Romance and Finance: How To Properly Manage Money As A Couple

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Love brings the best out of many of us. We find that we become more tolerating and forgiving of actions we never could tolerate. The sky looks bluer and the music of the birds sound more melodious, we even start to feel like we have springs in our feet. It is just so amazing to know that there is someone who is always going to be there for us through our flaws and all. As our relationship grow, we find that love is not all milk and honey, and there are things that can become deal breakers when not properly managed. Turns out many people can fall in love but it takes a large dose of maturity and emotional intelligence to stay in love.

Not many people start relationships hoping for the end of it but things happen along the way that make people get less fond of the love that used to be.

One of such things is finance.

Having the talk about money is never so easy but it is one of the most important things as it can decide whether a marriage will thrive or not. Many of us claim to be very in love but we won’t even divulge how much money we make to our significant other (this is a post for another day ).

Reasons why it is NOT wise to have a joint account with your fiance(e) before marriage

I know that this might raise some issues but I would like to say upfront that this is not doctrinal or straight out of the Bible.  This is based on wisdom and what I have seen in many counselling sessions.

For the sake of this discussion, a joint account is an account where both parties agree to put some money into for whatever reason. This also assumes that any party has the withdrawal signatory rights without due recourse to the other party. I also am not saying that I support or do not support having a joint account. That is a matter for another time.

I have seen in many cases that some individuals "in love" decide to open a joint account because they trust the other person in the relationship. I remember one case where a lady friend in Nigeria got involved with a guy living abroad. She left the country to be closer to the guy and soon enough, they decided to open a joint account in preparation for their wedding and future life together. To cut the long story short, one day the guy emptied the joint account and came back to Nigeria to get married to another lady in Nigeria. Now this lady friend is well off and not ugly.

Here are my reasons: