Why don't couples want to merge their finances?

Or, how the soul mate relationship paradigm encourages unhappy choices

Credit: Stable Diffusion

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A while back, I happened upon a piece in The Atlantic that posed an interesting question: Should couples merge their finances? The piece cites a bunch of evidence and quotes different financial advisors, but ultimately concludes that the best option is “sharing some money and keeping some money separate.”

Whether that’s actually the best option or not, it is what most people appear to be doing; data published last year by CreditCards.com showed that 57% of Americans keep at least some of their accounts separate. Nearly a quarter of Americans, or 23%, maintain entirely separate finances from their romantic partners.

This raises a couple of questions. First, is maintaining separate financial accounts truly the best thing for couples to do? And second, why are so many people now choosing to keep their money separate?

The first question is easy to answer: The research suggests that combining finances is better for couples. For example, a 2022 paper found that couples who pool all of their money have greater relationship satisfaction than those who keep either all or some of their resources separate¹. Couples with combined finances are also more likely to stay together, the paper notes. And critically, the researchers behind the paper found that these effects aren’t simply the result of happier couples choosing to merge their finances. Instead, it’s just the opposite: merging finances actually influenced relationships for the better.

Other research has found that merging finances pushes couples to spend money more responsibly, and that married couples have a huge wealth advantage over couples who simply live together without tying the knot.

The takeaway from these various findings is that despite the apparent growing popularity of keeping separate bank accounts, there are numerous quantifiable benefits to combining finances. The Atlantic’s conclusion — which I see echoed constantly on social media and in real life — was wrong.

This made me grateful that my wife and I merged our finances when we got married — which we did not because we knew anything about the research on the topic but rather because we simply didn’t have any money at the time.

But what about the second question: Why is this happening? Why, in light of the research, are people making choices that reduce their likelihood of having happy and long-lasting relationships? Why aren’t people choosing happiness?

There are plenty of possible explanations. The median age for both men and women to get married is now higher than at almost any² point since at least the late 1890s. That suggests more Americans today see marriage as a “capstone” event in adulthood, which to quote the Institute for Family Studies is the idea that getting hitched is something you do down the road when you finally have “all your ducks in a row.” This contrasts with an older idea of marriage as a “cornerstone” or gateway into adulthood. And the result is that many people have established careers and spending habits by the time they get married — all of which likely gives couples greater incentive to keep their money separate.

That 2022 paper I cited above also notes that some people may keep separate accounts for ideological reasons; a feminist approach, for example, would see women keep their money separate in order to maintain autonomy.

The list of explanations could go on. But my theory is that underneath all of the other reasons, there’s something deeper: The “soul mate paradigm,” which is the dominant way of thinking about relationships in the West, and which posits that relationships should be based on emotional ties rather than practical ones.

I’ve written many times before about the soul mate paradigm, but to refresh this is a concept I took from historian Stephanie Coontz and her book Marriage, a History. The gist is that for centuries, marriage was seen as a practical partnership. You might fall in love, but that wasn’t a prerequisite. Instead, couples were “work mates.” Over time that changed, and by the mid 1800s we had transitioned to a different view of marriage in which partners were supposed to be “soul mates.” Marriage became less about working toward a common goal — furthering the family line, working the farm, etc. — and more about emotional fulfilment.

This transition happened along side, and was influenced by, the cultural changes described by a concept known as WEIRD psychology³ — which is basically a way to understand how the western world became highly and uniquely individualistic.

The result of all of this history — which spans hundreds of years — is that today many of us Westerners lean into a relationship framework that prioritizes the individual over the family unit, and which defines that family unit in purely emotional terms. And I think that largely explains why people are increasingly likely to keep separate bank accounts.

Put another way, if your partner is your soul mate, why would you combine bank accounts? There’s no reason to do so. It’d be like becoming emotionally entangled with a coworker; you don’t want to become financially entangled with a romantic partner.

So to answer the question posed in the headline, I suspect many couples don’t want to merge their bank accounts because the way we think of relationships implies that it’s not necessary, or even that it’s not desirable.

I will at this point add my usual caveat, which is that I don’t really care what anyone does individually. Keep your accounts separate. Merge them. Whatever. It’s not going to impact my life.

But it’s interesting to me that when it comes to finances people are increasingly doing the opposite of what is likely to produce happy relationships, and that the way we think about relationships encourages this behavior.

It follows, then, that achieving happier relationships isn’t just about making different behavioral decisions. It’s also about reframing the way we think about relationships in the first place. It's a mindset shift as much as anything else. And ultimately, that shift probably requires thinking less individually and being open about the fact that successful relationships require more than just emotional connections if they’re going to thrive⁴.

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Headlines to check out this week:

Anti-Social Socialism Club

“The collapse of families represents a genuine social crisis—with the potential to result in global economic catastrophe. Yet, instead of confronting that crisis, many on the Left shrink from the problem. They accommodate themselves to the collapse of the family by recasting the trend toward familial dissolution as both a voluntary choice and a moral virtue. They, perhaps unwittingly, find themselves cheering for a lonelier, more alienated planet.”

1. The paper is behind a paywall, but you can see an earlier working version here.

2. The median age for a first marriage ticked down slightly in 2022, so technically 2021 was the high point. But the dip was small enough that we’re still near the top.

3. WEIRD is an acronym that stands for western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. More reading: The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous. Joseph Henrich. 2020.

4. I suspect most people in successful relationships eventually come to this conclusion on their own. But even so, it somehow still isn’t valorized.