Ask HN: How do you and your spouse handle big income differences?

If I get a big raise or promotion my wife is excited not jealous and I have never felt like she was using “my” money.

I think one of the most important aspects of a healthy marriage is being financially aligned. My wife and I are both similarly frugal so it works out well. Any large purchases we make are typically experiences together anyway like a vacation or a new shared car. We always make those decisions as a unit.

Could my wife afford our lifestyle if not for my salary? Probably not. But that’s the joy of being married to my best friend, I can drag her along and elevate her to my level. And she elevates me in so many other ways. Finances is just one piece of a big pie that is marriage.

I'd take such squabbling as a huge, waving, in your face red flag. Evaluate it carefully. Question why one would want money they don't want the other touching. Is she planning to live large while you beg for money under an overpass? Or is she thinking of a future without you? Because those are pretty much the two scenarios that would lead to such behavior.

FWIW, I work, my wife doesn't. Imagine if I complained about her spending 'my money.'

I have lived this and my best advice is that you should be equal partners. From personal experience, each partner contributes different strengths and abilities. Money is easy to divide and represents life energy but there is more to a partnership.

Equal partners does not mean exactly the same effort. Do you split the household chores exactly 50%? Probably not. I look at this in the same light.

Also, circumstances change. Right now your wife is making more money. If she suddenly got laid off, would you support her with "your" money? (Yes.) If one of you got an inheritance, would that be carved off and only spendable by the inheritor? (No.) If you got a sizable gift from your parents, would it be yours singular or yours plural (plural). If she had a kiddo and wanted to stay home, would you support her with "your" money? (Yes.)

As far as nuts and bolts, talk about goals, talk about frustrations, talk about the challenges. There are financial counselors out there: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/13/business/financial-therap... they might be helpful. Or a straight up marriage counselor.

Compromise. Maybe there are things that your wife wants to buy that she feels like she should be able to. That should be a compromise and discussion because she wants to be in partnership with you.

Things to avoid:

   * hidden bank accounts
   * ignoring this issue

We are free to spend our own money as we see fit. For any shared purchase, we split the cost, unless it was a gift or talked over doing an uneven split beforehand (maybe if the thing in question was outside the budget of one person and the other person offered to make up the difference). Maybe once a year we run through our bank statements and reconcile big purchases that we owe each other money for.

We’ve talked about a joint account for expenses, but just never got around to it. Combining finances sounds absolutely weird and patriarchal to both of us. Like why on earth would I want his money!?

I think it works for us because we are both frugal, would never get into any debt or financial trouble, have good family safety nets and communicate well. We both view staying independently financially healthy as part of our responsibility to each other, just as we have a responsibility to stay fit or take care of our health.

If we make an expenditure out of the team accounts, it gets authorized by both of us, either explicitly (for big stuff) or through an enduring understanding (like groceries).

Non-team money lives in individual accounts, for the individual to do whatever they'd like. If one partner wants to go big on something, it is their prerogative. If one partner wants to go big on something that ultimately becomes a team item or improvement to a team asset, they can do that, too.

Works for us. We check in about it informally a couple of times a year, and definitely with an annual review.

As the lower-earner, I've definitely felt as though I'm not necessarily pulling my weight, but my partner seems happy with the arrangement. There are always asymmetries in relationships; a key may be to keep them in some sort of dynamic balance, whereby in aggregate, something good happens for everyone concerned.

1. You get divorced and she keeps her money

2. As a couple, you never spend "her" money because it's "her" money. You die having spent none of the money

3. At some point in the future, you start spending "her" money

(3) doesn't make sense given she's uncomfortable with it now. (2) also doesn't make much sense. So to me it seems like either she's acting irrationally or expects that (1) is a strong possibility.

(If you don't think it is really both of yours, talk to a divorce lawyer.)

I've been married for forever. My wife finished school before I did and was making 4x what I was while I stayed in school. Afterwards we were making about the same for a bit and then I started getting raises and eventually she stopped working when the kids came around.

