“Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary has long urged couples to keep their finances separate and championed prenups, a view that often draws mixed reactions.
Reacting to O’Leary’s advice that couples should keep their finances separate, “Ramsey Show” co-hosts John Delony and Rachel Cruze said marriage is built on sharing life and everything in it. They added that separate finances could suggest a lack of trust between husband and wife.
Delony and Cruze played a clip of O’Leary in which he urged couples to stick to their “financial identity” even after marriage.
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“I want to join lives together, but I want to stay completely and totally autonomous and still be quote unquote just me,” Delony said. “And then I’m going to be me, you be you, and then we’ll do this together thing on the side. That is called a corporation, that’s a business arrangement, that’s not marriage.”
Cruze said “vulnerability” is key in marriage because it creates a sense of sacrifice for each other and helps couples commit fully to the relationship. Still, she shared some audience comments that said managing finances separately works better for them.
“We had joined accounts at first and then he just kept spending and spending, then my kids and I couldn’t eat, basically didn’t have money for food, so we separated,” one comment said. “I splurged and got a prenup, so now everything is separate. This feels much better for me and our marriage,” another viewer wrote to Cruze.
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Cruze and Delony said these comments reflect marriage and relationship issues, not money problems. They believe that if a couple isn’t comfortable sharing or merging accounts, they should ask themselves why they’re getting married and committing to such a long, challenging journey.