If your partner earns more than you, or you earn more than your partner, you may be wondering how you should allocate living expenses and household responsibilities between you. Especially if you are at different stages in your careers or in entirely different fields with varying earning power, or if one of you does more of the work at home, this may be a question that gives you pause. After all, you want to be fair with your partner, but you also don’t want finances to come between you.
Thankfully, the equation doesn’t have to be that difficult. There are some factors you can keep in mind when deciding how you and your partner should share living expenses and household responsibilities, each of which turns on your respective circumstances, financial or otherwise, or the types of contributions you both make to the relationship.
Equal vs. Equitable Sharing of Expenses
It is important to distinguish between equality and equity when it comes to sharing living expenses. Though both sound like fair options, equitable sharing of living expenses is usually more practical and fair when one person in a relationship earns substantially more than the other.
If living expenses are equally shared, both people in the relationship contribute 50% of all living costs, regardless of how much they earn or what that expense is for. For instance, even if both people earn different amounts of money, both would contribute equal payments toward rent or a mortgage regardless. For the lower-earning partner, this may not, from a solely monetary standpoint, feel fair.
On the other hand, if living expenses are equitably shared, this allocation can change. For example, romantic partners can opt to pay a percentage of their joint expenses based on how much money they bring into the household. In situations where it is easy to predict income throughout the year, such a determination is usually pretty easy to establish.
Accounting for Unpaid Labor
Where one person primarily brings in most of the money and the other primarily cares for the home and family, the calculation may be less cut and dry. In these situations, the allocation is usually best determined according to an analysis that considers what is equitable and proportionate to each person's financial and non-financial contributions. Unfortunately, how to account for these non-financial contributions can get murky.
Given that labor in the home is unpaid, thinking about work, inside the home and outside of it, as a means to satisfy each other’s needs is an effective way to achieve balance. If one partner is working to maintain the home and take care of the children, that meets the needs of the person working outside of the home by allowing them to focus on their job outside the home without having to worry about childcare, for example, or pet care. Similarly, the money that the person working outside of the home brings in meets the needs of the person working inside the home by providing shelter and food for the entire family, plus other expenditures, including non-necessities.
Problems tend to arise when partners take each other for granted, and one partner becomes unfairly burdened by having to take on more of the responsibilities at home, even while working outside the home. Also critical to the health and well-being of a relationship, both partners should have ample time to rest and enjoy leisure time, regardless of their role in the family unit. To ward against resentment building in their relationship, couples should make it a practice to routinely check in with each other while engaging in positive communication practices.
Second Marriages
In addition to making contributions to the current relationship, for those who have been married previously, it is important to decide how they will use any assets they accumulated prior. People often keep what they have from previous relationships separate, not using those pre-marital assets to contribute to the current relationship. This can become a point of contention for some if not discussed in advance of marriage and why a prenuptial agreement can be helpful.
It is important to note that every relationship is different. What is balanced for one family or couple may be different from another. Likewise, just because there were certain contributions in a previous relationship or marriage doesn’t mean those contributions would be equitable in the current relationship or even an option. Again, communication about such issues is essential.
After making a determination about assets from a previous marriage, like any other first marriage or long-term relationship, it is necessary to ensure that both partners’ needs are continually being met and that living costs and responsibilities are distributed equitably, as discussed earlier. So long as this is true, previous relationships or other factors are less likely to become complications or points of contention.
When Circumstances Change
Another important issue to consider when determining living expenses or other responsibilities is that circumstances can — and likely will — change over time. It is unlikely that the current distribution of living expenses and responsibilities will apply to the entire duration of a relationship, especially if there are certain milestones you and your partner have not reached yet.
For instance, you may want to have a child or additional children. If one person is likely to do most of the childcare work, this will dramatically increase their workload and contribution to the relationship. On the flip side, children also eventually grow up and become independent, freeing up time for the primary caregiver.
Similarly, if one partner begins working additional hours or receives a promotion, it could mean they have an increased workload translating to additional time away from the family. It could also mean they have more capacity to contribute monetarily. If the person who earns less gets a raise and begins earning more, that, too, would call for a change in how expenses and responsibilities are distributed. As you can tell, the potential for change is unlimited.
The good news is, in each of these instances, as long as both people continue to contribute in a meaningful manner and meet each other’s needs, even as changes occur, the sharing of living expenses and responsibilities is likely to remain equitable and fair. Indeed, remaining flexible can help promote equitable treatment as time goes on.
Conclusion
Sharing living expenses is ultimately about demonstrating that both partners in a relationship are willing to support each other financially and emotionally. Work while in a relationship — domestic, career, or otherwise — shouldn’t fall on one partner more. Coming up with an equitable formula that speaks to your and your partner’s needs, including dreams, speaks volumes about how much you value your partner and your relationship with them, something that can never be quantified.