Here's a better tip: Find a partner you don't feel the need to keep huge secrets from.
Impossible. That perfect partner could turn darkside on you years into marriage.
Most people who marry think they found the perfect partner, but the divorce rates say otherwise.
You've clearly never been married and have no idea what you're talking about. Hiding secrets and saying it's impossible not to is the most destructive thing you could do to your marriage. On top of all, hiding assets from a spouse during a divorce amounts to contempt of court and carries a penalty and additional legal battles and expenses. Please don't recommend anyone to do it.
Divorce rates are weird to me because they take the number of marriages in one year and the number of divorces and say the divorce rate is a percentage of marriages from that year.
But divorced folks could have been married any length of time, so it's not like half of the marriages in that specific year ended in divorce.
Yeah. Could be caused by mental health issues or something of the like. Pretty sure due to some mental health issues, my mom might have almost ended marriage with my dad a couple years back. Don't remember the details, though.
Or make those secrets explicit. Tell them that you have a bank account on your name to which you only have access to and may be that you don‘t want to tell them how much money is in this account. Further tell them WHY you want that. Any reasonable partner would be fine with this.
That's not a secret account, that's just having separate bank accounts which is extremely normal
Keeping a separate bank account that the partner can't access can be a very sensible decision, I agree in the other hand that needing to keep it secret is not the sign of a healthy relationship.
It's good to have separate accounts, it's a bad to have a SECRET account your partner doesn't know exists
Absolutely nothing in this tweet indicates that actually did keep anything a secret. But, otherwise solid advice.
Right, I'm not assuming Mommy Owl kept secrets. I'm just refuting grandma's shitty advice (WHICH TO BE FAIR - comes from a different generation where women had no power)
Ah yes. Secrets. The proper way to have a loving marriage.
No wait. That's the proper way to be unhappy and get a divorce or a loveless marriage.
Back in grandma's day (in the US at least) women were financially trapped in their marriages by a system that wouldn't allow them to get credit cards or open bank accounts without their husband's permission, even if they worked. Having a small stash allows a person to choose to be in a marriage, not be forced.
It's outdated advice but it comes from a good place.
Yup. My great grandma always had funds hidden somewhere. Cash, of course, because she couldn't legally open a bank account (plus a lot of this happened during the Depression). She couldn't just leave because a) marital rape is a thing and she had a whole bunch of kids and b) you just didn't really do that back then. But her stash made sure the kids ate and had clothes even when grandpa was being more of a pos than usual. It was just sensible.
Plus, it's still good advice for women in abusive relationships, so that when they're ready to leave, they at least have something.
My Grandma was still scarred from the Great Depression when I was growing up so always ingrained a bunch of weird rules into me. I still have money tucked in my shoe when I go out. She said to have a dollar bill in there at all times but with inflation I switched it to a 20. Can’t say I’ve had to leverage my “shoe money” since most places take cards but it has come in handy a few times across the past 30 years.
The secret account is not for hiding money during a divorce. It is for fleeing or paying for expenses while going through the divorce.
It is common for one spouse, or the other, to empty all accounts in the lead up to the divorce. It does not matter how right you are when you cannot buy your kids food.
This is advice from an 85 year old. She has seen soon shit.
A couple thousand in an "oh shit" account is rational.
This is not appreciated though if money is tight.
A neat detail here is that there's no rule here that the account needs to be literally secret. You can tell your spouse you have a private account and you'll put a couple hundred in out of your paycheck. A spouse in a healthy relationship should reply "sure, I'll do the same." It's nice to have for holidays and secret presents too.
Oddly/interestingly, the concept of a dowry in Islam is to ensure the wife has access to some sort of funding in case the marriage ends
It doesn't even need to be a secret account, def see it being a hella good litmus test, too; check whether someone's "I love you" means "no matter what, right now I want the best for you" or "I want to own you"
guys like that are... just no
So, I grew up in an abusive home and sometimes advise people trying to get out of bad situations.
The "secret" part actually isn't because someone's just naturally up to no good. There's actually a pragmatic, "we're in a survival situation now and this is how you survive" reason.
Keeping the bug-out account secret is because when shit gets bad, like, bad enough to need to get out ASAP with the shirt on your back, other people even knowing you have the escape money can cause them to weaponize that knowledge on you to manipulate you. Like, "You give me that $500 you have, or I'll kill your cat."
Or they can try to log into your account to see stuff. Like, if you did successfully move out, they can try to log in and see if your address changed, and what it was changed to, so they can stalk you.
