'He still acts financially single': Her husband won't combine finances and thinks a $1,000 allowance is enough. But here’s the real problem they face

Imagine being married to someone who won’t combine finances with you, who thinks they know more than you about money and who thinks that you should live on a $1,000 allowance. That’s the dynamic between Alexis and Edwens, a couple who recently spoke to financial guru Ramit Sethi on his Money for Couples (1) show.

Edwens is a recent immigrant from the Dominican Republic who is just learning about personal finance in the U.S. for the first time, while Alexis is struggling to manage the couple’s shared finances and teach him the basics. But Edwens is not receptive to her advice and gets upset when she has even a small balance on a credit card that she plans to pay back in a month.

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Edwens wants Alexis to limit spending and to stop asking him for money, which has become an issue since his salary increased. But for Alexis, the fact that Edwens is unwilling to open a shared account is becoming a major source of conflict in their marriage.

While these issues sound troubling, as Sethi dug deeper, he discovered that the real problem may be the separate money histories each spouse comes from.

Money conflicts are putting stress on the relationship

While Alexis and Edwens are a high-earning couple, unfortunately, many money conflicts in their marriage are causing intimacy problems and have even led to Alexis threatening divorce.

One of the biggest issues is that Edwens sends Alexis money via Cash App for shared expenses rather than being willing to open a joint account. This has left Alexis frustrated.

“He still operates like a single man,” Alexis wrote in her application for the show.

And she isn’t being unreasonable in her request, as over 75% of all married couples with minor children have joint accounts, according to Census Bureau (2) data. Still, the number of couples without shared financial accounts is growing, up to 23% in 2023.

The conflict over separate accounts is not the only issue in this case, though. Alexis also feels like she must appease Edwens, even if doing so doesn’t make financial sense. She thinks she must do this in order for him to be willing to contribute to paying their family’s joint bills. This is something he’s been reluctant to do in the past, even going so far as to let their electric bill be late by not giving her the money she asked for.

Sethi ultimately discovered that Alexis and Edwens grew up with fundamentally different money philosophies that are contributing to the conflict today.

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Separate money experiences make combining finances hard

As Sethi dove into the couple’s conflicts about money, he asked what they’d learned from their parents growing up.

For Edwens, his parents fought all the time about money, but the expectation was that his dad would support the family. In fact, in the Dominican Republic, Edwens said that many wives don’t work, and his mother believed his father should provide.

Alexis’s parents also fought about money, but her situation was fundamentally different because her mother became the breadwinner after Alexis’s father broke her trust by funneling money through an organization.

Her mother remained the breadwinner because her father was unable to work due to heart surgery. But even as her mother earned the money, her parents were always arguing, and her mother would say her father wasn’t a man because of it.

The two come from different places, and it has helped shape their worldviews today. As Sethi summed up, Alexis wants to work with Edwens as a partner, but Edwens feels like her attempts to connect financially mean he’s being controlled or having someone check up on him.

And even as Alexis tries to appease Edwens to make him feel like he’s the man and in control, Edwens’ lack of familiarity with the U.S. money system has resulted in Alexis acting like a mom, teaching him the basics of things like 401(k)s and credit card accounts for the first time.

Sethi says that if the couple doesn’t break the cycle, they’ll be fighting about money for the next 40 years. And while this isn’t uncommon, with over one third of couples reporting (3) that money is a conflict in their relationships, it can also put the long-term future of the relationship at risk as the Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts (4) indicates financial problems contribute to between 20% and 40% of divorces.

Sethi doesn’t want that future for this couple. He also stressed that setting clear expectations and boundaries is critical. In other words, Alexis needs to demand that Edwens open a shared account and be a true partner with her.

Fortunately, Edwens eventually seemed to agree, and in the post-show follow up, they had opened a joint account together, were having monthly meetings and were making sacrifices together to accomplish goals. These changes had already paid off in the form of a larger savings account balance.

Ultimately, Sethi was able to help them get on the same page, and his advice showed the importance of couples exploring the deeper sources of their conflict to find a way to work together, even if they come from a different place at the start.

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Youtube (1); Census (2); Ipsos (3); Institutedfa (4)

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