We always just put the money together and set aside an equal little bit for each of us to spend however we wanted (currently ~$300/mo). Haven't had any fights about money yet.

Re-reading your comment now, it sounds like maybe your wife is having problems making that mental adjustment. There are couples counselors that specialize in financial counseling, maybe that's worth a shot. I'm not sure showing her this post would really help. :-)

What if one day i/her want to buy something very expensive, like a 100k or whatever? I don't know i'm not into expensive stuff and neither is she but we would decide together.

My wife and I have one bank account, and 2 credit cards each under our name to ensure credit score activity happens. I was a secondary on her credit card for years assuming it was building my credit too, but turns out I wasn't building a credit score at all.

We have one bank account. When we started she was already out of university, and she was the primary income while I went to school, then I graduated and lucked into a high-paying software engineering career, and we had a kid, and she effectively stopped working, only taking small part time jobs.

We've always had one bank account. I was always the big spender, so any disagreements have been about my purchases, especially in my early career when I wasn't making much. Now I make so much money that it's never an issue.

We've been together for nearly 20 years. I know her habits, she knows mine, the only time we have discussions about finances is when one of us inevitably forgets to pay some outstanding bill.

> she was worried that I was taking advantage of the situation

This seems like a reasonable attitude at the beginning, maybe even the first couple years of your marriage. Perhaps this is too harsh, but IMO it's completely inappropriate to feel this way or have concerns like this 12 years in.

We do this so she has enough left from her salary to do what she wants to do (save, shop, splurge), keeping independence is important so we otherwise keep finances separate for the most part and neither of us really needs to be involved what the other person buys (unless it's a big purchase for the house (sofas, beds etc) where we will jointly buy it (again % difference) - everything is considered "ours" in the house). The law would consider it that way anyway.

Works well for us, we both get to "treat" each other which feels better when its your own money for a meal or a break away etc, she treats me often too, if it was one big pool of money I am not sure it would feel the same, besides no one needs to be questioned over a new $1000 pair of shoes or why they spent $850 on cologne haha

We don't budget other than required expenditure, we don't have kids (nor are intending to have them), we save a lot and spend a lot - its there to enjoy and you can't take it with you :)

All the money earned by both of you goes into a large pot. You both mutually decide how to spend that pot. There could be disagreements, but "You made $X while I made $2X therefore my vote matters more" should NOT be a consideration. It should be irrelevant whether one side contributed 50% or 5%.

Stuff like having separate bank accounts, fighting over who pays what bill and trying to assert dominance over each other based on income are the quickest ways to end an otherwise happy marriage.

We've operationalized this as: 1. Determine how much we want/need to spend on joint things (groceries, mortgage, vacation fund, etc)., call this B for budget. 2. Look at how much we're each making, M for me and H for her. 3. Find the fraction of our money X (which is roughly speaking equivalent to fraction of hours worked in our case) Such that XM + XH = B 4. We each contribute our respective portion to a joint account, and pay for all joint things out of the joint account. 5. We each keep the rest of our money in our own accounts, to do with whatever we like.

You might need to add a couple of terms to account for different work schedules.

Knowing that we're both contributing equal _effort_ to everything makes the inequalities (I contribute more to shared stuff, but also have a bigger personal discretionary budget) not seem like such an issue.

IE, Expense share = My salary / ( her salary + my salary)

To make this doable, we have a shared account, from which all shared expenses are paid (mortgage, food, holidays, anything that can be construed as shared)

So if one person earns 8000 euros a month and the other 2000, the split is 80/20. If we need 100 euros in the account, one pays 80, the other 20

That way, when we go for a nice dinner, it's the same value for both of us. It costs us both 1%, or 1h of work etc.

Savings are private but property is in her name, to offset for gender inequality in general life security.

Context: We're not married, are reasonably young (40/35), have been together a while (8 years, have good conflict resolution skills and plan to have a kid next year. I get paid dramatically more than her but honestly she works harder than me. I work in tech she works in literature.

