i think everyone does things very very differently. As I said above we live together in his house now and joint mortgage coming soon, however the rest of our finances are separate. if i do the food shopping i pay and he pays back half of it, the bills come out of his bank account (because he lived here before me) and i pay him half. even when we have children and get married we will have a joint account for bills and childrens stuff and mortgage etc but the remainder of the money will be what i earn i spend what he earns he spends.
Absolutely, life would be boring if everyone thought the same! I don't think there's one right way to do things either - I'm not bothered or offended at all by people doing things differently to me...I sometimes wish that what I do didn't interest certain people (some family members) quite so much, though!
Our finances are similar to yours - we have joint accounts/policies for most things, but we each have separate savings accounts (ISAs, so they can't actually be joint accounts anyway) and current accounts. We each pay into a joint account for shopping, bills, house stuff etc, but whatever's left over in my account is mine and what's in his is his, and we do what we like with it. Admittedly it mostly goes into savings, but e.g. I pay for all the car stuff because he doesn't drive, and we each use our own money for clothes, nights out, etc. If one of us wants to buy something big, e.g. recently he got a new bike, I've replaced my laptop, we discuss it even though we're spending our own money, but that's mostly to make sure we're making sensible decisions, rather than 'asking permission'.
one day when we do eventually get married it will be special because we will do it because the time is right not because we have to get married before we do other things.
i dont think there is a right or wrong way to live your life because its YOURS if you feel you should get married before you buy a house together then make sure you tell him so.
one thing i am curious about though (and dont want to start a debate please) but the ladies that take a marriage before mortgage stance do you also have a marriage before babies view?
I used to have a very traditional view and wanted to do the house marriage then babies but as i got older that faded however i have a friend that takes the marriage before mortgage view but she doesnt think she needs to be married before having a baby? if you want marriage before one then why not the other? will be interested to hear your views on that
xx
I'm also not trying to start a debate, but we definitely didn't feel like we 'had' to get married before we could buy a house or have a baby...for us, it would have felt unnatural doing it any other way. As I said above, that doesn't mean I think anyone else is wrong for doing it differently! That was just what applied to us and our situation.
I do have a 'marriage before babies' view too,
as far as me and my husband are concerned ONLY, and that's partly because of my Mum, she's very traditional and I would have been ostracised from the family had I got pregnant outside of wedlock. I got enough grief for living with hubby before we were married, never mind adding a baby to the mix! Her views have probably contributed a lot to my own views of how I should live my life, and probably to how strongly I feel about being married. But I still see marriage as a positive thing, and not something that 'has' to be done so other things can happen.
My parents are still married after nearly 40 years together, so perhaps that has also contributed to how I feel about marriage in general. My husband's parents, though, divorced when he was very young, and he's seen his Dad go through more failed marriages, but he also (surprisingly, perhaps) still sees marriage as a good thing. We tell each other all the time how lucky we feel to be married to each other, and it's the best thing we have done for our relationship.
But for everyone else in the world...get married, don't get married, have kids before or after getting married...seriously, whatever works for that couple! No-one has the right to say what anyone else should do with their lives. If marriage was the key to a happy relationship, no-one would get divorced. I have seen friends and family in all sorts of permuations and combinations of relationships, with and without kids, and it all very much depends on the two people involved as to whether or not it will work, rather than on what order they get married/have kids/buy a house in, or whatever.
(Wow, that was a bit of an essay, wasn't it?! I'll shut up now...
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