61–70 of 205 posts
[Ignore this and see the reply to my comment. I can't open the site for some reason.] I don't think it's the joint account that makes them happy. It's their happiness and trust as a couple that makes them have a joint account.
This is such a weird study. People that choose to keep separate finances seem like the exception rather than the norm. So you'd find way more people in the shared bucket than not. Personally, I grew up watching my parents relationship crumble over finances and long since had a very sour taste to it. So I always vowed to keep mine separate. We do keep a shared account together that we pool money into it so that when e…
Seems obvious. Though, I think a lot of people here think the takeaway is "if you're in a relationship and you do separate now, you'll be happier if you put them together" and NO NO NO that's not it at all. It's "if y'all were already the type to put them together, you're probably happier than the types who didn't."
Sadly, I don't have access to the paper. May try and find a link to it later. I'm curious to know if they split the "no-intervention" cohort to look at the idea you are mentioning. That is, mayhap the cohort that got to do what they want was dominated by the separate accounts group? More strangely, it would be really weird if the no-intervention group saw an inverse result. That is, if given the choice and you keep joint accounts, you are unhappier than if you had kept separate.
Or maybe it is happy couples that have joint accounts, uh?
All of my personal experience with this points to the opposite. Both my parents kept separate bank accounts and had one joint one for bills. I decided to follow the articles advice and simplify to just one and it was the worst divorce my attorney had ever seen. YMMV. Also, if you entangle your personal finances, I wouldn’t say “staying together” is what your doing, it’s more you are now trapped into supporting the ot…
Was the joint account the cause or catalyst of divorce in your case?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correlation doesn’t imply causation and if there is correlation it doesn’t imply the direction .
This link is to a study that was a randomized trial, which means it can theoretically contribute to establishing causation: > In a six-wave longitudinal experiment, we investigated whether randomly assigning engaged or newlywed couples to merge their money in a joint bank account increases relationship quality over time. Whereas couples assigned to keep their money in separate accounts or to a no-intervention conditi…
A reasonable person may, of course, decide to trust the authors and assume they executed the randomization correctly. However, without being able to read the methodology of the study (which is paywalled), it is just that: an assumption.
I don't understand couples that keep separate finances. When you get married its "we" and not "me". It seems like keeping one foot out the door. Note: I've been married for 23 years with everything tracked in joint accounts the entire time but we do have a small "fun money" monthly budget item for each of us that is a black box.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This link is to a study that was a randomized trial, which means it can theoretically contribute to establishing causation: > In a six-wave longitudinal experiment, we investigated whether randomly assigning engaged or newlywed couples to merge their money in a joint bank account increases relationship quality over time. Whereas couples assigned to keep their money in separate accounts or to a no-intervention conditi…
No. The link is to an abstract of a study, and the abstract claims that it was a randomized trial. A reasonable person may, of course, decide to trust the authors and assume they executed the randomization correctly. However, without being able to read the methodology of the study (which is paywalled), it is just that: an assumption.
Note that I said it can theoretically contribute to causation—I'm not saying the study came to the correct conclusion, just that people should actually follow the link rather than critiquing the study based on the title alone.
I think a couple's happiness is largely dictated by the specific people in the couple...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
May I ask what specifically some of the issues have been? I know it's digging into a personal area so feel free to ignore this, but I'm curious what kind of issues can arise.
Issues can be categorized into three buckets: my challenges, her challenges, shared challenges. We're working through many of these with our couple's therapist but here's the gist: 1. When wife would spend beyond our defined budget, I would get angry (stemming from fear) and let that boil inside without ever communicating it verbally 2. When wife and I decided for her to quit her job to parent our first daughter full…