The article itself is fairly mundane, about the impact that a person’s debt, student loans in particular, has on their prospects for marriage, or for a successful marriage. The author pretty much presumed that each spouse continues to manage their own finances, and that the disputes that arise are from one spouse having more discretionary income than the other.
But the comments — as I’m reading them, anyway, now — are quite interesting and thoughtful.
Taran Wanderer says,
If you want to merge two lives together, with all the rewards and challenges that entails (I highly recommend this route, btw), then you need to do a complete and total merger. Two people’s debts become one couple’s debts. Two people’s income become one couple’s income.
and Cartier2028,
If you are going to get married, you are naturally merging finances, both income and debt included. If you are not comfortable working together as a team through both good and bad, you have no business getting married.
Ardea offers a different perspective:
That’s the problem: Not all individuals are that good at managing money. I keep my accounts separate from my husband because he has a habit of bleeding it all away and not saving. So it is much better for the entire family for him to have his own account and very specific responsibilities he has to pay for, and for me to take care of all the rest. [She also provides backstory — her husband isn’t much of a partner, in her telling, but she says, in reply to another comment, that she’s trying to make the best of it.]
So go read this, and then please tell me what you think.
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