How to Separate Your Finances From a Compulsive Spender

If your spouse is burning through your savings, a postnuptial agreement may help.

Life can be difficult if you are financially involved with a compulsive spender. It is even worse if the compulsive spender is your spouse. The financial mistakes of your spouse can drag you under with him causing you to lose your savings, your retirement fund or even your home. Although addiction counseling and financial education might be a solution, the separation of a couple's finances is sometimes the only answer. However, in the eyes of the law a married couple is by default a financial unit, so you will need to take special measures to separate your finances from those of your spouse.

Things You'll Need

• Separate bank account
• Postnuptial agreement

Instructions

1. Keep separate bank accounts and don't grant any signing privileges to the compulsive spender. If your relationship to the compulsive spender is any other than marriage, this should be enough to isolate your finances. However, in certain states, called community-property states, such as California, Texas and Washington, any debts incurred by your marriage partner are joint debts, even if you did not give your consent to the debt.

2. Sign a postnuptial agreement. Postnuptial agreements can settle financial issues between married couples. For instance, a postnuptial agreement can state that although a couple is married, their finances should be treated as if they were single. You will need your spouse's agreement and both of you must seek the counsel of a lawyer for it to be legal.

3. Divorce the compulsive spender. Although drastic, some spouses don't take their vow to remain together in poverty and riches literally, and prefer to dissolve their marriage than suffer the liability of being married to a financial time bomb.

Tips & Warnings

• Seek help. In many cases, compulsive spending is a symptom of addiction and other psychological problems. Learn to compromise. Just because you have different financial values, does not mean financial separation or divorce are your only options. Accepting you both have different views about money, spending and saving, and finding a middle ground both can live with might offer another solution.

References

• MSN Money Central; Married to a Financial Basket Case?; Liz Pulliam Weston; March 2010
• CNN Living; Quit Fighting--Get a Postnuptial Agreement; Robert DiGiacomo; April 2008
• Minnesota Statutes: Antenuptial and Postnuptial Contracts

Resources

• MSN Money Central; 9 Ways to Rein a Spendthrift Spouse; Liz Pulliam Weston; June 2009
• "World Psychiatry"; February 2007: A Review of Compulsive Buying Disorder; Donald Black; February 2007