We plan to move to phase two soonish, of paying salaries into the join account and getting spending money in our checking accounts. Having private accounts is useful for making sense of finances, just in terms of I can double check my own spending list without having to run it by her.

I'm into the single pot idea, but need to figure out how to do proper checks and balances incase we separate at some point. There need to be guards in place working against systemic gender equality, but I also don't want to screw myself over. Having a written agreement about what savings belong to whom is more important when we have joint savings. Things bias towards being in the guys name, so the danger of a simple shared pot verbal agreement is that there is large wiggle room for me to claim everything in a breakup. Hence putting property in her name.

In phases:

Living apart: fairly traditional dating. I probably picked up 75% of the checks, but we split any travel 50/50 and mostly didn’t worry about it.

Living together: at her insistence, we split the household bills 50/50 and she paid the same amount as she previously paid in rent. This was true in a (more than 2x as expensive) rental and later, a house I bought in my name. This was the most painful phase as the last thing I wanted to do was write down in the ledger that I bought $20 of toilet paper, but she insisted.

Married: all that stopped and it’s all just our money. Same house was put in joint ownership during one of the refinances.

Married with kids: same, but just with a lot less extra money and time. :)

Mechanically, we implement all that with joint accounts (in case of dying) but with accounts that I manage and others that she manages day-to-day. This is so we don’t have to check in with the other to avoid overdrafts or other nonsense. She doesn’t have to get annoyed if I buy a gadget and I don’t have to get annoyed if she buys something I wouldn’t.

Full visibility and access across accounts, but “soft agreement” to have his and hers accounts separately for mechanical but not philosophical/financial reasons.

I make a bit under 150k a year which is pretty good in our area (although it certainly _feels_ like we should have more money than we do, guess that's life for you). All our regular expenses fit into about 5k a month.

There is about an extra 400 per paycheck after we budget for savings, which we divide into two separate checking accounts. These are our respective "fun money" accounts, and that money is off budget and purely discretionary. Hers goes largely to coffee and books, mine goes largely towards fishing, weightlifting, and guitar stuff in various percentages depending on what I'm most into at any given time.

My wife is planning to start working part time eventually - this is the first year when both kids have been in school full time. This money, in theory, will fatten up both savings and discretionary cash.

It has worked out pretty well overall. We budget the "regular" money with reasonable strictness, and the "fun" money makes it easy to keep our hobby spending from digging into the important money.

Minor edit: We have never thought of money as belonging to either one of us, even when we were dating in college (I mean, at first we did, obviously, but after a two or three years it became moot). We're a team, the money that comes in is _ours_ - not mine.

I’ve always made more than my wife, but she can spend what she wants, and if she starts pulling in a huge salary in future then happy days indeed!

She's more than capable of taking care of herself, plus we'll soon take on a crippling mortgage anyway. Ymmv.

Money is stupid, I try to spend as little time as needed thinking about it, life is too short.

It is not her fault that working in healthcare pays peanuts.

Also she is a loving mother for our 5 kids, does most of the work at home and she loves me to and rarely complains about doing most of the work (I work more and have significant commute).

So in my eyes we contribute equally much, it just so happens that most money comes from my work.

But I do make $200k/y

So what we do is that her money is hers and mine is mine

If she wants to spend her money on joint things like our house than that’s fine but I am clear with her whenever I won’t join those projects because I can’t afford it

It’s been working just fine

I know from friends though that it can be a issue if one of the partners has a income below a certain threshold

Use some of the money to go to therapy, both individual and couples. If you go soon enough you might save your marriage. Either way, it's probably the best investment in yourselves that's available.

*Depends where you are but certainly true in California

Once we got married, we became a single financial entity. It's all "ours". Now I'm the salary person and she does way more labor than I do being the primary kid-care person. We help and support each other, and the family, together.

If you really are committed partners, let the ego go. Accounting who earned what may have a place in early relationships, but as others have said, is just exhausting.

1. They are not socialized to be the breadwinners. 2. It seems unfair to them if they bringing in the bacon, and doing most of the household management and emotional labor, and physically bearing the children.

