicroBob]

Yeah, that's pretty dumb.

I've actually been divorced and don't think marriage is all that bad. Looking forward to trying it again.

Just because some person has money-issues in their marriage does not mean that all marriage is bad or has to be the same.
That's like looking at all the violence and shootings that have involved married couples and saying, "Holy crap! I don't want to get shot so there's no freaking way I'm getting married."

Some people are psychos and are stupid....other people aren't. I advise dating the latter group....although there's a rumor floating around that they might not be quite as good in bed.

[Merek007]

Marriage or simlar crap(we have lived together for 13 years) only works if you can talk... You can have any number of accounts or budgets or whatever suits your personalities, but if you can't say "we can't afford that" or you have to hide stuff, it is going to fail(or the worst it will fail and you will stay together) The OP says he has lots of money but bankroll issues.... which means Money Management issues.... which can cause stress in relationships... avoid the stress.... They seem to have talked(already ahead of most couples) and came up with a plan... It wouldn't work for us, but we are wackos..so whatever.. THE PRoblems I see are 1)the money is too little for variance and 2) their plan will keep it that way.. Maybe try this to start... talk about reloading(if, when, how much) and plan to keep the first 10K-15K before the sharing. Or 70/30 until up to 10K+ then 30/70 family. Orginal plan sounds like it will lead to either a conflict or change down the road.. Try to get a better plan early... [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] PS avoid relationship advice from single 18 year guys that spend 60+ hours a week staring at a computer and think just because they know how to repeatedly use thier right hand, they know anything about a relationship. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

But for poker advice listen to them, ignore me.

[Boise123]

Mariage is not bad, it's the divorce that hurts.