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Secret bank accounts: your financial undoing or relationship rescue?
Posted on April 2nd, 2009 18 comments
I never expected the Globe & Mail to promote such unbelievably bad relationship and financial advice under the guise of male freedom, which they did in the recent article titled, There’s our money and there’s my money, by Micah Toub. The author claims that it is actually healthy for men (and women) to keep secret bank accounts for activities like gambling and attending strip clubs. No, I’m not exaggerating, the author actually condones such behaviour. Toub argues that it is healthy for men to “reclaim a space in their hearts and minds where their significant other has no access” and that such a space can be occupied through secret spending habits.
I don’t disagree that spouses who have different interests should have the freedom to spend some of their money on pursuits that interest them, even if they don’t interest their spouse. I don’t expect my fascination with antique tea cups to be reciprocated by my partner, and I have eventually come to accept that his spending on video games has merit, too. Each spouse should have an opportunity to pursue their own passions and their own desire for fun and relaxation.
Many couples choose to deal with their separate interests by allocating a certain amount of money to personal spending. This option gives each spouse the freedom of the secret bank account, minus the secrecy.
The very need for the secret bank account suggests to me, that one of two things is going on in the relationship:
- One, the relationship is governed by a controlling spouse who is so strict that the other partner has no freedom. Ideally, we should find ourselves in relationships where each spouse is willing to understand each others’ interests and makes compromises so that each feels satisfied with the budget and spending decisions. In abusive or controlling situations, I can see the need for secret bank accounts, but not because this is inherently healthy or ideal plan.
- Two, perhaps the spouse is spending money on things they really shouldn’t be buying - perhaps they are spending money they haven’t yet earned, or are purchasing items they really can’t afford, or are spending money the family had earmarked for another purchase. Or, perhaps they are spending money on something that has the potential to hurt the other person.
Two examples are provided in the article. Example one:
“I play reasonably high-stakes poker and I could easily lose $2,500 in a night,” Dr. Kelly says. After one particularly bad loss, she came home and told her husband. He became judgmental, telling her to “think of all the people we could have helped with that money.” But poker is something that brings Dr. Kelly personal enjoyment, and she always comes out ahead over time. Once he’d calmed down, they agreed it would be better if he didn’t hear the ongoing details of her gambling, but would just be told the final tally once the year was over.
I can’t believe that secretly gambling as much as $2500 a night is justified. If gambling is so important, than why not mutually agree on a limit that can be planned and budgeted for? Furthermore, it’s worth questioning whether this spending is even valid. Is Dr.Kelly’s “personal enjoyment” or a secret gambling addiction we’re talking about? And is this “personal enjoyment” really the best form of stress relief, one that is worth risking the relationship, not to mention the family’s bank account for? I believe that financial decisions, especially ones that involve high stakes, should be made together.
Example two:
Excited by this idea of delayed confession, I told her about an old friend who uses unmonitored cash from a private bank account to visit strip clubs, a salve to his wandering eye. “It’s saving my relationship,” he told me recently. Certainly it’s not a permanent solution, but the strip club - and the account from which the bills placed in a G-string are withdrawn - represents the temporary workshop space for his brain to sort out commitment issues.
Saving the relationship? Sorting out commitment issues by secretly stuffing bills into a woman’s G-string? Forgive me, but I can’t see how perpetual secrecy, accompanied by naked women, can do any more than delay addressing problems in the relationship. It’s self-delusion with a capital (B)S.
While I believe that healthy relationships promote privacy and freedom, secrecy is not healthy no matter how you slice it, and is most certainly the undoing, not the gateway to, financial stability.
Do you believe it is healthy to keep secret bank accounts?
18 responses to “Secret bank accounts: your financial undoing or relationship rescue?”
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Wow, that’s pretty over the top! No, I don’t think that secret bank accounts are a good idea. Secrets in general are sort of a relationship red flag. Having your own money? Sure. My husband and I each have our own ‘fun money’ accounts that we put birthday and Christmas gift money we get into. But we’re open about where the money comes from and where it’s going.
I would be pretty livid to discover he was secretly gambling or visiting strip clubs. Trust is so important in a marriage, and keeping secrets like this can really destroy that.
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That’s crazy. The need for a secret bank account or any secret, for that matter, should have alarm bells ringing about the relationship big time.
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Bente April 3rd, 2009 at 03:34
” Forgive me, but I can’t see how perpetual secrecy, accompanied by naked women, can do any more than delay addressing problems in the relationship. It’s self-delusion with a capital (B)S.”
Hear. Hear.
Great post!
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There was another example in that article, the one about the guy who likes nice dinners out with his kids.
While I’m not big on ’secret’ bank accounts, I can see what they’re getting at. Everyone’s priorities are different; while you (universal you) might think your spouse is “wasting” money on whatever, that doesn’t mean they don’t think it’s valuable.
