Having a hard time merging finances - Page 2

[mnnice]

Originally Posted by Jane91 

Strangely enough, I just spent a little time this morning talking to a friend who is spending today trying to keep her sister and her 5 kids off the streets and out of a homeless shelter.  Her sister's ex has not paid a dime of child support in 10 years.  I'm sure when she married him she never thought he would refuse to work and refuse to support his children.

"If this guy who promised me forever used the phrase "premarital asset" in front of me, it would be nuclear war." ."

In a situation where you have chosen to become economically dependent on your husband, I can see why it would.

However, both my husband and I continue to work, we have both spent substantial (and roughly equivalent) monies saved prior to marriage on our home, a car that meets our family's needs, medical spending for the girls, etc., etc.  We came to marriage at 36 and 39 years old, both with prior savings and in his case a small inheritance.

I have saved more prior to marriage because I made some different choices, choices that my husband could have easily made given his abilities and background.  He chose the 9-5, free on weekends, don't have to think about the job after you clock out route.  I chose a job that requires me to work a number of weekends, long hours (including occasional overnights) and a level of responsibility that sometimes wakes me up in the middle of the night worried about whether I handled an issue appropriately. 

I am 100% fine with his benefiting economically (which he is) from my job while we are married.  I benefit from his job as well, while we both benefit even more from all the other intangible things we bring to each other within the marriage (which is a source of great happiness to both of us).

I am not sure why, if we were to divorce, he should be entitled to half of my labor and of my savings that occurred prior to my marriage.  Further, I'm not sure why I should somehow have to make that available to him now as "proof" of my love and trust.  In part, I feel I owe it to my kids to make sure that no matter what happens within our marriage that they will be well taken care of and protected and these pre-marital savings could help ensure that.

I do agree that I need to work on getting comfortable with merging our current ongoing finances, and I think I can get there (though we may have some real rip-roaring "discussions" in the meantime).

Honestly, if you felt that strongly about this in the first place I would have asked for a prenump.  I assume you do not live in a community property state like I do. 

DH and I merged slowly (first lived together with a pretty roommate like fashion, then in a house we bought together with a three pot system, my money, his money, household money, then one joint account.  Currently, we have three checking accounts again. It's for record keeping purposes and not because there is are three pots of money anymore.

I also guess it wouldn't occur to me to think of inheritances as sole property of the individual that inherited it. If my folks die I am the one what gets the inheritance, but figuring out how to manage it from the moment we get it would be a joint decison making process.  I would expect the exact same senario if DH was the one that recieved an inheritance. 

[texmati]

There is a difference between planning or thinking about that eventuality; and actually hurting your marriage to plan for the divorce. Again-- I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with having assets in your name only, if your husband and you are in agreement about it. But that seems to be not the case.

And, I hear you on a situation like your friend's where the man ran off with a bunch of money. But I still don't understand why that means that you don't want to merge your current finances. Perhaps there is some compromise to be made there?

I find the idea that a woman, who is responsible for the well-being of small children and is not independently wealthy, has failed to give any thought to what would happen in case of a divorce to be extremely troubling.  Some of the reasons why children and women are more economically vulnerable are within women's control.

[Maluhia]

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