Combining finances with a partner can get messy, especially if both partners are still married to other people. That’s the situation a recent caller to The Ramsey Show said she’s facing.
Grace and her partner, who both live in Colorado, are both technically still married to their previous spouses. He has two kids with his soon-to-be ex-wife, and Grace says she’s helping raise them. They’re living together, and last summer they decided to combine their finances, but she says things haven’t been going well.
Grace said she’s newly pregnant and living paycheck to paycheck. She and her partner have a combined $5,700 monthly income after taxes and $91,000 in debt. She’s looking for a way out of the mess, and co-hosts Rachel Cruze and John Delony didn’t hold back.
“You are roommates financially,” Delony told her. “You have to think about it that way.”
Grace was already on shaky ground before any of this. But the core issue is straightforward: she tied her financial life to someone else’s before she had any legal protection in place.
Her partner hasn’t even started his divorce yet, largely because of a $5,000 attorney’s retainer he can’t afford. But they’ve been informally pooling money by paying each other’s bills and splitting expenses, without any of the legal framework or protection that marriage provides.
It gets even messier when one partner is going through a divorce. During the divorce, lawyers often review financial records such as bank accounts, utility bills, retirement accounts, and income. Any shared assets or payments could be scrutinized during divorce proceedings.
Grace’s approximately $48,000 income is commission-based, with a $2,500 monthly baseline that can swing up to $4,000 or more depending on her performance. That variability makes budgeting difficult and leaves little margin for error, let alone the ability to absorb someone else’s debt.
Cruze and Delony’s advice to Grace was direct: stop paying her partner’s bills (and letting him pay hers), split expenses, and start budgeting based solely on her own income.
More importantly, they said, his divorce costs are his problem, not hers.
“You don’t have enough money to even be helping with that,” Delony told her (1).
Read More: How to apply Dave Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps to your own life
Whether you’re considering combining finances or already in a complicated situation like Grace’s, there are ways to protect yourself. In general, the smartest move is to avoid combining finances without a clear agreement in place, ideally a legal one.
Here are a few practical steps to protect yourself and avoid getting into a sticky situation:
Treat each other like roommates financially. Split bills cleanly and keep your own accounts. Use a payment app to split costs rather than paying each other’s bills directly. Alternatively, you can contribute equal or proportional amounts to a joint checking account for shared household bills, and keep your own separate accounts for everything else.
Build your own financial foundation first. Unmarried partners should focus on their own finances rather than taking on each other’s obligations. Build a budget based on what you can afford on your own.
Don’t take on your partner’s debt. Combining loans and credit cards might seem like the supportive thing to do, but it puts your finances at risk. If the relationship ends, getting your name taken off of their bills and debts could be a pain — and any money you paid toward their debt usually can’t be recovered. If your partner isn’t yet divorced, like in Grace’s case, combining assets could also put your money at risk.
If you do combine, do it formally. Not all couples fully combine their incomes, but if you do, make it official. That means creating joint accounts, updating beneficiaries, and having a clear picture of your total combined debt and income. Many financial advisors also recommend a prenuptial agreement if you plan to get married, especially if one partner has significantly more wealth or assets — not as a sign of mistrust, but as a practical way to protect both partners (2).
Combining finances without a legal agreement in place comes with risks, and those risks increase if one or both partners are still legally married to someone else. In Grace’s situation, keeping things separate may be the safest approach.
Join 250,000+ readers and get Moneywise’s best stories and exclusive interviews first — clear insights curated and delivered weekly. Subscribe now.
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
The Ramsey Show Highlights (1); GB Family Law (2)
This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com under the title: Colorado couple who are both married to other people should not combine their bills or debts, The Ramsey Show says
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
Leave a Reply