It's very common for people to say she earns her money, so she gets to spend whatever she wants. And that's one way to look at it.
Cash or financial assets seem to be easier to split up. Cos it's quantifiable. And most of the time, we like to split this up cos it's convenient. My stuff vs your stuff. So we can draw boundaries on who controls what. And we, as humans, all like some form of control over our lives and stuff.
But as I discussed with my wife, we realized that it's becoming quite clear that we don't draw lines like that.
If we want to sell our house. Can we do so without 2 signatures? No right?
It doesn't matter if someone pays for 80% of the house. 2 signatures are still needed.
So what's so different from the house as compared to other assets?
Just cos it CAN be split up easier? Is that the reason why we keep our assets split up?
Note: we keep our assets separately to maximize our interest earned but investment assets are put in a joint account and joint CDP.
But does this mean she owns exactly 50% of XYZ stock? By law, yes. By practice, we don't look at it this way. Financial decisions are a big part of being in a relationship. And what to invest in and how to spend money should all be pursued together, at least in our view.
So it's not, your money or my money, it's our money. Like its our house or our kids, or our car.
This doesn't mean that we want to own or spend each other's money, rather, it's like, we have a say in what we should spend on or what we should do with our lives.
Example. If a husband goes out today and buys a BMW without his wife's knowledge, on his own money, if you are the wife, would you be happy?
Some wives will be happy cos... Woohoo new car.
Some wives might think, his money, his choice.
Other wives may think, eh, you got so much excess cash, maybe you could do more for the family instead of frivolous purchases.
Now, everyone has their own way of running their relationship and their financial decisions in the relationship so whatever floats your boat.
It's not just about money.
There are many other decisions which are made together.
Like if a husband get an overseas posting, and he has to uproot and go for 3 years.
It's usually a joint decision right?
Some husbands may think, it's my career I'm and going, if you want to follow me, fine, else I'll just go myself. As a wife would you be happy with that?
Other husbands might discuss and the wife is ok to be separated for the 3 years.
Or some wives might be willing to give up their career and relocate along with this husbands.
At times, the husband might also be willing to give up the posting, even if I means sacrificing career growth.
It's usually a joint decision in a regular relationship.
Like, I would love to go camping, but I'm sure she would reject it outright. It's not always about the money. I'm totally aware that I will never go camping, cos we don't do recreational activities without each other, and she doesn't like outdoor activities.
Or I may want to live in a trailer in Australia, and yet, once again, I know this will never happen.
And I'm OK with that. I won't just plan it with my friends and go without her. That's not how we work.
Many of our life decisions are made together. Where do we want to stay in future, do we want to have kids, what car to buy, what to eat for dinner, etc...
Why should how we spend money be any different?
Just cos it's easy to quantify and easy to split up?
Cos she earned her own and I earned my own?
But then I could look at holidays split up as well...
I could go on camping trips with my friends. But I don't. I know some couples do trips with friends. But we don't do that.
We could look at where to eat separately as well. She can eat elsewhere and I can eat somewhere and meet back at a place after dinner.
She can watch whatever movie and I can watch whatever movie and we could meet up again after the show.
Or I could just buy whatever toy I want. Or she can buy whatever product that she wants.
Or I could stay at my parents place and she can stay at her parents place.
Or... Hey wait... Are we even married?
Of course everyone draws their lines differently.
Some people think, my time, I do what I want with it, my money, etc etc.
To us, we integrate our lives. She is a part of me as I am a part of her. This is our relationship and how we would like to build our lives and future together.
We could have a relationship that we control our own decisions and determine what we want to do with our money, or where we want to go for our trips and if the other party doesn't like it, then too bad, we just make our own decisions.
It's not that we want to gain ownership of each other's assets or money or time, but rather, the decision is made jointly. Just cos money is easy to split up doesn't mean it's any different from any other part of our relationship.
And amazingly, this relationship is vastly different from our relationship with our parents, or siblings or friends. Cos... Well... This relationship is ours. We chose this relationship and we can choose to build the relationship anyway we want to. This is the difference between being friends and being married. The future is ours to build.
We do not choose our parents or siblings and as time passes, our paths will diverge as we walk our own roads.
We choose our friends but even if our values are similar, we might not walk the same path or have the same goals.
But we choose our spouses and decide to build a future together. If our future goals differ or do not coincide then I think it would be better to just remain friends. Isn't that the whole point of getting married? Else why bother getting married if we are planning to live separate lives?
Essentially, as we grow in our relationship, we don't look at things like, yours or mine. Everything is ours.
Of course there's also a whole load of middle ground. Some couples lead independent lives, others integrate it as much as possible, and there's so much space in between. For us, this is how we are building our relationship, consciously or sub consciously, and it works for us.
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