(It’s not to say that there is a positive side of trying to hide certain funds from your partner)

I’ve been married for 10 years now and never in my life I had any money that my beloved wife didn’t know about. And guess what? I never needed to hide money from her (even despite the fact that at certain times she acted like a devoted shopaholic ). If you need someone to tell you why hiding money is a bad idea - follow me on this one:

• Hiding money is as harmful as hiding vital information; unless you’re living with a person without any self-control (including, but not limited to: badmouthing other people, portraying their partners in negative tones, envying more fortunate friends, etc), it always pays off to be open and honest. Lack of honesty automatically leads to the loss of trust - something that keeps people together. And it goes without saying that trust is something taking minutes to lose but years to rebuild (if it’s possible at all).
• Secondly: where does the hidden money go anyway? There are bad and semi-bad explanations. Let’s start with something forgiving: money is spent on entertainment like dinners with friends or gadgets or some makeup possessing close to magical beautifying qualities or jewelry or … lots of other options. The danger here is that a person does understand that s/he is doing something his/her partner won’t be happy about (especially in case of repeated expenses like this), but decides to hide money instead of being open about spending habits, wants and needs. Another example of the lack of trust or respect or both.
  • What’s worse is that your partner might use this money on damaging habits or someone else. Or considers your relationship close to its end and this builds a “war chest” to use after the divorce/separation. If this is news to you - it’s definitely worth asking.
• And the most important bit: hiding money makes family budget planning pointless. It’s quite obvious that when money is abundant, it rarely makes sense to hide a chunk of it, but in cases when money is in limited supply and it would otherwise be spent on something useful to the family (for instance, home renovations), hiding a portion of it equals postponing or canceling important jobs or purchases.

It’s all about the trust.