How do you handle financial differences in a relationship?

I was married to a very wealthy woman for 14 years or so, and I made some rounding error’s worth of her annual income. If she wanted us to travel, she paid. I just handed over all the money I made directly to her, as a gesture of contribution.

If the feelings are genuine, then just be gracious and enjoy the luxuries together. Slum it every so often so that the less wealthy partner can keep in touch with his or her identity/roots.

In a good relationship, both partners are best served by the capacity to enjoy each other and the circumstances.

Also, the less wealthy partner might have something to offer in terms of an eye for authentic experience, especially if the wealthy partner tends to equate $ and meaning.

@dpworkin How did you handle it before marriage with her? Was there a joint account that you had access to so you could have some spending $? And what happened after the relationship ended, if you were giving her your entire income?

@kevbo Thanks for the answer. I think they feelings are genuine. :)

@Likeradar It’s a long, painful, highly personal story that I’d rather not rehearse. Short version: she was emotionally abusive, I got some help, and eventually became strong enough to leave. I haven’t a dime, but I am far happier.

Piggybacking on what @dpworkin said, it’s better for the less wealthy partner to retain some self sufficiency until things become more permanent.

@dpworkin Fair enough, I don’t want you to rehash painful stuff.
@kevbo Absolutely, and even after things get more permanent, I always think it’s a good idea for everyone to have some of their own money.

These are the kind of situations I’m thinking of.
Person A: Hey, we should take a vacation/buy a new sofa/hire a cleaning lady/move to a bigger apartment, etc
Person B: Sure, I’ll start buying lottery tickets.

It doesn’t seem right to me that person A has to pay all the time or not have the niceties a big paycheck allows. And it also doesn’t seem fair to me that person B doesn’t contribute, or has no savings because of trying to keep up. I know not everything is black and white or 50/50, I just have trouble seeing the shades of gray with this.
I’m usually not logical about love at all, but I kind of am in this area.

There are plenty of ways to contribute to a relationship other than financially. I did a gut rehab on the country house, I chose the antiques, art and jewelry with my many years of expertise (they are soaring in value while her stock portfolio is in the tank), I was Mr. Mom and took daily care of our twins…

You are describing a partnership where it will be up to you/them to work out the financial aspect about what you/they can do to achieve an equitable balance in the relationship.

@Cruiser Uh, yeah. I’m not asking for someone to tell me what to do, but for advice and experiences to think about.

Imagine you were dating someone whom you cared about who was “significantly deficient” in some way when compared to you. Would you want them to be constantly hung up on that issue or to not worry about it and just enjoy the moment?

Relationships are rarely 50/50 by any measure and either perception or reality. The “value” that any one person gets from a relationship is entirely up to that person.

In my experience, a significant hurdle is feeling a little anchorless. “We” are so used to having to work within a budget that so often dictates we have to make a choice between necessity and luxury. In a situation like this, financial limitation recedes to expose the limitation of one’s thinking. The discomfort this generates is, over the long term, an opportunity to acquire a different way of thinking and a different comfort level with respect to a budget and limitations. Making this transition can take up quite a bit of mental energy. In my experience, the pot at the end of the rainbow is the opportunity to discover what level of material wealth is “enough.” It is very gratifying and liberating to make this discovery, and I don’t know how easy it is to make without experiencing a period of excess for a change.

I was raised to not consider money to be important – in my first marriage, my parents helped us out, my ex was the one bringing in money but it wasn’t a lot…I was in grad school…in my current marriage, I am making more money and pay for more expenses but we help each other out…he’s in charge of certain things like food and stuff for the home..but we both contribute to the ING savings account that we have…we were just talking about how financial security isn’t something we have (it’s not something I’ve ever had)...we focus more on what our kids have and indulging in little things…I don’t feel that our spending urges are different…maybe it helps to have the same relationship towards money and what value it has in your relationship.

All I know is that the man always has to make more, otherwise they’re not a real man.~

In living together relationships, I think you have to think of the couple as the financial unit. It doesn’t matter who does what, the resources belong to both. Even in friendships, if the friendship is good enough, I don’t think it should matter. The person with the resources pays. If the other person wants to contribute something, they should make the effort, but it shouldn’t matter if they don’t.

If it does matter, then the friends probably shouldn’t be doing things together.

@Likeradar, in the examples you stated, if the person who has more money than their partner, and they suggest an expenditure that they could afford if living on their own, then they should be the one to bear the expense of it. As stated, if they buy new couch, it belongs to the purchaser. Hiring a cleaning lady, while it benefits the person with less money, they are not asking for cleaning help, so therefore if the person with more money doesn’t want to clean, then they should pay for the cleaning help if they would pay for it if living alone. That’s a lifestyle choice. Moving to a bigger place should follow the budget constraints of the person making the least money; the person with more money should not impose a financial hardship on their partner. Doing with less is far more beneficial than overspending.

When I’m in a serious relationship, my money is her money – I can never afford something she can’t, even though my family has money and hers is across the country so doesn’t help.

If you are married you operate as a single financial unit.

@kevbo gave most of what I have to offer already.

1) When I had the larger income then my partner pretty much paid for a monthly getaways, movies, dinners and little household goodies. I pushed to live in a more expensive area and had no problem paying for it. My focus was on enjoying the relationship and not who brought what to the table.

2) My next live-in partner was the sole money contributor and insisted on paying for everything more as a matter of their own social/cultural mores and for some reason it wasn’t as comfortable for me. In that case I was very self conscious about wanting to ask for things I’d always provided myself, little luxuries such as salon trips, clothes, asking to go to particular places to eat outside the home. I realized all was fine with my attitude towards money as long as I was the one calling the shots.

3) In my last relationship, I was a small income earner but my partner didn’t make me feel self conscious about it and I wasn’t intimated by their generosity because I felt they genuinely enjoyed what they were sharing and felt they realized my genuine appreciation. I admit I really missed being able to do some things for them in return on the scale of what they were used to as far as their lifestyle before me but didn’t take it as an issue that would become a problem ever.

Fact from fiction truth from diction. Not being married there is basically only one way to handle it unless the one with the most bucks want to carry the one who makes less, the one with the most bucks have the most say unless they voluntarily agree to pay for most but choose equal. That would go for where you live, what, when, where and how to take vacations, separate accounts. Whoever earns less does most of the domestic duties to even out their contribution.

If you are married/living together, then the finances should be pooled