We have set up an "allowance" for the one not paying the bills, that's me btw. My dh took over bill payment when I went back to college and I've never taken it back.
There are many ways to do this. For us, I have a direct deposit from his work check to my personal checking acct. This money is our grocery budget and it is my responsibility to buy groceries. He takes care of the rest. I use a joint credit card for clothing, doctor appts, medications, gas, etc. Of course, major purchases like clothing are discussed ahead of the trip, as well as doctor visits or dentist. This would not work well for your dh since he is a bit forgetful from your description. But having his own checking account with an allowance might.
The envelope method is a cash method of budgeting. It works quite well. An envelop labeled and the cash or check is put in, usually cash. So, for example: you might have envelops labels Grocery, Dining Out, Car Insurance, Mortgage, Electric or just Utilities, Dh's Allowance (eating out at work, a magazine, a coke on the drive home, what ever it is that he buys during the month that isn't a big huge catagory like Home Improvement), etc. With each pay check either a cash or check is put into the corresponding envelop. Everyone knows where the money is at, everyone has their limit in an envelop, it really does prevent over spending when it's all cash and items like Car Ins which we pay 2X a year, we can set aside each month the necessary amount to make that payment every 6 months or Car Tax is another one.
There no 1 right way for every couple. We were told not to have separate checking accounts in a finance class, sorry, didn't work for us. I haven't seen a married couple yet that this works for unless they use the cash envelop method or something similar. Two people using the ATM cards and Debit Cards from 1 account is just a nightmare, especially when 1 thinks this and the other thinks something else about where the money needs to go. I also work at home and have 2 businesses, 1 still in development.
BTW - budget counseling is a thing I do and I went back to college to finish my Accounting and Finance degree some many years ago now.
HTH, you sound like you've got a good handle on things and just need a little help in the area of keeping it together with 1 joint account. If communications becomes an issue, we recently went to a marriage conference and were given a tile, who ever holds the tile gets to speak (there were other rules as well, but mostly just non-accusatory type language and speaking facts with how that makes the speaker feel)