R and I are kicking around the idea of building personal “mad money” into our budgets after the debt is reapid (7 months left, woo!). We do have joint misc. spending money set aside right now, but it gets frustrating (and a little stifling) to be having a deep discussion every time one of us wants to buy something related to our hobbies (triathalon gear is my personal money-suck. Books too, although R is usually happy to join me in that). If R wants to use that money for gambling, assuming he isn’t going over budget with it (and trust me, 2500 bucks would blow our budget out of the water), then I honestly don’t have a problem with it. It’s called ‘mad money’ for a reason!
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I’m totally with you. There’s a difference between privacy and secrecy, and sneaking around does *not* equal freedom (to say nothing of the financial costs… $2,500 is very nearly a term’s tuition!). I’m really surprised they printed that…
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psychsarah April 3rd, 2009 at 08:51
I wholeheartedly agree with you! I think it is fundamentally damaging to a relationship to hide money. In the past, when my DH and I were further apart on saving/spending goals, I had many friends and family members tell me to simply hide some of the money “for his own good”. It just didn’t sit right with me. All I could think of was how I would feel if I found out he had a pot of money I didn’t know about. Although it has been much more challenging than simply hiding the money, we have had numerous discussions over the past 12 years and have gotten a lot closer on our money management habits, which I think has taught us a lot about each other and how to resolve disagreements. Like anything in relationships, it’s not just the content (i.e., money issues) it’s the process (i.e., how you resolve them).
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This was a great post. I have a friend that just got married 2 months ago and had a secret account from his new wife. He used the account for his college aged daughter to withdraw money whenever she needed to. The wife had very excessive spending habits so he knew if she new about the account she want a part of it.She found out about the account and is now filing for divorce cause he won’t give her access to any of the money. I said all that to say this, regardless of what a secret account is for it can still make a relationship go south.
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Kelly April 3rd, 2009 at 10:55
Like Amber, my fiance and I have our own accounts the other person doesn’t look at. We both know they are there, but we get an “allowance” each time we get paid. This allowance goes into our own account and becomes “mad money”. If I wanted to blow it all on candy or on the spa or save it all up for a big purchase while he spends his on video games or comic books then that’s okay. The bills are all paid, the savings accounts are going in the right direction and it’s really nice to not have to check everything with each other. Plus I’d hate to never have any surprises, and how are we supposed to get each other birthday and Christmas gifts if we are both monitoring the money?
I agree with Maddy “There’s a difference between privacy and secrecy”. -
Saver Queen April 3rd, 2009 at 11:30
I completely believe in separate accounts or allowances for “mad money” and hope that I did make it clear in the post when I mentioned them that I think they are a good idea. With personal allowances, like Kelly says, you can blow your amount on whatever you want, junk food, a meal out, video games, gambling whatever. It’s free spending but free spending in a way that is fair, and planned on. To me, this is quite different from a secret account.
Kate, even though the father spent the money from his secret account on dinners out wit this children, I shudder to think that the wife is so controlling that she couldn’t accept his desire to treat his children once in a while. Either she needed to compromise, or they were in such dire financial straits that he really shouldn’t be doing it and should find a more frugal way to treat his children.
psychsarah - your comments are really touching. it’s so great that you put in the hard work with your spouse to compromise and move closer together with your money management habits. You’re right - it’s more than solving a problem through a quick fix, it’s the process of learning how to work together.
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Catherine April 3rd, 2009 at 13:36
Good post. I’ve known my sweetie for 50 years. We’ve been a couple for 43. We celebrate our 40th wedding Ann. in August.
The only time I have had a ’secret’ account was when I was saving $$ to take him to Jamaica for his 50th birthday…boy, was he surprised!
I’ve always been the money handler. All monies come to me and I distribute it to where it has to go. Hubby does have mad money and sweetheart that he is…he usually spends it on me ;o) -
I think “secret” is the problem here, not personal spending accounts. We recently combined finances and Mr M now has a personal spending account that is his mad money. I’m not allowed to get mad about what he spends it on either, but it’s certainly not a secret.
Our neighbor’s husband just walked out on her and the two kids. She worked and supported him for years, turns out he was hiding money in a secret account that he used to get his own place, buy a car and a motorcycle and to leave her. If you need a secret account, something is wrong.
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I agree that the secret is the problem, not the personal spending.
I always tell BF what I spend, and he does the same to me… as long as I pony up my 50% of the bills, my money is mine.