In the case of no. 2, it's much easier, cheaper, and hassle-free to just to get a situationship, as a woman.

If she's worried you are "taking advantage of the situation", it probably means she doesn't think you are pulling your weight in the relationship. If she's still doing all the emotional labor and the household management (which could include managing the cleaner), then yes, you aren't bringing much to the table.

Generally, what I've seen work personally and with others, is if the lesser earning spouse manages some other part of the household and the relationship. Like SAHMs who run the house and are the primary caregiver to the kids. The lesser-earner also is the one who organizes date night and all that.

She probably needs to feel that she's getting something out of this relationship --which could simply be feeling loved, taken care of, and desired.

We live in a developing country, she has an local job while I have a remote job.

We've still got separate bank accounts but we'd like to use shared account instead.

Prior to 2020, I was earning similar to her. Then I got this job and we tried out best to avoid money conflicts by making it all ours.

Fact: we spent over 100% of our combined pre tax income since 2020 on cancer treatment for a family member.

The way we think about this is that _any_ increase in either of our paychecks is a benefit for both of us. I'd love if my fiance made 10x what I did because that all comes back to benefit me too. I'm pretty easy to please though. My fiance is really into some expensive beauty products for example and we buy those out of the shared pool but I don't really care for much except having a good PC. Even if I suddenly got serious $$$ I think I'd pretty much continue doing the same stuff. I wouldn't even buy a new car.

Later on as we grew older, got married, that kind of stopped. We don't have her salary or my salary, we have our salary.

I guess it depends on people, on couples, on relationships. What works for us may not work for others. We're a team, we pool in everything we both get, we have goals and objectives for the money and we allocate it as such. But we also spoil ourselves, if she wants to buy something she does, if I want to buy something I do. It doesn't matter for us because that's our money.

We used to be on the same level, till last year, she now earns 3x what I earn and it doesn't matter. It's not "oh i make more than you so you should do more things around the house" but rather "we make more now, so we can do more, travel more, etc".

Unfortunately, I can't convince my wife to contribute this way. I pay all the bills other than her car payment (when she has one), car maintenance, and gas. I also pay about $6k-8k of her self-employment tax. On top of that, for years she spent more on her hobby than I did on the mortgage. This has created some stress for me. Not only is she not contributing to bills, but I have to cover her taxes, and she's spending in a way that I never would.

So the risk becomes that if we do divorce, I'm totally screwed.it feels like the only way to control her spending is to keep the money separate. If you're not making enough to spend thousands a month on hobbies, then it becomes obvious that you can't do those.

We each get an allowance from what is left. This is money that can be spent without judgement/agreement etc.

The my money and your money is very weird to me. My wife hasnt worked at a paying job since we got married over 20 years ago.

People have different ways of doing things but I like the simple way. We all work towards the goal of raising our family. All resources are shared and lots of communication is required to keep us on the same page. I couldn't do this without my wife and she couldn't do it without me. I'm grateful for all of her hard work and she is for mine.

It's both your money. Jealous and bitter? Her money? You both just need to grow up and realize you're married and on the same team.

It might be different if you were both struggling to make ends meet, but you're wealthy. You made it. Be happy about that.

someone could also feel like having a divorce and filling up that warchest...

I'm married only for a few years, but I have some observations; money is a touchy subject, it is a big part of marriage and I think in the past the assets of partners were a decisive factor on whether the marriage could take place or not.

today, we live differently, but the nature of people has not changed, resources are vital and in case of disproportionate balance, in this case money wise, issues are sure to come up sooner or later...

I guess you will need to find a way to get on her level, or provide something to the marriage of equal value, or go solo and fill up that warchest...

I guess this is tricky situation and marriage counseling might help here. They say that finances are the main reason for divorce but it is the least important one.

