Husband Quizzes Wife About Their Bills And She Has No Idea How Any Of Them Are Paid
Financial literacy is a tough but important topic for all couples to discuss.
Cast Of Thousands / Shutterstock Discussing money can be a touchy subject, as our financial situations are often tied up with our cultural expectations and our sense of stability and self-worth. In two-person households, merging finances is often a sensitive issue, in part because of the division of labor and the question of who takes on that particular role of managing them.
However, both people in a partnership must have an understanding of their finances to not only contribute to shared financial goals but also maintain awareness in the event anything happens to the main money person in the relationship, which is what one man attempted to show his wife.
A husband quizzed his wife about their bills and she had no idea how any of them got paid.
The man approached his wife while she sat on the couch and asked her a heavy yet necessary question: “If I were to die tomorrow, would you know where our mortgage is paid?”
“I have no idea,” she answered.
He asked her if she knew what bank account they use to pay the mortgage, then asked if she knew how many bank accounts they have.
“We have to have two,” she replied, to which he responded, “We have more than that.”
He asked if she knew where his truck loan was or where her car loan was, and again, she had no idea.
“That’s kind of a trick question,” he said. “Our cars are paid off.”
Photo: Liza Summer / Pexels
He asked if she knew where the title to the car was, and this time, she knew the answer: In their downstairs filing cabinet. She didn’t know the address of their rental property, but said she could try and find it. She also didn’t know who managed their rental property.
“Do you know who my life insurance is with?” he asked, and the answer she gave was a resounding “No.”
“Perfect,” he said, before turning the camera onto himself. “In my wife’s defense, she’s not the only one that doesn’t know the answers to these questions,” he said.
It’s fairly common for one partner to maintain the family’s finances, and that role often falls to the husband.
The gender gap around financial knowledge is due to societal expectations and the fact that men were historically in charge of finances — women didn’t have legal access to control their own money until the late 20th century.
In 1974, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was passed, which granted women the right to open a bank account on their own.
In many marriages, labor is still divided along gender lines. One person handles the household and the other person manages the finances. In straight relationships, the one in charge of the family’s financial situation is often the husband. Many couples don't have the difficult conversations about who will handle what until they're already married and therefore legally bound to one another.
Yet as this husband-and-wife duo showed, not knowing the inner workings of your family’s finances can be potentially detrimental in a crisis.
Photo : Mikhail Nilov / Pexels
The husband described a solution for married couples in similar situations, explaining their online platform called IvorySafe, which “allows you to house the answers to these types of questions.”
Having a centrally-located place to store such vital information is one way to create a level of financial openness. Another tactic to help couples communicate about finances could be having monthly or weekly meetings to talk about how your money is being spent, and areas where you want to save.
Money is an emotionally-charged topic, yet maintaining open and direct discussions about finances ultimately helps couples keep their sense of stability, and know that if the worst-case scenario were to arise, they would still be stable.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.