It truly depends on who you are married to. I have been married for 20 years, and courtesy of the soon to be ex, have had to file chapter 13. Otherwise, I would have lost my house as well as my credit.

I married the nicest man in the world, but he kept annoying his employers, so a year after I started my own high-tech company, I invited him to join me. Short term it was great, long-term it ruined my life and my credit.

I believe in having a joint account, where the couple contributes proportionally to the joint house-hold expenses, but having separate accounts for personal expenses. Eventually, however, in our case, it was joint accounts all across the board. As a result, as his mental illness became evident, I spent less and less on our daughters and myself. For him, it didn’t matter if the girls and my clothes were shabby, or if there were bills to be paid. When he felt sorry for himself, he bought stuff. (Really weird & expensive stuff, that we can’t re-sell, and doesn’t replace useful things like blue jeans, shoes and underwear.)

Our credit cards, because of my business, were in my name. (He had this habit of stashing bills with his name on it, someplace weird, so we paid lots of unnecessary late fees.) I had a credit card bill of 2K one month as the company was dying, courtesy of him. I’d spent maybe $300. I asked him about it, and he told me that it was me. He didn’t spend any money! So, I canceled all his cards that were off of mine. He spent $4,000 that month on his Amex.

He has been living with his 80+ parents, and driving them crazy, for two years come this September. I have barely been able to keep our house, and have lost all of my retirement savings trying to take care of things honorably. Four months ago, he finally got a full time job after not working for 3 years. I credit his parents for him finally providing some money towards the kids and my survival.

I cannot recommend joining accounts to show trust. I am 48. Five years ago my kids had juicy college accounts, and we were exactly where we needed to be for a very comfortable retirement.
Great debt to earning ratio. Everything was right where it was supposed to be!

Enter stbx’s mental illness.

I had to start a new career selling life insurance and retirement products. You *can* make a great income in this business, but not starting out, especially in a bad economy.

I’d marry again, happily. But I will never again merge money.