Personally, I would absolutely not want to try and be an accounting minutiae expert in my marriage. The point of making a good amount of money is not worrying about money. I make pretty close to triple what my wife makes right now, but that wasn't always the case and certainly isn't guaranteed to always be the case. The point of marriage is you're a single decision-making unit. It's a lifetime commitment. You weather the highs and lows and buffer for each other to make it easier and more pleasant than it would be if you were single. I had a really bad spine injury 8 years ago, and there was a period of nearly 6 months that I couldn't work at all. Without my wife, I couldn't have even put my shoes on, and I was earning zero for at least a short period of time due to being young and stupid and thinking independent contractor with no disability insurance was a fine thing. Well, guess what has happened since then? My wife has a condition that has put her in the ICU twice in the intervening years, and has had to switch jobs and go through a brief period of unemployment for the same reason. She didn't need to worry about money either during that time specifically because we're a single economic unit and bad things that happen to us individually don't need to happen to us together.

The way I treat making more money than her is both of us deposit paychecks into a single shared account. Most of what goes in there ends up in other accounts, either for retirement or mostly into brokerage accounts to invest what is over the limit for tax protected retirement accounts. Neither one of us really touches that, but it doesn't matter. Both names are authorized to withdraw if we wanted to. It's community property legally. At some point, one of us is going to die before the other. Given her medical profile, I'm likely to outlast her, but if I die first, am I gonna feel cheated that my wife gets a nice life because of all my work? Isn't that the point of work? To make things better for your family, not just for yourself?

Since I am making significantly more than my wife these days I always pay for meals out, movies, etc. It's worked for us for about 12 years now.

And for what it's worth, be grateful she is doing well. it is awesome and she deserves your admiration & appreciation for her achievements.

> and she was worried that I was taking advantage of the situation

We don't know how serious these events were.

> In the end, we decided that the buyout money would go to retirement and not be touched.

Is this a shared account or her account.

> she would put in a rainy day fund for home improvements or traveling etc.

Is that her fund or a shared fund?

> This arrangement kind of worked until it came time to use that rainy day funds and she started feeling that we were spending her money.

Is that a surgery or a buy a boat situation?

If you have a prenup, then just keep doing what you’re doing.

Honestly, the way I've dealt with it when she made more than me is.....I never tied my self-worth to my income or ability to provide in the first place. All our money is ours, and as long as we, together, have enough to support a reasonably comfortable lifestyle, we'll be fine.

Also, per other commenters, I think it's actually easier to manage money when one person is a big earner and the other person is a small earner. I've found this to be true myself. It can be harder when one person is a good/high earner and the other person is a very high earner.

She now makes a lot more money. In the end - I got her to change but it cost everything to do it.

I found that some men are slightly resentful about large wage gaps but ultimately are like - “whatever… is what it is.” I find most women are intolerant of them making more money than their partner and find their partner significantly less attractive. They exhibit a lot of behaviors like your wife does.

There’s no solution to this except having married someone who didn’t get so much cultural brain rot instilled into them. The idea that men should always be breadwinners and take care of and baby wives is something that should be long gone - but most women (even progressive ones) still hold onto this value dearly. Most women I’ve met want to be coddled in some way. The difference between men and women here is that men will do what their wife wants but women won’t do what their husband wants. :shrug:

Thing is we don't make a huge deal out of it. It's just money and reality is I would earn less wouldn't she support me so it's really also hers.

Just have a budget and try stick to it. Have a pot for your own entertainment and for her own entertainment, and then for joint entertainment. It's great she's on more money than you because you're playing for the same team. If there is some sort of "It's my money, I earned it" then have different personal budgets I guess, weighted on income amounts. But everything else should be equal imo (house, bills, holiday fund, etc).

We originally had a weekly allowance - booze money - when we weren’t making much for meals out/seeing friends but in the last couple years just use the joint credit card for that stuff since relative to our other expenditures it’s nothing.

Now we reinvest all my RSUs in trackers, and have a monthly spending goal that’s 20% less than our combined salaries that lets us save money for vacations and house stuff without hitting investments. Bonuses and stuff like we treat as “fuck it” money.

My hobbies are way more expensive than hers, so we do have discussions about stuff quite often, but it’s never been a problem - usually I just have to wait until a big enough bonus comes along if it’s something dumb like my project car.

