When it comes to marriage and credit, you have two choices: open joint accounts that appear on both spouses’ credit reports, or keep your credit separate. Many people erroneously believe that they should take the former approach, but keeping credit separate has its definite advantages. Following is the first of four considerations I will blog about over the next few posts.
Marriage and Credit Consideration #1: Joint Credit Cards
Though many couples are tempted to open joint credit card accounts, resisting this temptation has benefits. In the case of financial crisis, consider what would happen to each of your credit histories should you stop making payments on a joint account—both will be tarnished, but if you keep all accounts separate, you can be strategic about forthcoming financial disasters.
Let’s say your spouse loses a job, and you know you can afford to pay the bills only for a couple of months. You can transfer all of your credit card debt into your spouse’s name before you become delinquent. Hopefully, your spouse can find another job quickly, at which point your spouse will transfer your debt back into your name. But if not, you are positioned to protect your credit.
When the money runs out and you are unable to pay the bills in your spouse’s name, your spouse’s credit will suffer. Yours, however, will be protected. This means that you can continue applying for credit cards and loans while your spouse works on rebuilding credit.
Though this might seem like you are hanging your spouse out to dry, this is not the case. If you have a high credit score, your entire household can benefit from the loans you take out. And consider the alternative: if all of your accounts are jointly held, you will both end up with bad credit, and neither of you will qualify for loans during a transitional period.
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Hi there DrieCulturen,I agree with you. The Dutch really appreciate that I speak their difficult language! And talk about mistakes….Years ago I also heard about a study done here in the Netherlands, I believe, whose results were quite similar. Kids who grow up in a bilingual household seem to score higher on tests and things. I hesitate to say that they’re “smarter”, but I believe that was the direction the results of the test were going in.
HI Liz, thanks for leaving the comment! The reason that I decided to present the idea of pursuing a coach is simply to identify another avenue of support that those watching their spouse battle bipolar disorder. Something that I found with traditional counseling is that many traditional counselors, therapists, psychologists, etc do not have the experience necessary to help guide you through the ups and downs of being married to someone bipolar. The counselors that I started seeing did not do a whole lot to encourage me to stay within the marriage. They KNEW the divorce statistics and knew that the odds were stacked against us. I believe that this happened because they did not have first hand experience with the illness themselves and as a result they were unable to support me in my marriage relationship with my husband. Do I think that a marriage or life coach should be a replacement for a traditional therapist? Absolutely not. I firmly believe that if your marriage is crumbling individual counseling is very important in identifying personal developmental areas that each spouse can work on. After these areas are worked on a life coach that has experience with mental illness can help you as you navigate your marriage with your spouse and helping you set boundaries in a positive manner that will help establish your roadmap to take your marriage relationships from where you are now to where you want to be.