James Sexton

So I'm not a fan of giant, like, one-size-fits-all approaches.

But what I will say is, for me,

I think a very sensible system that I can understand is the yours, mine, and ours.

Because I think really our relationships are based on a series of Venn diagrams.

You know, like there's the you, the me, and the we.

And like, you know, you met her, there was you, and there was she, and then there's we.

And so whether it's economic or whether it's interests or how we spend our time,

You want that Venn diagram to continue to be a Venn diagram.

Like, there's a temptation to make the we, because it's so warm and cozy, to make the we everything and reject all the you and the me.

But that's not healthy, because you fell in love with each other, and that's the you and the me.

So the we wouldn't exist if you didn't like each other, so you can't let it subsume your identity.

And I think the same thing financially.

I think that there should be some shared sense of the finances, but there should also be some separateness.

If I'm buying you a Christmas present, and you're going to always see exactly how much it costs, we have no privacy or autonomy in our spending.

And so, again, I think for each couple...

The conversation about what should be the you, the me, and the we economically, it's the same conversation that you should be having on every other thing, which is what do you want, what do I want, what's good for us, and how do we have that check-in?

And again, it's kind of like estate planning.

When somebody says to me, you know, when should I do my estate planning, I would say early and often.

And it's the same thing.

You should check in early in the relationship and often and constantly say, is this still working for the two of us?