Maybe it helps that when we started I was making 4x less than her and am now making 4x more.

We both knew the company was on its last legs and I encouraged her to get a job that while it was making less, it had good benefits and she had two kids. We weren’t married yet. I knew I had a contract lined up with one of our customers when the company folded.

I promised her I would help her make up the difference in income.

I proposed to her and a week later the contract I was working on ended. I wasn’t really worried I knew I could get another contract. While I wasn’t working, she proposed that we go ahead and go to the courthouse so I could get on her insurance.

Once, my job situation stabilized, she got another job making even less working with school system so she could be on the same schedule with her (now our) kids. But with good benefits.

I changed jobs four times between 2012-2018 not having to worry about the viability of the company or the benefits knowing my wife had benefits. From the time we started dating until the beginning of 2020, our income gap went from $40K to $120K.

The money was “ours” the entire time and we worked together to rebuild our lives from our financial messes before we got married - both previously divorced and my failed real estate business.

Then in mid 2020 at 45, I got my first job in $BigTech working remotely in the cloud consulting department.

We talked about her “retiring” at 45. By then, I was making 10x what she was making. We didn’t need the money. I knew I wasn’t changing jobs again and I didn’t want her to be in the school system at the height of Covid.

I asked her to come up with a comfortable budget for her “allowance”. I have that amount deposited into “her” account when I get paid. She does what she wants with it.

Now, when I travel for business, if she wants to come, I buy her ticket and we extend the trip for the weekend.

Later this year, we will be doing the digital nomad thing traveling across the country.

Disclaimer: my blog below will never be used for monetization - no ads, no affiliate links. I pay to host here. Anyone who knows my posting history knows that I’m anti-adTech. This is more of a personal journal.

https://digitalnomadder.micro.blog/

This is just how we organize things though. In reality no matter who's account it's in it's all our money. We face everything in life together and recognize a single interest, you can't enrich one of us without enriching us both. I refer to it as "sharing a life."

Together we make about as much as the OP (with nothing from his wife, so a lot less overall) but I would feel a lot poorer if the two of us were scrapping over who should pay what.

We maintain a ratio based of our base salaries. If I make 200k and she makes 100k then I pay for 66% of the joint cc, mortgage, utilities, etc. and she pays the remaining 33%. Anything we do, or use together gets split like this. Eating out, vacation, etc.

Since bonuses and stock are unpredicitable they do not form our "split percentage" but it all just goes into joint savings.

Besides that If I want to buy tech, video games, gym membership, whatever I pay for that personally. Same for her clothing, makeup, hobbies etc.

I grew up with daily fighting over how my parents spent each others money. Those scars are very deep and this is my attempt to avoid them. We've only been at it for a couple years now but it's great so far.

We have a joint account where all our bills come out of. We each pay in enough money to cover those bills. Anything left over, in our personal accounts, we can spend as we see fit.

No theirs/mine bills and with separate accounts. It leads to no arguments, recriminations, or jealously. I don't particularly care my wife is more senior, earns more, and has way more personal money than me (I come from a very poor family and any money I've accrued is down solely to me, she's money from her family). At no time do I think of her or my money as ours, I only care that our joint bills get paid and that we equally cover them.

Have you tried a shared account? Every month, each deposit the same amount of money, lets say 4K each, towards house and common expenses anything you both/the family spend. All extra money carry forwards and utilize it for more payments towards the house loan, extra purchase for the home or a happy vacation trip. Always maintain a positive shared-account balance. Anytime the balance goes negative, split it equally and reload it.

P.S: My wife earns more than me. She spends on her dresses and bags with her money in the bank, I spend my money on keyboards & shoes.. We never found any issues with that..

Fundamentally our money is shared but the accounting keeps incentives fully intact.

Sounds similar to the OP in practice

Since before we were married we've each made a relative contribution to a joint bank acct and it's worked fine. (e.g. we both put 70% of our income in one pot). I like this approach because it's a balance of 'whomever can afford more, pays more', but also it allows for individual reward for someone working his/her butt off (e.g. if someone gets a huge bonus). I see it has a good hybrid approach.