Family members know things like past addresses, social security numbers, mother's maiden name, so if you don't fudge those questions and such and they're aware you have a bank account at so-and-so bank, they can sometimes get past security measures by pretending to be you since they know your intimate information already.
Keeping the entire bank account secret is one more layer of defense so they don't know to start trying to get into it, and don't know to weaponize their knowledge of it on you.
Having separate accounts for personal stuff is just wise financing, but feeling the need to even make a secret account should tell you where that's headed.
My grandfather had an account he never told my grandmother about, then he got dementia and couldn't remember he had the account, years later after he died we found out about it, and we found out that he'd invested in a lot of successful companies over the decades, and had made a substantial amount of money.
If my grandmother had known about the account he would have had vastly better care than we were actually able to afford.
I also think it's rather ironic that he would have had a better life if he had just been a bit more open with his finances.
Growing up they always had crap cars they were always falling apart and Mr Frugal was sitting on a life-changing amount of money.
Says someone who's never been through divorce.
Yeah. Context matters. In Grandma's time, women had much less agency and legal recourse, often needing significant physical abuse for divorce to be legally accepted. It would be sound advice for that context.
In the context of modern times, I was happy when my spouse got her own account because it was a big step forward in independence but if she had opened secret ones, there would be an issue and we'd be going to marriage counseling ASAP because of the breach of trust. Our marriage is a cooperative partnership, not a competition and I'd never stay in a marriage with someone that I could not trust.
In the context of modern times, women are six times more likely to be abandoned by their spouse after receiving a devastating medical diagnosis like cancer than men are.
Yeah. But what does this have to do with the topic? Women can have their own bank account, just don't hide it.
This is true. The fight for equality is NOT over, regardless of how some may like to pretend. Women are still much better off than a century ago in terms of agency over their financial interests (usually - see: Brittany Spears).
I wonder if it's because men are more likely to be the main bread winners and have larger life insurance policies on average?
Also, (and I don't know if they go into it in your research), a lot of the time in US couples have to divorce so the women can qualify for benefits of some sorts, and for the couple it might be the only way to afford a treatment.
That happens because US healthcare is a cruel and inhumane torture.
people who have that attitude tell on themselves. as in, they expect others to act like awful shitty people because deep down they know that is how they would act.
Wtf is with these comments? I personally think every participant in a relationship should have their own bank account. My wife and I have our own personal accounts, as well as a shared account for bills. Our kids will also have their own accounts.
Doesn't matter how strong you think your "bond" is. Y'all going to ignore historical data on divorce rates because "omg they're the one forever!"?
Having worked at a law firm as their IT person, that shit is extra messy. Not to mention all the abuse from people who dangle money as a way to them to stay together. Or the flip side, one person emptying out an account because fuck you.
It's not about trust. It's about financial responsibility.
It's not about having your own account, it's about hiding it.
None of the personal accounts in your family sound hidden (unless you don't know about them 😂).
Divorce doesn’t protect your personal bank account. That money doesn’t suddenly becomes yours. When splitting assets, personal accounts and even safety deposit boxes are included (unless a prenup arrangement).
And the “secret” part is the problem. Seems to me grandma isn't advising her to have a personal bank account like everyone; she wants her to have a bank account the husband doesn’t know about. There’s a difference.
On the first point, it largely depends on the state the divorce happens in. States have differing definitions of what's considered common property. In some states only joint accounts are subject to asset splitting.
Divorce doesn’t protect your personal bank account. That money doesn’t suddenly becomes yours.
Yes, but no. If you are married and only have joint accounts, you can't do much to prevent the other person from withdrawing from those accounts until you get into see the magistrate. At a minimum, you should have a separate account if you are paid by direct deposit.
The comments here are objecting to the secrecy, not the account.
The comments I've seen only say not to keep it a secret. I agree everyone should have a personal bank account and I would assume my partner has one
The big problem imo is to keep it secret. If my SO is trying to have secret account that's a big red flag.
I mean that sounds good but hiding assets is generally a negative in divorce or separation.
ITT: Men and Women talk past each other with different understandings of the situation.
What an asshole grandma.
What the fuck, that's mad weird
The wise way is to tell your partner Grandma says it's important to have separate bank accounts, as my MIL said to me, and my husband agreed. We have had them for 30 years together. Sometimes it's been handy that one side has a better credit rating at that moment.
But if your partner objects, or tries to sabotage it in any way, that's a huge red flag for gaslighting and abuse. So it's time to make that secret account and start taking steps to escape safely. Granny may well have already seen the signs you're too in love to see.
Right. I don't get how that would be gaslighting though.
