Ever since my wife and I started dating about eight years ago, we’ve talked openly about our personal finances.
From the very beginning, we discussed our 401(k) withholdings and emergency funds. These conversations became even more important when we started living together and sharing expenses about a year into our relationship.
As a queer couple, my wife and I have always believed that we can write our own rules when it comes to how we approach our finances.
Our incomes have varied over the years for many reasons, and we’ve tried several different payment breakdowns before finding what works for us.
Over the years, we’ve divided our mortgage payments a few different ways to find what feels ‘fair’
Noelle Thies Co.
About a year into our relationship, my now-wife moved into the condo that I had bought on my own. At the time, I was working in tech and earning a higher base salary, as well as annual performance-based bonuses and stock that added to our salary discrepancy.
I knew that my mortgage was higher than the rent on a place we would have chosen together based on our combined income. So, we decided I would pay the bulk of it, but we’d split the costs of groceries, utilities, and internet, as well as shared vacations.
Five years into our relationship, I sold my old condo, my wife increased her hours at her job, and we bought a townhome together.
This time, we decided to split our mortgage payments in proportion to our base salaries, which felt like the fairest thing to compare since annual bonuses and stock awards from my company could vary. This came out to a 60/40 split.
Over the next two years, my wife’s base salary got closer to mine as a result of union negotiations at her hospital. Eventually, once our salaries were essentially at parity, we shifted to a 50/50 split.
When I got laid off from my tech job, we had to reevaluate what was ‘fair’
Almost eight months into our new system, I was laid off from my tech job.
I had savings in my emergency fund from my years working there and received severance, but I was suddenly in a different financial situation than I’d been before.
For the first time in our relationship, my wife was the higher earner.
We talked about moving back to a proportionate split. My wife reminded me that we were a team, and said she’d be open to covering more of our mortgage and expenses. But between my savings, severance, and bonuses I’d made over the years, I was able to continue splitting the mortgage evenly, and I wanted to.
At the end of the day, reverting to a different split might have been “fair,” but it didn’t feel fair of me to put the responsibility on my wife to pay more of the mortgage.
I knew that paying a much larger share of the mortgage would bring undue stress on her, and I also knew that I could afford my half, even without my steady paycheck.
Defining fairness on our own terms has felt empowering
Noelle Thies Co.
It’s now been over a year since my layoff, and splitting our mortgage and expenses 50/50 has continued to feel right for both of us.
This isn’t to say she’s not supporting me during this time. Right now, my wife continues to work full-time while I’m doing freelance and contract work for various clients. She’s covering more of our grocery expenses, and I’m also on her health insurance.
We’re a team, and I’m learning to accept her help in ways that feel fair to both of us.
We both know that our jobs, housing situation, and approach to personal finance will evolve, especially as we build our careers. What matters to us is having ongoing check-ins about whether our mortgage breakdown feels right and supporting each other equally in other ways, too.
After all, what’s just as important is celebrating each other’s accomplishments, encouraging each other to learn new skills, and contributing to our household and the labor it takes to run it. Money is only one piece of the puzzle.
