If you're>'Marriages tend to work better when there's no hiding of any assets'
"I would never go tell a client, 'You guys are terrible people. You don't merge all of your assets together,' because it's a very personal decision," Bouck says.
"But if a client asked me for my advice and what I think: Marriages tend to work better when there's no hiding of any assets, there's no hiding of any accounts, and you have a full view of each other's money."
The way you've lived before you got married matters, too. If this is your first marriage and you have an established career, "and you've had separate accounts up to this point, it can be really hard for someone to give up the freedom of having 100% of their own checking account," says Bouck.
'You have to sit down and communicate' about money
Conflict often arises because "the spending habits you had separately aren't necessarily going to make the other person comfortable," like spending hundreds of dollars a month>How to cope when you and your spouse have different attitudes towards finances
Often, Bouck sees clients that fit into the dynamic of "the nerd and the free spirit," he says. "The nerd is the one person who will just start paying the bills, they'll make sure the taxes get done, they'll check the investment accounts," he says.
A free spirit, on the other hand, is happy when "someone else is paying the bill and, as long as their taxes are filed," he says.
When you're not taking an active role in shared finances, though, you could end up getting burned. The free spirit in this scenario "is the person who would be shortchanged in a divorce," he says.
Taking joint responsibility from the get go, even if one person takes the lead, can benefit both of you in the long run. "It seems like when people have that mindset of, 'Of course we share our money, of course we share our debt, of course we share our assets,' it seems to me like that mindset is really, really, really helpful," Bouck says.
By contrast, "when you have the opposite mindset of, 'Well, this is my money, and this is my inheritance, and that's your debt,' you're kind of starting to keep score in your mind in an unhelpful way," he says.