Fabulously Broke in the City
“Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.“ -
Michelle April 4th, 2009 at 10:57
While DH and I don’t have ’secret’ accounts, we do everything completely separately with our money, and it works well for us. I would hate to have him raise an eyebrow at a new pair of shoes or magazine, and I don’t feel I need to ‘babysit’ his spending. As long as our bills are paid, mortgage is taken care of, food is on the table and we aren’t scraping by, then I’m happy to have things separate. I think it’s my own personal hang-up with money, but I have no idea where it comes from. Even as a teenager I despised having to ask for my allowance, even though at that time my Mom had left so I certainly did enough house cleaning, laundry, and cooking to earn my $10 allowances.
I think that instead of looking at it as a secret (which implies a dirty little hidden thing), I just look at it as my own “I take care of my share and then some, so you don’t need to know the rest of my spending/savings.”.
Maybe it can be viewed as disloyal in some way by some, but for me it’s my own personal security and a little bit of my world that I can control and do. I would make a lousy housewife relying on one income. I’m pretty sure I’d be wearing rags and hair down to my knees before I’d ask for money that, although deserved, would never feel like mine to me. I know, it’s a weird mindset when technically I’d be taking care of the home so DH could work, but I need to be in control of my income and spending in a neurotic sorta way!(footnote: I am NOT saying that stay at home moms or housewives don’t deserve to share their spouses income. Quite the opposite, I think they deserve the lion’s share because it’s hard bloody work. But for me it would be a hard pill to swallow to have to explain my purchases or where money goes, and I do apologize up front if it sounds like I’m saying that only working women deserve their money).
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Saver Queen April 4th, 2009 at 15:45
Michelle, I must say that I find your comments a bit offensive. If you were in an agreement where your husband earned the income and you were a stay at home mom, raising the kids and taking care of the family, why on earth would you not feel deserving of your share of the family income? You’re contradicting yourself by saying that SAHM’s deserve their share of the income, yet simultaneously saying that you are personally above it. To me, a family income should be shared in a way that best suits everyone’s needs, regardless of who technically earns the wage, as long as everyone is pulling their own weight. I don’t think that being a SAHM automatically means that you must give up control of your spending, or that all of a sudden you have to “explain your purchases” - you are making it sound as those SAHM’s have to answer to their husbands who dictate the financial rules of the house. Ideally, budgeting decisions should be made together as a couple, regardless of who earns the money. You could still spend your share of disposable income in a way that you see fit. I don’t see how budgeting or other decisions should be dictated by the wage earner; it should be a partnership.
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Wow! I was taken back by that article as well.
In my relationship everything is on the table, no secrets, no fun accounts, nothing of the sort! If he wants a video game, and we have the extra money - he gets the video game. If I want a pedi, and we have the money for it, then I get the pedi. Things are always equal, in every aspect of our relationship!
This works for us, and I couldn’t see myself involved with a man who participates in those kinds of activities anyway!
Good post!!
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@SaverQueen
I’m not sure that it’s necessarily that the wife was “so controlling”. Her priorities are very likely different: “Why would you spend $80 on a steak? Sure, you’re out with the kids, but couldn’t a trip to Applebee’s suffice?” The pleasure principle plays a role here; unfortunately, not everyone gets the same pleasure out of the same things.
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Kate, I see your point, but in healthy relationships you communicate until you get things resolved. It’s like psychsarah’s example. You compromise, you listen, you find a way to make things work, even if it means that sometimes he goes to Applebees when money is tight, and sometimes, when they can afford it, he goes to the expensive restaurant even if he wife will never understand the difference between a good quality steak and a cheap one. I still don’t think that hiding money is the best response to different interests. I’m sure coming to an understanding takes work but I’m also sure it’s worth the effort.
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Michelle April 5th, 2009 at 16:09
I do apologize upfront for my words yesterday, but I don’t agree that I implied I was personally above anything SQ. What I was trying, I guess unsuccessfully, to point out was that having separate accounts does not necessarily have to mean there’s some secret spending going on between couples. It may just be, as is in my case, that some people have their own personal hang-ups about asking for anything; money, help, the free dessert that’s supposed to come with dinner, whatever. I fall into that category, and try as I may, I just find it extremely difficult to ask for anything, and money falls into that category.
As a university student I worked 3 jobs and absolutely dreaded having to call my Dad for an extra $50 to buy a course book (that I knew was actually $250, but I’d scrounge the rest from taking another shift if I had to). When DH and I were first living together I’d go so far into overdraft because although we split the bills 50/50, he’d get the money to me whenever he went to the bank or remembered, even though I really needed it 5 days ago. It was a lesson that I learned about myself and money, and I think that this works better for me in a control kind of way. Now if I go into O/D, it’s my fault and I get myself out of it.
Again, I sincerely apologize if my comment was offensive as that is truly not what I was trying to do. I just think that couples (healthy and otherwise) have their own ways of doing things financially that work for them, and hats off when it does, whether it be joint, separate, or successful combination of both. As long as everyone’s happy with the arrangement, strange as it may be to others, then it’s a success.
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