Just found out the wife ran up some serious credit card debt

Question, I've just been quietly reading along through this thread and may have missed it, but what is she giving up? I get that you feel some responsibility via negligence and won't argue that. But I've also only seen the sacrifices either you are going to make or your kids are going to have to make. But I don't yet recall what you're wife, who at minimum is 50% to blame, is giving up. Maybe you just haven't said.

I bring this up because frankly, if you're doing all the work, choosing to drive the clapped out beater every day while she keeps her nicer car, selling your motorcycles, making the kid skip travel soccer for a year, all while your wife simply makes whatever payments towards it she feels like... I don't see any ending to that other than a lot of resentment. And while it may be well deserved, it doesn't do a whole lot to serve your relationship. Hoping I just missed something here.

 

Man I gotta say, if there's one thing I think I did right in my marriage, it's keeping our finances as separate as possible. Lord knows my wife and I have had our share of struggles over the past year and we're still working through them. So I'm by no means even close to an expert or good example of a great marriage. But that part at least I think I got right. We never fight over money because it's all separate and if one of us fucks up (which I did a few years back), it's solely on that person to fix it.

 

That is a joint venture not a partnership. Both have points but a marriage with two people pulling together typically yields more. An example is my sister-in-law makes good money. Now I won't belittle the effort she put in but financially it was possible due to the income of my brother. Team effort for decades that has served them well with a nice living and two great kids raised. YMMV

EDIT: and for those that are religious there is a reason the ceremony ends in now you are one

 

I think it is the eating out / Starbucks that she is giving up. I believe he said that is where a fair amount of the credit card money was going.

 

That's nice in theory but that seems like a utopian policy if the fuck-up is bad enough. Would you really sit that the same dinner table with one eating steak and the other one eating Ramen noodles?

 

I get it. And we do "partner" on some things, including shared bills for which we have a joint checking account that we each contribute a budgeted set amount to every month. And there are plenty of times where we execute plenty of financial decisions as a "partnership." But because our money is kept separate (outside of the joint bills account obviously), every one of these decisions must be a conscious, eyes wide open following a discussion to get on the same page decision.

 

Yea... that doesn't exactly sound like equal commitment to solving the problem.

 

Luckily we're both financially savvy/stable enough to have avoided such scenarios thus far. However, in the case of my fuckup a few years back, it was to the tune of about 10% of my gross income at the time. So not earth shattering by any means but not negligible. What that meant for me was a solid 6 months of buckling down, no toys, no eating out on my own, eating ramen noodles when we were forced to eat dinner separately, etc. I did my best to absorb the fuckup all on my own without her having to sacrifice anything herself. So when she wanted to cook steak for dinner, we still cooked steak for dinner. That just meant I had to buckle down that much harder but it was my fuckup and that was my problem, not hers.

 

That's awesome it works prefect for you that way.

When we married, we both worked and then when the first kid came 2 years later, my wife stayed home from work to raise the kids. We always pooled everything together and my parents did, so that seemed normal to me? Sure we had arguments about money and other things, but it seems like a lot of work to try and split everything? Fortunately we made it through raising kids, and putting them through college.

My wife re-entering the work force with a good job was more difficult than anticipated, partly because of the 08 recession. Because of that, my wife encouraged our daughter to be a nurse. Then if desired she could always work a little bit while raising kids, and if not, more easily reenter the work force, with a good paying job.

 

Splitting everything is actually pretty easy. Obviously budgeting out your monthly bills is a good practice anyways. So we just do that and each contribute 50% of that amount to our joint account that's used solely for bills. Car payments for example, come out of individual accounts. She pays for hers, I pay for mine. Now for like date nights or just plain eating out or fun activities together, I pay for almost all of it. I've always made slightly more and it's also part of me being the gentleman/provider/whateveryouwanttocallit. Occasionally, I'll have to say "sorry honey, I don't have the money for that right now" and she knows if she wants to go do that activity or whatever it is, she can pay for it and she's ok with that. But those instances are rare. I'll also do things like contribute to her downpayment on a car so she can get something a little nicer but in general, she never expects those things. I think it helps that neither of us expect anything from the other, financially, except for their half of the bill money to be there each month, which neither of us have failed to do.