For years, I was putting in more income as the higher earner and now the tables have turned. :)

So for now, she helps with tidying up the house, cooking some meals when her studies allow, and other random things as her way of contributing. I don’t ask this of her; she just does it because she’s cool af.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to always be transparent about money. Never hide things. And be mutually respectful, while creating a plan that is balanced and works for both levels of income.

Life is too short. Don’t waste it arguing about money.

Now we have a couple kids and it’s hardly worth her even working. It’s not an issue, it’s all just “our money”.

We have friends who still have a hard split in their finances, and we’re talking 10+ years in at this point, with kids and a house and still maintaining separate savings accounts. A couple have huge income differences and they have what seem to be the most stressful relationship, constantly working out who pays for what.

It’s highly likely your issue is not the money either. I mean obviously the money is an issue but there probably is another one in how you both view your couple which is causing it.

If your partner feels and tell you are not contributing your part and feels you are profiteering for their work, there is probably some hidden resentment here. It doesn’t mean it’s true. It might be linked to her life experience independently of you. I would go talk to a couple therapist.

The best approach is to agree to a financial plan as a couple and then go from there. It might involve contributing a portion of each persons salary to a common pot. Or maybe just setting it aside individually for that purpose.

Honestly, it sounds like you two need to have a heart to heart on this and figure it out, because frankly, you’re behind the curve on this. And if it’s not going well you should seek counseling. It’s important for a couple to be on the same page regarding money.

We do have a big disparity in money, and if we split the mortgage 50/50 she would not have enough money to pay her share, so we split based on what each of us can pay: I pay the mortgage and the groceries, and she pays the bills

I don’t remember where I saw this advice - but it was to the effect of; instead of splitting bills equally, each spouse contribute say 20% of their take home for common bills and X% for emergency funds. With percentages adjusting as bills change of course.

I think that’s a much better approach & distribution of bills based on income.

The primary earner has flip-flopped a dozen times in the last 15 years.

There have been many times where we needed to come together and get our total spending under control, but we always made sure to make a budget that says we each can spend $X per month on whatever we want, no questions asked. A few times that has been $25, others it could be $500 or $1000.

Marriage is first and foremost a team game, why raising the team’s performance can cause anything but pleasure?

If you prefer thinking of yourself as a separate independent individual competing with others - you should not get married at all, there’s no point for it.

Pull out "pocket money" to match demonstrated need for working or @home role

Have a third operating account for large purchases.

Stop worrying who earned it, and focus on shared experiences or justified solo spending.

(not in FAANG. If you go into a relationship seeking to preserve the asymmetry when you come out of it, don't be surprised it colours the relationship)

I am the sole income earner between the both of us and we just communicate what to spend money on. We each have our own accounts, but almost all of the money goes into the joint checking and savings accounts for us to use.

Works for things like shared housing situations too.

If you want to be even fairer, take $50,000 off the bottom, and then split all expenses for non-survival stuff proportionately to income over $50,000.

>until it came time to use that rainy day funds and she started feeling that we were spending her money.

Why are you married?

We’ve tweaked it now she’s on maternity leave so we each get 10% of our combined net income. Keeps things fair and progressive.

It works well, we never argue about money.

We've been doing this since we started dating

1 account for both of you, filled proportionally to your incomes until your monthly expenses are covered + any savings you agree on. This is for rent, food, vacations, childcare, etc. You make more than your partner? Tough, you joined them in the equal partnership known as marriage.

1 account for each of you, for everything else you make on top. This is for personal expenses like clothes or extravagance. You make less than your partner? Tough, you get to spend less of your excess.

Caveat: There are some big assumptions from the OP, like the fact that you’re DINKs and contribute equally to household duties.

We both own everything.

so if i had advice to offer, it would be to try and change how you place value on what each of you bring to the relationship. your incomes is just one of a plethora of currencies.

