Husband asks if he is wrong for not wanting to tell his wife about his savings, sparks debate

Many people believe that one should have complete transparency in a marriage—including finances. However, many couples also choose to keep their finances separate from one another. Reddit user u/58shineson fell into the latter category, but recently came across a situation that left him unsure as to whether or not keeping his financial information from his wife was the right thing to do. The man shared that his 36-year-old wife asked him how much money he had in his savings account. To give a little background, the man explained that the couple had been together for six years and married for one year. The couple does not have a joint account and the man believes "her money is hers and mine is mine."

One day, when the couple was cooking dinner, the wife asked her husband the amount of money he had in his savings account out of the blue. The husband shared, "For me, it's not any of her business and I told her that. She is upset that she wanted me to take out money to go to the casino and I said no because I budget and don't touch savings." The man asked if he was wrong to deny his wife the information. People believed that not telling about his finances to his wife was weird, but denying money for gambling was not wrong.

The man posted an update to his original post to explain everything. He wrote, "I ended up showing her how much I had in my savings. She is not a gambling addict and has not spent all her money on gambling. Last week we were planning to go to the casino. She said, 'Hey, you should take out X amount from your savings so we can play with more money.'" When he refused, his wife asked him what amount he had saved. He also added a footnote that read, "No, we are not addicted to gambling. Everyone else spends money on concerts, traveling, sports events, trips, etc. This is our fun. We set aside money for it, and then go when we have a certain amount."

People took to the comments to explain their thoughts about the whole scenario. u/Zeldanerd91 wrote, "This. Like, his reasoning for not wanting to give her money is spot on but I’ve been seeing a lot of posts of couples who are very private with their finances. Although it’s not my relationship’s way of doing things, I get why someone would want to keep separate finances, especially in cases like this. But the way I see it is: if you trust someone enough to marry them, you should be willing to budget with them and be candid about whatever money you have so things can be done fairly. It’s also perfectly okay to tell her to get her own damned money for the casino."

u/WithoutDennisNerdy wrote, "Totally. My partner of 16 years and I don’t share money. We have separate accounts with a joint for bills but we keep our main finances apart. I don’t know what he does with his money outside of “us” stuff and it’s not my business. We both feel it’s important in a relationship to maintain some semblance of autonomy. It works for us. However, the money in our separate accounts is not some sort of state secret. I’ve seen his statements in passing and he’s seen mine. If I were to ask him to see his accounts right now, he would be curious why I’m asking but there would be no problem showing me and vice versa."