It's funny to me as I do understand the sentiment when people say our arrangement is a joint venture, not a partnership. However, I think it also takes a hell of a lot of trust in your partner to operate this way. In over 10 years together now, I have never once had even the slightest clue as to how much money she's ever had in her account nor has she ever known mine. So when she comes home with 5 new dresses, 3 new pairs of shoes, and freshly painted nails, or I come home with a new motorcycle or rifle, neither of us truly knows if the other had the money to cover that and whether it will impact their ability to contribute their 50% to the bills next month. Lot of trust there lol.

I do understand the stay at home mom dynamic and yes, that is absolutely a different scenario altogether that obviously my method falls flat on it's face with. Different methods work for different people so I'm by no means suggesting that mine is the best or only good way. Simply stating that I think it is a good method worth consideration if your dynamic allows (i.e. both individuals employed).

 

@redtailracing I think a lot of todays younger couples are going your way, I wasn’t knocking it, good it works for you guys.

 

While I see where you are coming from, I don’t really agree with this. You are married, you are legally responsible for each other. If one of you screws up real bad, it can still affect the other. If your wife has a crap ton of debt, and decides to divorce you, you are now responsible for half of that debt, unless you have some sort of pre-nup that protects you.
Im happy that it works for you, and you both sound pretty financially responsible, but in the OPs case, that would probably have made this situation way worse.

 

Right, my best friend who I have rode bikes with since high school so 30+ years now his real dad and mom got separated, but his dad was doing some shady stuff running a ministry. He embezzled, stole money and kept moving them around, long story short he was convicted and had to pay back over 1 million in debts, money he did not have.
Because they were married still at the time it all happened, she also inherited that debt, credit history, etc. and even though she was divorced and lived with her next partner for 20+ years before she passed away(got cancer and could not fully beat it) she would never marry him because she would mess up his credit and legal aspects regarding those finances.

 

Yeah, I don't really understand how having separate finances with a spouse would even work - IMO, it feels like it would lead to MORE fights about money because of inequality in earnings, etc. But I've never done it, so more power to people who make that work...........but jeebus, how do you deal with dinner? Break out the calculators and start seeing how many drinks everyone had? Sounds like a nightmare.

 

I only read a handful of pages in this thread, but I wanted to respond to this specifically. My wife and I are very similar. Completely separate accounts, and I have no idea what her checking and savings look like outside of our retirement accounts and joint investments (e.g. account for a rental property). Bills aren't completely split 50/50; I handle most of them since I make more. We're coming up on 20 years and both love the arrangement. She's never given me shit for all of the crap I buy for hobbies, and I've never thought twice when she's bought stuff for herself. It's not an exact math, and I just assume more financial liability.

Example: We bought a new RV last year. She put about 20% of the purchase price towards it, and I paid the rest. I pay for registration, insurance, all maintenance, and the diesel fuel to pull it everywhere. She makes sure it's loaded with food and typically pays for campsite fees. She might pay for a few more of the kid's activities during months where I am putting more towards the RV for maintenance or repair. We have never actually done the math to see what would be most 'fair' relative to income; it just comes naturally and neither of us thinks twice about it.

We haven't had a single argument about finances ever, and we're in a very comfortable spot and setup well for retirement (which is still a ways out).

This arrangement isn't for everybody, but it works for us!

 

It’s much more casual when the $ is there vs when it’s not

 

It may work for some people but separate finances and splitting costs sounds way too time consuming for me. That being said, my wife is the saver in the family...

 

It's an effort at pain reduction and mathematically I agree. If you can actually follow through with paying the debt down and getting rid of it while not incurring further debt out of habit then it works. However, my concern is that if you reduce the pain the lesson may not be learned and someone may end up just where they started or worse if the spending is not curtailed.