Imagine a couple, Emma and Lucas, who have been dating for a few years and plan to tie the knot next month. They are both flourishing in their careers and feel ready and excited to start their married life together.
But there’s a sticking point: Emma and Lucas can’t decide whether they should merge their finances or keep their financial lives separate.
Merging finances means pooling your money (regardless of your relative income or employment status), having shared accounts, comanaging your money together as a team and jointly making major financial decisions.
For the past several years, Lucas and Emma have shared some expenses. But otherwise, his income is his money and her income is her money. They’re comfortable with this arrangement and value their independence. They can just Venmo each other as needed — right?
Emma and Lucas are not the only couple weighing their options and being swayed toward independence. Twenty-three percent of married couples in the United States are choosing to keep their finances totally separate, and only 40% are choosing to fully merge. But though “Venmo marriages” seem to be on the rise, there are good reasons to pause and consider the consequences of remaining financially single after marriage.
3 dubious claims
There are three popular claims made for why couples should stay financially separate. We’ll address each one and highlight some research-based counterarguments for why those dubious assertions don’t hold up in real life.
1. Protecting against inequity and abuse
The first thing some couples say is that it’s smart to keep your finances separate because money can be used by one spouse to control, abuse or take advantage of the other.
That’s a valid concern. Money can be used to coerce and control, and this abuse most often tends to be inflicted by men against women.
Women should absolutely protect themselves against abuse. However, keeping finances separate is not an effective way to do that. Research has shown that having joint bank accounts and comanaging money together, along with being financially literate and confident, tend to better empower women and protect them against financial abuse.
Couples who merge their finances tend to share the pants better. In other words, merging finances would help Emma and Lucas share equal power and influence in the relationship, rather than one partner “wearing the pants” and running the show.
Because women on average earn less money than men and are more likely than men to be full-time caregivers, merging finances usually supports women’s well-being by giving them greater access to financial resources. In fact, many of the relational benefits of merging finances are especially true for women.
Although it may seem counterintuitive, merging finances can protect against control and abuse.
2. Preventing financial fights
The second thing some say is that it’s smart to keep your finances separate because it helps you avoid unnecessary fights.
Actually, the research shows that couples who merge their finances tend to fight about money less.
At face value, it may seem easier for each spouse to manage their own individual money. But some troubling questions are lurking just around the corner if Emma and Lucas take this approach: Who will pay for their honeymoon? What will happen when Emma wants to pull back from her designated housework for a time to clinch a promotion and raise? What if Lucas wants to take a career break to care for their future child? Whose turn is it to buy the diapers?
These types of questions brought on by their financial separation can create more conflict than if Emma and Lucas acted like a true team.
The bottom-line question is this: How can two people build a life together — a for-better-or-worse, richer-or-poorer, sickness-or-health marriage — if they are acting as independent individuals?
Sure enough, something feels off to Emma about Venmoing $15 to the man who she is about to tie her life to. And it should.
3. Making it easier if divorce happens
The third thing some couples say is that it’s smart to keep your finances separate because then it’s easier if you end up getting divorced.
Commitment is scary. Relinquishing your independence and inviting another person to fully share your life requires incredible vulnerability and courage.
That same vulnerability is inseparably paired with risk. The greater your vulnerability, the greater the risk that your partner could hurt you.
Marriage is an exercise in mutually making yourself totally vulnerable to another — your body, your home, your money, your weaknesses, your future, your very soul — and hoping they treat you gently.
A healthy, meaningful, lasting marriage is therefore built on a foundation of vulnerability. But as they say, the greater the risk, the greater the reward.
While Emma and Lucas have grown accustomed to their independence, an inability to shift from “me” to “we” with their money might harm their ability to develop a strong “we” more generally.
Marriage calls for merging.
Accidentally making divorce more likely
On average, couples who merge their finances are also more committed to their marriage, report higher relationship satisfaction and divorce less. Ironically, by trying to make things easier in case of divorce, couples might accidentally be making divorce more likely.
You might be thinking, maybe merging finances isn’t causing all these great outcomes; maybe happy and secure couples are just more likely to choose to merge.
Maybe. But in one 2023 study, researchers at Indiana University conducted an experiment: They randomly assigned engaged or newlywed couples to either keep their money separate or merge their money into a joint bank account, and then they tracked those couples over two years.
For the separate-finances group, relationship quality declined over the first two years of marriage. For the merged-finances group, their initial honeymoon levels of relationship quality persisted.
Why is that? They became more selfless, more in sync. In other words, acting like a team (by merging their finances) actually made them a better team.
You’re married — act like it
Are there situations in which it may be wise to keep finances separate? Of course. Blended families and gambling addictions come to mind.
But as family science researchers, we admittedly feel sad for couples embarking on a Venmo marriage. They may think they can enjoy the benefits of marriage while holding onto the perks of independence, but somewhere along the way, they missed the marriage memo: The biggest benefits of marriage — total trust, deep intimacy and profound joy — hinge upon acting like you’re married.