[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by DebbieL

I am solely responsible for whether I want to buy a car or not

DH actually just bought a nice new TV for our bedroom (one of those LCD HDTV widescreen ones).

Debbie, please don't take my comments as criticisms - they are not. It is just that your system is completely foreign to our way of thinking. I can't imagine living that way.

Some marriage counselors actually have a term for arrangements like yours - married singles. People who are married and living life together but in many ways continue to function as if they were still single. This might refer to keeping the finances separate. It might mean taking separate vacations. It might include sleeping in separate bedrooms. It isn't good or bad. It is just a descriptive term. It works wonderfully for some people, like you and your husband. For others, like my wife and me, it would be a disaster.

Take the car. You say you are solely responsible for what you drive. That would never work for us. Why? Because I have a sedan and my wife has a minivan. We take the van whenever we go shopping for larger items and when we vacation because we need the space, like when we drive to Florida each year. If she was in charge and suddenly decided she was tired of having a van and switched to a sedan or smaller, we'd no longer be able to travel as we do without renting a vehicle. We wouldn't even be able to do certain shopping trips because we'd have no way to get the stuff home.

As for that new TV, I'm glad you like it but what would happen if you didn't? He went out without any input from you and bought something that you'd be stuck using. It would never occur to me to do something like that to my wife.

We just see no need to have to ask anyone else to spend our own money.

I think this is really the key point where we differ. I don't think of anything as my "own money" nor does she. It is all OUR money and we work together to decide how it gets spent and how we will meet our future goals. Not saying that is right or wrong or the only way to be - clearly it isn't. But I really can't imagine doing it any other way.