It’s where the term “tying the knot” comes from. Of course it’s typically done between two people - we had a long silver cord and my brother varied the blessing to incorporate it between all 7 of us (his 3 kids and my 2) As he blessed it, we passed and wound the cord over all of our hands.
My niece read a poem she had composed about the blending of our families. I’m getting teary telling you about it! 
It was really sweet.
sounds lovely
Unless you have significant assets before you marry, there’s no point in a pre-nup.
I totally disagree with you
Bruce Wayne
Scrooge McDuck or
Richie Rich Rich?
I kind of had a verbal pre-nup with my ex since the house we bought together was roughly $1.2 M dollars.
It’s not worth the paper its printed on
What’s the prenup about? If you bought the house together you don’t need a prenup, the split is in the title.
Well not really, he put in 90% of the down payment (which was like a house purchase in of itself).
so what’s the prenup about? that he gets 90% of the house in divorce? or that he gets 50%?
I’m just saying you can put that directly into the title either way.
We ended up with me taking just whatever I put into it (which was about $80 k) and he kept the house.
I think state laws can vary and make a difference in pre-nup decisions. My state is a “community property” state so we would definitely need to have something if we got legally married that would protect our respective kids in case something happened to one of us.
And it’s not like we don’t trust each other to carry out the other’s wishes. But I can envision misunderstandings between my kids and him or his kids and me over what assets were meant for whom and what was his mine or ours and I wouldn’t want any resentment over something like that.
oh that’s not good. assuming the house appreciated.
The ex and I just sold our house. The house appreciated significantly. But our ownership is down the middle, so we split the profit.
It did almost immediately because we built it/bought it while it was at least 100 k less than they were currently selling new ones for. But I wasn’t interested in making money off of my ex, I was only in the house for like a year and I’m happy he kept it.
Well you wouldn’t be making off of him, you deserved 10% of the appreciated value. If anything he made money off of you, because he assumed 100% of the profit.
But of course. It’s small money. And I likely would’ve just taken my share and left.
Not for the profit we just sold our house for though. It went many figures over asking
I had everything joint with an ex that had little income, and she constantly overspent. In less than 2 years after we split, I took a checking account from basically 0 up to 6 months of emergency funds, bought a fancy new car with cash, all while paying her a big chunk of my salary in alimony.
Now I have an SO that has a decent income, a 10 year old car we may never replace, and very little in expensive tastes. We keep everything separate. She came with some divorce debt to clear away, which is almost done at this point, something I have helped maybe 70% with.
Basically we will be very cash flow positive which will be new to both of us and have no idea what to do about it after spending the bulk of our adult life scraping by. My ideas ran out after new car.
It sounds like having a fiscally responsible spouse is more of a causal factor than whether you have joint or separate accounts.
I have repeatedly acknowledged that having a spouse who is irresponsible with money would be a good reason to have separate accounts.
But I bet if you and your current wife had joint accounts you’d be in basically the exact same place you already are. Especially since you’ve been involved in paying her debts.
Not to reboot last night’s conversation…but for one last time: having a joint account is an extra step. If, like you said, it’s the exactly the same with two fiscally responsible people, what’s the incentive to expend energy to merge finances?
But, if you stay together, financially you will end up in the same place, whether joint or separate if they are irresponsible, BUT, if joint you could be aware it is happening before it is too late