Building financial security ( Archived) (14)

This was some time ago, and my then partner and I were not legally married, although we did introduce each other as such. Here is what we decided to do while living together: Almost 100% of the time her income was about 2/3 of mine, net, that is. I also had better overtime opportunities than she did, but we did not throw that into the mix. Almost all of the time, with perhaps a few exclusions, I paid the cafe, bar and tavern bills for us both. I did not mind at all. We were renting at the time, so her share of the rent was 2/3 of one half the rent. The grocery and utility bill was 50/50. Car costs were 2/3 of her half, as initially she had brought the car. We each later had our own. Trips/vacations were paid by me. Generally, if there was a question of sharing, and we agreed the item should be, she paid 2/3 of her half. We were both OK with that.

In my first marriage we had nothing so financial security was not an issue that we needed to debate. We made a budget for ourselves even including the 2 cent deposit on soda bottles.
My second marriage was a completely different story. By then I/we had accumulated a nice estate and when we split up we divided up all our marital assets equally. In the ensuing years she pissed away everything and today can barely make ends meet. She made the mistake of thinking that just because we did quite well while we were together that she somehow had a talent to growing wealth. She failed to realize that it was me who handled all the money in the marriage, all she did was spend it.
I think it's important to leave love out of the equation. Love has nothing to do with managing money. The other thing is it's probably a good idea to stay within your own monetary circle. This way there's less chance of money being a deciding factor in who marries who. This way the questions and doubts about motives don't arise.

it is difficult to keep love out of it, though, if love is there between the two people. What did you think of how my girl and I handled things? (You can be honest...)

If it worked for you guys then who am I to say it's no good? I was in a similar scenareo with a gf a while back, we even bought a house together. We had a joint checking acct which we both put the same amount in every 2 weeks from which we paid all the bills. Sometimes I made more than her sometimes not.
As to love & money, I'd like to see a law passed making it ilegal to get a marriage license without a prenup. This would remove all the hard feelings about 1 person wanting one because it would be the law and it would take a big burdan off divorce courts.