Considering opening a joint account with your significant other? 
It’s not just about money …
it’s about trust and
communication.
Couples have to work out a way to take care of financial matters that they both are involved in and this can be as source of conflict within the relationship. These decisions are all about the money ? the rent or mortgage payments, the dollars that are spent on the electric bill, the increasing cost of cable or satellite television and the necessary expense of groceries. When a couple commits to joining finances as a business decision (focusing on the money) they miss out on some other key aspects of joint finances.
Making a long-term commitment to another person is as much an emotional decision as it is a financial decision. In the business world, it is easy to focus on the finances of a merger. Reducing coming together as a couple (whether through marriage or a decision to cohabitate) to business terms can devalue the spiritual and emotional bonds that have been formed or are being formed. As you take on this commitment, it?s important for you to remember that your partner may change. In many ways, you are becoming one (while still retaining your own identity). Emotionally, entering into joint finances is significant. That is not to say that within this broader context that good fiscal decisions do not need to be made, rather that they should not overshadow the whole situation.
Deciding to join finances is a way of demonstrating care for each other. There is an important symbolic dimension of joint finances. Contributing to the joint finances shows that you want to look out for what your partner needs. This is equally the case if you are contributing money to the partnership or whether you are using your talents and energy to manage the partnership.
Working on joint finances enables you to discern both of your relative strengths. Effective partnerships capitalize on the strengths of each partner. Being able to work out who is better at planning, executing, tracking and adjusting finances is a skill that the couple will be able to use in other situations where relative strengths also have to be discovered. Being able to talk openly about this is a skill that may be new to you, but you?ll learn to admit when your partner is better at something and to assert your own strengths as the relationship matures.
Joining finances helps you practice communicating, negotiating and compromising. All three of these are vital skills for the relationship. If these skills are well developed, there are many potential sources of problems that you will be able to overcome as a couple. With finances being a touchy subject already ?each person may still have secrets (ranging from more debt than they want to admit to financial problems in the past) ? the work done to set up joint finances will be a real exercise for these skills.
The details establish an idea of the boundaries and freedom. As there is not one right way of setting up joint finances, the parameters you set up will provide a good indication as to how much freedom you have in the relationship. As joint finances are established, you?ll have to decide how much of your finances you are viewing as joint and how much is being retained for separate finances. The couple that sets a $5 independent spending limit (and I have seen this in pre-marital counseling) are allowing for very little individual freedom of decision making almost everything spending that has to be discussed.
The emotional connection around finances is symbolic of trust and reliance. As finances are discussed, the degree to which you and your partner trust one another may become apparent. This will also come up when you both realize that you?re reliant on each other in order to make the joint financial agreement to work. Trust and reliance are important in any long-term relationship.
Working out how to share joint finances is an important task for a couple to engage in. What?s equally important is for you to not focus simply on the business decisions being made, but look more broadly at the dimensions of the decision that are not the dollars and the cents. In doing so, you will be able to find greater wholeness and peace, not only around this decision but also as a base for the future.
Source-Your Tango
