I've read of Men divorcing wives because they become a spending machine,will not stop,always looking for sales,coming back and saying,"Look at all the money I saved".....

I've been looking at people's credit reports for 30 years now and giving them advice. I've seen how divorce and misunderstanding can cause one's credit rating to sink like a rock!

When I was married... She had her credit cards and I had mine. Each was responsible for their own debt. We shared NO revolving debt. Same with auto loans. We each had our own and would only add the name of the other once paid off. The mortgage was joint and split evenly as were all the bills. Tax refunds (if any) or any other windfall would be split or go toward the house or joint vacation.

I had no plans on ever getting divorced but people seldom do. When we did get divorced there was no argument and I just refinanced the house in my own name to remove her from the deed. Very easy.

My first two living together LTRs, we had combined finances but I made almost all the money, half of which I lost at the end of #2 which lasted ~10 years. I managed all the finances in both of those relationships. My 3rd live together LTR we had separate finances and she managed her own stuff. Against my advise #3 sold her house after moving in with me and didn't reinvest the $. I paid the mortgage, property tax and insurance. We split bills equitably and she paid me rent since I was paying for the house. I gave all of the rent she paid back to her at the end.

Since then I've had a series of monogamous relationships where my girlfriends stayed at my house a lot but never moved in. I'd not combine finances with anyone who doesn't have similar assets and isn't willing to sign a pre-living together agreement on finances.

Frankly, if you have high earning potential and your partner doesn't, you are likely to lose out big time if the relationship crashes and burns. I wish I had thought that through before #2. Hindsight is 20/20. Luckily, I never had kids.

We paid the bills by combining our income, then split the remainder 50/50 between savings and play money.