Sound wisdom for both the husband and wife. Obviously the grandmother has her own experiences that make that good advice for a woman, but I think it’s good for everyone.
Have a joint account where you pay for shared expenses, and then your own separate account for yourself. For probably the majority of relationships now, both parties are (or at least should) be working anyway.
Own seperate account doesn't mean secret account that your spouse doesn't know about.
Yeah, secret sounds shady. But I get the rationale. Me personally I wouldn’t feel a need to tell my partner, but I wouldn’t hide it per se.
Grandma is a wise, WISE woman. Like, I can't tell you how wise. And everyone should listen to her advice--men and women both. Have an account in YOUR name, and have enough stashed away in there so if things go tits up and all you have left is the shirt on your back, you can get an airplane ticket to someone who will help you get back on your feet. $2k sounds good to me, but even $100 can help massively if you're in a dark place.
(And if you don't have anyone you can get a plane ticket to--put even more in if you're able, so you can keep a roof over your head and gas in your car if you have to suddenly reinvent your own life and have no friends or other family members to flee to.)
I grew up in an abusive home, and found out the horrifically hard way when I ran away at 16 that my uncle had been stealing out of my account, because minors are forced to have joint accounts instead of accounts in their own name. He purposefully stole the money I earned at work and took it, so when I needed it most when I ran away from home, it wasn't there.
In my darkest hour, I needed money, because the ones who were supposed to love me didn't actually love me and I hit my limit and I had to get out.
And my money wasn't there. And this happened because I wasn't allowed to have a bank account of my own. As a minor I was old enough to work--but not old enough to have my own bank account, and I had no legal recourse to get that money back once my guardian stole it from me.
And as I understand it, even if you're an adult, you have no legal recourse to get money back if someone on a joint account with you takes out of it--even if you're the one who earned the money to begin with. I would only have had recourse if the account had bee IN MY NAME ONLY.
I'm nowhere near grandma's age up there, but it's SO FUCKING common for abusers to steal your money as way to control you so you can't leave. Having an account of your own with anywhere between $100 -$2,000 in it as an emergency fund is critical to your OWN survival. Everyone should have a separate bank account of their own with a little money in it for emergencies, even if they largely agree to join finances with a partner or spouse. Men AND women should have it. It's not a betrayal of trust to give yourself a lifeline like that. You don't know what life will bring you. Or take away.
And it's not some "hiding assets in a divorce" trickery that some people crawling about these comments would say. Shoving $2k (or even less, because sometimes even an extra $100 can help in dire situations) into an account only YOU can touch isn't divorce malfeasance, it's not the same as shoving a fucking yacht or a bunch of stocks or whatever in there as a way to fuck over a divorcing spouse. It's making sure if things go truly tits-up, you can get a plane ticket or uber or SOMETHING to get yourself to physical safety if it's needed. It's not swaning off in a golden parachute, it's making sure you can put gas in your car and pay the insurance for a month or two if you're suddenly living in it.
Honestly, for all of you saying "oh, my trust in my spouse would be broken if they did that!" and "oh, someone this paranoid isn't even whole enough to have a relationship--they should stay single!"...well, let's turn that around.
Why the hell would I want a spouse that LOVED ME SO LITTLE that having a $2k emergency fund in my own name in a bank account only I can access would break your heart to pieces?
Why is ME caring for MYSELF and my physical safety in the most minimal way possible something that will make you love me less? Why do you, a person supposedly in a relationship with me (or someone like me!) not love me enough to allow me to have an emergency escape plan that might keep me physically safe if something unexpected goes wrong? Why are you elevating your feelings over my SAFETY?
That selfish behavior is just as chilling to ME as my supposed "betrayal of trust" would be to you if I had a bank account kept secret from you.
Grandma in the Tweet above loves her grandkids. She's not afraid of hurting her granddaughter's feelings because she knows the advice might well keep her grandkid physically safe and alive to face another day.
I feel for what you went through but trying to equate having a need for a secret bank account hidden from your spouse to an uncle stealing funds from a minor is ingenious at best and absolutely laughable at best. There is obviously a difference between the two and if you don't realize that, I assume you must be a little too young to even weigh in. If you feel that unless you have a secret stash of cash you're in physical danger from your spouse then DO NOT MARRY THAT PERSON. it's not that complicated. Marriage isn't a joke or something to lightly go into. It's like saying "I don't trust you enough to not cheat on me so I'm going to keep a side man/woman on the side just in case. What? You don't like that?? That is a chillingly selfish betrayal of trust how dare you!" Just don't get married and merge accounts until you trust the person it's not that complicated, if you don't trust them enough for that, don't get married, simple as.
