@Chenda @WRC
Thanks for the kind words. My friends said something similar when they met her last weekend. Although their version was more like, "How did you find this girl?" On Tinder of course; a real millennial love story.
I read through the podcast transcript and a few things stuck out to me. I guess I should preface this by saying that I'm not trying to judge people for how things work in their own relationships and each situation is unique. I'm more just doing this to show how my thought process differs from Mad Fientist and his wife. **Take everything with a grain of salt because I have never been married.**
Jill: So, yeah, it just made sense because we knew at that early stage that I definitely like to spend a lot more money than you did. It just seemed like an easy way to prevent arguments with keeping our money separate. I could do what I want with my money; you could do what you want. Everyone was happy.
[...]
Jill: Yeah, I think our marriage would’ve been doomed if we had everything in a joint account. I think that would’ve caused a lot of arguments.
Mad Fientist: Yeah, that is definitely confirmed I think. That would’ve been a disaster. So you would recommend it to other couples potentially?
Jill: Yeah! I think everybody just has to work out what works for them. Some people feel a lot more comfortable keeping everything joined and feeling like they’re doing everything as a couple. I think that’s fine.
But if you’re really not on the same page when it comes to spending money, then I don’t think there’s any reason not to just keep your finances separate. It just avoids that whole issue.
I've read through every thread on here and several on other forums about marriage finances. I know there are many on here who subscribe to a 50/50 keep finances separate approach, while others insist on joint finances as a key prerequisite for a healthy marriage*. I think the above quote illustrates a very common approach to money (which also applies to many relationship issues) that I disagree with entirely. I have no interest in preventing arguments because avoiding issues tends to amplify them. I'd rather have issues rise to the surface early on so they can be addressed and worked through. If it turns out an issue is so serious that it can't be worked through (or my partner lacks the maturity/capability to work through an issue), I'd rather figure that out in year 2 of a relationship than year 12 or 22.
I'll admit, I feel very fortunate to have the perspective afforded by reading through topics on MBTI, enneagram, Spiral Dynamics, and ERE WLs on these forums. This knowledge helps me to have frameworks to better understand where my partner currently is, my own blind spots, and how I can effectively communicate in a way that she understands.
At this point, I'm firmly in the joint finances camp for me. I have no intention of dating/marrying a girl long term if we aren't both on the same page regarding money/lifestyle/shared goals/vision.* I very much believe a relationship is bigger than its component individual parts.
Jill: It was all basically the conversations that we had that sort of shifted my whole mindset.
It was I think on our honeymoon, we had a conversation where you said to me, “What would be your perfect life? Describe. If you could design your life any way you want, then what would it be like?” So, we had this big conversation.
I found that actually as a hard question. It’s not like the “What would you do if you won the lottery?” It’s more of a realistic version of that where you don’t have just unlimited money to do whatever you want.
So, we talked about that a lot. And we both were in agreement about where our priorities were and what we would like to spend more time doing—spending times with friends and family and traveling, volunteering and all those kinds of things.
So, when we talked about that, and then we talked about would it be possible to do more of that stuff if it we weren’t having to work full-time, it just really kind of opened my eyes to the benefits of financial independence.
I think when you started me on this journey, I didn’t have the same motivation that you did for achieving financial independence. It didn’t really appeal to me. But when we talked about what our life could look like if we weren’t having to work full-time, then that was really appealing to me.
So, as soon as I had that big goal, a side effect of that was that I didn’t want to really buy things anymore. I suddenly realized how silly it is just to be buying stuff for the sake of wasting money on things when you could be putting your money to a lot more use.
And so, it was just a really easy and a kind of “overnight” transition I guess.
I can't believe that someone as analytical and deliberate as the MadFientist waited until his honeymoon to have that conversation! I'm glad it worked out for them, but in my mind that is a conversation that needs to happen relatively early on in a relationship. I plan the "lay all the cards on the table" conversation for my next visit with DGF (this past weekend she passed the friends/family test), but so far she has reacted very well to some of the hints I've dropped. Of course, I plan on tailoring it more towards improving our ability to have a positive impact than just giving us freedom to travel the world (because DGF is ENFJ). We've also had a lot of conversations about shared vision already.
* = @Ego has advocated the all or nothing approach to marriage. @7WB5 has advocated that an even-stevens split to finances screws over the woman in a marriage because of her higher mate value on the open market compared to a man.
** = I also understand that humans are complex and dynamic, so it is quite possible that being on the same page today does not equate to being on the same page in the future. Divorce is always a risk and quite messy, but is so commonplace in our society that I hardly consider it the end of the world (especially if there aren't children involved).
Edit: To clarify, DGF and I are not planning on combining finances or getting married anytime soon, so I'm more speaking to what I see the situation would be if/when we are living together in the future.