The Relationship Chronicles: So Long, Lone Ranger

"I promise I'll let you know before I buy anything for my bike," B-friend says to me. This is supposed to allay any concerns I might have regarding opening joint checking and credit card accounts.

We've been wanting to do this, even before we got engaged, but now it seems imperative. It feels wrong having to pull out both our wallets to pay for dinner. But it also feels strange combining our money, like we're suddenly transfusing each other. What if we're the wrong blood types? Isn't that lethal?

I told B-friend I wasn't going to change my name; I couldn't imagine waking up the day after our wedding and being Jory Markman.

"It has nothing to do with your name," I explained. "I've just become very attached to mine." I've spent, collectively, years with administrative personnel and customer service reps trying to get them to spell it correctly. I've got a routine down when I leave a message with someone:

"Lemme spell that for you: D-E-S, as in Sam, J-A-R, D, as in David, I-N, as in Nancy, S, as in Sam..."

I've bought a domain name, invested in business cards and, well, I like my name. He has no argument with that. But incorporating our accounts, he says, just makes sense.

I've got no argument there, but my personal finance habits are deeply ingrained, practically seared into my brain since the day my father told me as a child, "If you decide to get married, elope. I'm not paying for a wedding." Being 10 at the time, I figured, to hell with you anyway, Old Man, I'll have my very own big event wedding, cause I'm gonna be rich and live in my own skyscraper!" I was too young to know about Co-op Boards.

With some exceptions I've considered myself on my own financially, independent to a fault, always insistent on paying my way, even more than my share if I get to proceed with no strings attached. I've got a handle on MY money, period. Add someone else's to the equation and I get confused.

I looked back at him like I do when I'm the designated banker at a group dinner, and I'm trying to figure out five different tabs after being handed a fistful of twenties.

"So let me make sure I have this right and understand how this will work," I say.

Immediately I thought back to last Christmas, when I went shopping with my married twin sister, and she felt guilty spending a lot of money on her husband's gift, since, in effect, she was spending his money. Sure it's nice to share money to pay for shared expenses, but then you lose the pleasure of spending on yourself and on the other person.

"OK," I say. "And if I spend on something personal from our account, I'll reimburse us."

B-Friend pointed out that incorporating our expenses didn't mean eliminating the ones that didn't apply to us both. "Having drinks with your girlfriends and spending on yourself is OK with me," he said. "I trust that whatever you spend our money on you'll be smart about."

"Does that mean Tampax and my hair stuff too?" I usually reserved these items for my own shopping trips. He nodded, and shrugged his shoulders. I imagined he would be OK with that if I was OK with the occasional hunk of premium red meat.

Please understand how revolutionary the concept of sharing is to me. Not just sharing money, but trusting someone else to act in your best interests. I knew a man who I thought was nuts because he married a woman who was in the hole financially. I couldn't help thinking, "what a sucker". Yet it's not that cut and dried. This woman wasn't Anna Nicole Smith, but the mother of his children, the woman who rubbed his head after work, and she was willing to change the way she wielded a credit card. Fair deal. This man knew right off the bat that he wasn't going to be the Lone Ranger anymore. He would become boring, perhaps; a surrenderer, in my book. What I didn't consider is that he would be happy.

Contrast that example with Jo, age 24, one of the women profiled on The Real Housewives of Orange County (stupid name for the show, since most of them work full-time). When she became engaged to Slade, a divorced and wealthy father of two boys, all of her expenses were taken care of. She was given an expensive car and told she didn't need to work. But she paid a price for this; Slade wanted her to be a Stay-at-Home Mom and spend more time with his kids. She wanted to meet her girlfriends out at the bars and drink Appletinis. She was being offered Prada but really wanted the Gap with occasional Coach accessories. Not a good deal.

Jo reminds me of me at 24, sans the 6 carat yellow diamond. I watch her resist her fiance's pleas to settle down but she doesn't hear them. She can't. She wants options, even if the ones given her are ones she may want eventually. She wants to know she can do it herself, and yet she wants perks at the same time. She's a reluctant partner. I think to myself, if I'd been in her shoes, I wouldn't have been able to handle it either. The thought of someone wanting to take care of me would have been overwhelming.

