Practicing family law for several years will teach you a lot of things about marriage. One is that no two couples share their money in the same way. It's remarkable, in fact, how many different options there are for merging financial lives. Factors such as the ages of the spouses, their respective incomes, stay-at-home parents, family or pre-owned money and basic fiscal responsibility all come into play in working out the option for each marriage or common-law relationship.
Some couples have arranged for everything to be in joint names. They share absolutely every dollar, bank accounts and investments and purchases. They have to work out some rules for how they each spend. A weekly allowance for each, a spending maximum, following a pre-determined budget etc. These couples often have easiest time sharing their money after they separate. It doesn't feel unusual to them.
Other couples share some of their money - such as in a joint chequing account - for household and children expense but they also retain some of their income to themselves. Maybe the wife puts her extra income into investments and the husband pays for vacations, or his own hobbies. Some of the spouses in this type of arrangement can be upset by the asset sharing laws if they separate. The "saver" has to share his or her savings, and the "spender" has nothing left to share.
Although it's not very common, some couples keep their money very, very separate. They each pay exactly half of the household bills, and when it comes to the rest of their money, they not only keep it separate, they keep it secret. This can be a huge problem if the marriage ends or one spouse dies. Nasty surprises like a huge debt load can come to light. Obviously, these spouses also have a hard time with the law telling them that their incomes, assets and debts have to be shared when they separate.
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