Do Couples With Joint Accounts End Up Happier?

When you get married, you have a choice to make. Do you want to keep your financial lives separate, maintaining your own credit cards and banking relationships? Or do you want to jump into having a joint bank account?

Both approaches have pros and cons, but recent research suggests that you may be better off with a joint account if you want to maximize your chances for happiness. Here's why. 

Could sharing your bank account improve your relationship? 

Couples with a shared bank account stand a better chance of maintaining relationship satisfaction than those who keep things separate, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Consumer Research. 

The study, entitled "Common Cents: Bank Account Structure and Couples' Relationship Dynamics," involved a six-wave longitudinal experiment. The participants were newlyweds who were randomly assigned to either keep their money in a joint account or keep it separate. 

Their marital happiness was evaluated over a two-year period, and the researchers discovered that couples without shared accounts exhibited a normative decline in the quality of their relationship within the first two years of marriage. By contrast, strong relationship quality was maintained throughout the two-year study for those who merged their money and maintained a joint bank account. 

The researchers indicated other studies have shown a positive association between relationship quality and combining finances, but this was the first to specifically show newlyweds could preserve the quality of their relationship by merging their financial lives.

Why would combining accounts improve your relationship?

The study not only showed a correlation between shared bank accounts and stronger relationship satisfaction. It also introduced three potential reasons why couples who keep their money together may be better off for it: 

1. Joint accounts can improve how the individual spouses feel about money management. 
2. Couples can become more aligned in their financial goals if they have a shared account.
3. Joint accounts make the partners more likely to adhere to communal norms. This means they are more likely to be responsive to each other's needs without being motivated by an expectation of reciprocity (i.e. they aren't just being nice to each other to get something out of it in return). 

All of this makes a lot of sense. After all, if you have a partner to hold you accountable because you're sharing a joint account, you're a lot less likely to make frivolous purchases you end up regretting. You can also work better together on a shared goal if you have an account you both put money into. And, finally, if you combine your finances and become a cohesive unit in every sense, you're more likely to be more responsive to your partner. 

Now, this doesn't mean everyone should combine their bank accounts. If you and your partner have completely different money management philosophies, or if your life is complicated -- perhaps because of having children from outside the relationship or running a business or having a big income disparity -- combining accounts may not work for you.

But, ultimately, it's worth taking the time to think about whether you would be more likely to work as partners in your financial life if you have a bank account with both of your names on it.