"You know you always wanted to get married," a mutual friend of mine and of B-friend's said to me today. I couldn't fess up that his statement was true. I ASSUMED we would get married eventually, but until I was looking at a partner, on his knee, in front of me, I played a familiar role, masquerading as a better half, but keeping options open, cause, well, you never know what life will deal you. He could change his mind tomorrow. And frankly, I wasn't sure what I would bring to our partnership. Would I disappoint in the end?

I understand now that there's another level still in my evolution into full partnership. I'm learning a new distinction: Partnering doesn't mean lobbing off the appendages that don't fit into a relationship. It doesn't mean making sure that at the very least you are bringing in as much into the relationship as the other party. It means adding your share, regardless of size, or weight, or wealth, because it adds value to the whole. There is no need for equality on both ends. Love is the leveler.

And so with awkwardness and relief I enter into the joint account and approach the end of my long journey as a single taxpayer. It's been an adventurous ride and, at underemployed times, torturous, but I've found my co-signer. Wish us luck and no overdraws.

relationships marriage personal finance

Comments

[Antonella]

Jory,
I so understand what you mean.
With my husband, I made a slightly different deal that seems to work wonderfully. We have a common account, that we use for all common expenses (mortgage, bills, grocery, and dinners together). But we also have our own accounts, where we leave a percentage of our income. Not a lot of money, but enough to give us some freedon. It's our own free-to-spend-no-question-asked money. We don't have to argue or even discuss how much money he spends on beer and I on hair clips. No guilt for how much I spend for his birthday present.
It may be slightly harder for you guys because you don't have a fix income with direct deposit, but I would give it a try.

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[Colleen Wainwright]

Make it your own, girl! (As if you'd do it any other way.)

The sharing was the hardest thing for me, too. I don't think I did a very good job of it, and I'm working on re-wiring my thinking before I plunge into even cohabitation again.

As long as you keep an open mind and heart, it'll work. You and the fiancé are on the same Big Page.

[Average Jane]

My husband and I have been married for more than 11 years and we have always maintained two accounts. They have both our names on them, but we each only use one. We calculate our shared expenses so my husband knows how much his half amounts to, and he transfers it to my account when he gets paid. I pay all the shared bills and we each pay our personal bills from our own accounts.

I always hated the idea of having to worry about each other's spending habits. Obviously, the highest earner at any given time will pitch in to help the other in a pinch. It's worked well for us.

[Jenny]

My husband and I lived together for two years before we married, and in that time, we were already gleefully spending each other's money. We've been a single-income family for 8 years now, and it's never been an issue for either of us.

Of course, our needs are pretty modest, and our entertainment revolves around the kids, but if there is an expensive purchase to be made, even if it is for me only, or for him only, we look at the budget and if the money is there, we go for it, with no tit-for-tat.

I'm so excited that you're getting married. You are going to be the most beautiful bride, Jory.

[Susanne]

I don't think, I wouldn't be legally married now, if Germany hadn't changed the laws about names some years ago so that I could keep my own name. Before, I would have been forced to either change it to his, or to something like "Meier-Schmidt". Mine and his combined (for only one of us, not both). I have one of those "could you please spell that - slowly"-surnames too.

As for the joint account, I have been married for 12 years, and only last year we opened a joint savings account. But we still have separate accounts. One of us pays the groceries, one pays the daycare fee, sometimes we have to move the money around a bit. When we go out, one of us pays. Whoever has more money right then.

For me, having my own name and my own money (even if it isn't enough to live on) is something I'm very reluctant to give up, because it feels like the promise of freedom, feminists have been fighting for for ages.

(Sorry for the pathos.)

[Ariel]

Like a few other posters here, my husband and I maintain three accounts: his, hers, ours. We each put 1/2 our income into the joint account (I make more, so I put more in), which then goes towards house, utilities, etc. The solution has worked out great for us.

[Troy]

Alisa and I will celebrate 10 years of wedded bliss this Fall. We've had one account from the beginning and we've never had a problem.

[Canadian Headhunter]

It sounds like Mr Markman isn't loaded. You see, THAT's the only problem.

[Marilyn]

Nice to know that I'm not the only one who got suckered in by "The Real Housewives..." (Bravo does such excellently trashy reality shows--I love them!) That was a lovely post about you and the fiancee at your Mom's blog. :) Here's to a future filled with smooth traveling down the joint account highway...

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