Quote Originally Posted by Jer View Post
Saying that keeping our money separate implies we don't trust each other is 1950's thinking. It just makes more sense. How do unmarried people in the military pay their bills?
We'll have to agree to disagree on what constitutes 1950's thinking. I'm just a stranger looking at limited information and commenting on someone else's relationship. You and your wife must have a system that works for you. Does she know what goes on in your accounts? Do you know what goes on in hers? Do you have joint financial goals? Do you help each other reach those goals? I'm not saying it can't work, as your case illustrates, but I think if fails more often than not. Because, more often than not, couples choose to keep separate accounts because they don't trust each other. Then separate accounts lead to separate lives which leads to divorce. Marriage is not for the faint of heart.

BTW - I'm not counseling Shootersfab to combine accounts today. Do that after you get married. But think about what we're discussing here. A marriage only works if both partners are working together to achieve common goals whether it's money, career, family (including in-laws), religion, whatever. When those goals become separate, the couple has a hard time keeping the relationship together. That's what killed my first marriage - her goal was to have a husband that didn't go to sea (family) and my goal was to keep going (career). It would have been nicer if she'd found that person after our divorce, but it's an imperfect world.

To answer your question, Jer, before online bill pay, most guys either pre-paid their bills (usually by getting advanced pay from the personnel office) or they had to write checks and get someone they trusted to send them in on time. Saw plenty of girlfriends decide in the middle of patrol they didn't care anymore and the sailor came home to a financial mess. Today, you could probably set everything on auto-pilot with bill pay and then hope the bank doesn't screw things up.