We are in the minority of both being in tech, however she has maintained a job at a large tech company for upwards of a decade and gotten excellent performance ratings so she gets a lot of equity. I have hopped a little, going to small startups and large well known ones. In terms of sheer cash, she has basically always made more than me since we were ~26-27. We pace each other in "career growth", but if you're looking at real dollars we can use today, she makes more.

On paper, right now, I make more. But the equity piece of my comp is in a non-public startup and that's fine. It's beer money - hopefully it'll be worth something at some point, but I save and plan like it's not part of my mental model.

TL;DR - we treat our money as one big pile and consult each other on the bigger purchases.

Most comments here are from males who make more than the female. The thing not being said is the societal expectations we are conditioned with, and the switch in "roles" here. Her being the "breadwinner" and even though you also make good money. You say:

>> at first, I was jealous and a little bitter, and she was worried that I was taking advantage of the situation ... As for out salary, we decided that we would both spend as if we both made my salary, and anything above that, she would put in a rainy day fund

You did not mention the household chore division or any possible kids. So I will assume it is an average 2 income household; one where the female does slightly to moderately more household chores (I believe this is even more true for females in high power careers)

This would not seem fair to me, and I dont know if that is what is happening, but I would also suspect you taking advantage of the situation - not monetarily, because its not about the money, it's about her living both the "breadwinner" and "homemaker". While you also bring in money, the part I really cringed at was -> having set the spend limit to the max amount YOU make. She does all the contributing to the rainy day fund. I would have a problem with this even if you made more and her less because both are not contributing. I would have issues with it even if household chores were even. Many of the reply's here (by the I assume male, with a wife) dont see it as a problem in their situation. However, they are fulfilling their "role" and society would mostly think it petty of them to expect her to contribute - which I personally think is unfair. I would also insist I contribute in order to feel parity.

You are on to something with the being bitter and jealous at first, because we are conditioned to have households where the male makes more, so it's easier for the male to be in his "perceived rightful role as breadwinner" and have zero problems sharing the money because that's his "role", the wife is doing the house/childcare and maybe part-time work for fun money. Everything is as we are told it should be.

You may be doing little micro-aggressions and not know it. She may sense this and think you are taking advantage of the situation but can't quite put her finger on it - I'm going to go out on a limb and say it really has absolutely nothing to do with money from her side. That's the only thing she can point too because the other may not be obvious to either of you.

I'll try to explain, from my personal experience as a highly paid female.

Im not sure how much males understand their insecurity with females making more than them. I thought this was for my fathers generation. Then I tried dating. I dont mix work with personal life and dont want to go home and talk tech. So most guys will make less, I dont care - at all as long as he has a job and can take care of himself.

Things are great until they find out how much I make and then would pretty much disappear. Sometimes slowly; sometimes before I finish the sentence. I figured they were just insecure and did me a favor. I would find someone else. Then I really did, a friend who made 1/4th what I did working in the public sector, my main attraction was that I thought he was completely, fully, secure in his masculinity - others couldn't threaten him with challenges to it - it was hot. We got closer and I disclosed details of my work and pay (which I avoid with most people), the instant look of dejection in his body language and change in his voice said all I needed to know. He started seeing someone around his same pay grade a few months later. I think a lot of guys want to believe it won't bother them and truly believe it since most never have to test it. I have the very unfortunate experience of making it real for them.

I dont know what experiences you wife has gone through or what expectations she (subconsciously?) harbors, but I have had to learn conversational gymnastics around what I make, especially around males that I know make less and who I actually want to be friends or spend time with - Im not sure they realize the change in the way they see me when they find out - but it's not fun to feel constantly rejected or unintentionally intimidating just for living my full potential; I wont downgrade myself or be the one to compromise to make males feel better about themselves either, it's not my job. My responsibility is to myself, to provide for my survival needs. And I wont settle for the few guys that are more than willing to sit on the couch playing video games all day while I pay the bills, clean and provide dinner. Im just not sure many males are fully aware these issues exist.

Wait... Why was she worried that you were taking advantage of the situation? Taking advantage how specifically?