Thewriter lives in Chicago, just got
married, and writes about money and writing over at The Writer’s Coin.

For the most part, my new wife and
myself have done pretty well when it comes to adjusting to the financial side
of married life. We
created a joint bank account and the first few months have worked
really well — we’re living our lives and we’re
putting away a good amount of money. There have been some hiccups along the
way, we aren’t the Brady Bunch or anything (nevermind the kids part, that’s a
whole other ballpark). We’ve had our fair share of disagreements over things
like emergency funds and semantics about targeted
savings accounts, but overall we’re good.

This past month, something new came up that had
us clashing again. It’s interesting that such minor things can cause such a
lack of understanding between two people that love each other so much. The
issue: I get paid twice a month but M gets paid every Friday, which means
she’ll have four “extra” paychecks over the course of a year. When I got
paid every two weeks, I had the same problem and I just treated it like found
money — it went straight into my ING savings account.

M, however, didn’t see it that way. She would
rather have it accounted for throughout the year and taken into full
consideration when we budget out how we spend money on a day-to-day basis. This
way would give us a bump in the amount of money we have to spend every month.
Which is understandable because if you don’t count that money, on paper it
looks like she’s not “contributing” as much to “our” finances (marriage invites
the liberal use of quotes and air quotes — get used to it) than she’s actually
making. So she wanted our budgeting spreadsheet to reflect that money.

I wasn’t thinking about that and stressed that
this was a great way of saving even more money (me being greedy and
cheap). Instead of bringing it into the budget (where it would likely get
spent, I’ve learned), I wanted to shoot it straight into our joint ING account.

Then things got defensive. I kind of understood her point, but I still wanted
to “win” the argument, prove I was right and get some extra saving going into
our coffers. It wasn’t “my” money being accounted for, so what did I care? She
could tell and wasn’t going to give in easily. It was late and her last attempt
to foil me was to say that she would “forget” to transfer new money over on
months where there was an extra paycheck. I countered with this jewel: “I’ll
remind you.”

Now, it was late and we had just gone through
our budget, so things were a little tense. So we left it at that and let it
soak in for a few days. The next week was an extra paycheck week and I brought
it up. We had cooled down a little — I wasn’t out to “win” and she wasn’t out
to stop me from winning. We both realized that, in the end, it’s “our money”
(there is that beautiful phrase single people dread to hear) and it doesn’t
matter how we account for it as long as we end up deciding it together and
being responsible about it.

The lesson? Money makes us defensive and
edgy because what used to be “mine” is no longer. Not just with money, with
everything. Sharing isn’t easy, especially when it comes to such a contentious
thing as money. But that’s the lesson learned here — that money, like
everything else, is no longer “yours.” When you marry someone everything
becomes “ours” and the sooner you realize that, the easier it’ll be for you to
let this kind of this just roll right off your back.