What do you think?

I would want to know the financial situation of someone I was about to marry, she obviously has doubts, perhaps she feels she is being deceived in some way, or that his lifestyle doesn't fit in with his stated financial situation. If he is hiding financial problems with stories of a 'business', and 'inheritance' she could end up supporting him. True love is all very well, for the young and optimistic, but if you are in your 50s/ 60s you need to check out the pros and cons, and there are plenty of cons around as you get older!

I agree with the reply from the Agony Aunt. If I was marrying someone I would expect full disclosure of our financial situations. It is about trust. It's up to them how they organise their finances, but I would need to know where we stand financially as a couple. It's not about what's mine is mine and what's his is his, it's about what is ours, or will be. Access to his business account might just mean seeing statements or viewing an online account. If he won't share the information about his financial situation, I would walk away.

What if he is facing bankruptcy. His inheritance could be quite a lot smaller than she thinks. She might be facing years of financial hardship. Many marriages fail because of disputes about money.

The other thing is he is secretive. If the woman wanted children would he support her financially. There seems to be too many red flags and she isn't waving them. I agree with the advice she received.

Last year I met a couple who were both around 70 and both widowed in the previous year. The woman's late husband had only died less than seven months before she became married to her second husband. They had met at a grief support group for people who were recently widowed. She said she was distraught when her husband died and they were able to speak openly about their late spouses. She said she had a very happy marriage and was lucky to met someone as nice as her husband. I thought at the time she was telling me how happy she was that she was avoiding her grief. Anyway within a month of her marrying she was very unhappy, every time I saw her she looked like she was about to cry. It turned out that because of her new husband's money she lost her Aged Pension, she now only had a very small income of her own so was reliant on her new husband. She didn't know she would lose her pension and there were many other things she didn't know, such as he had always slept in a seperate bedroom from his late wife and wanted to continue with seperate bedrooms. This man was nice enough and looked sad at his new wife being so unhappy. It might have been better to just enjoy each other's company for a lot longer and go through each scenario, financial or otherwise, they might face before marrying. Living together for a few years would have been the best idea in the UK. If you live with someone as a couple in Australia your assets quickly become theirs too.

Jings I had to google Flylady.
Me too, I think I am going to like Flylady

JingsI had to google Flylady. Enlightenment at last!

* Lavande * You should try the Flylady method of Swish and Swipe. The lavs get cleaned in no time.

I only have one, and no upstairs. That's probably why I thought of the issue of trust at the beginning. Not so much housework.

Some would say that's where all the best thinking takes place ...

Agree Imperfect27 that trust is fundamental. It does not seem to be a feature of the scenario presented.

I have had no other greater or higher thoughts on the matter since completing the task of cleaning the second loo.

I have never had a joint account with DH and our marriage has lasted almost 49 years. I do not understand why it is so important to know what the prospective husband is worth, smacks of gold-digging ?

Lavande I've been mulling this one over for a while - though no loo cleaning in sight!

For me - as others have said - it comes down to trust, which cuts both ways.

I remarried in church less than two years ago. I was reminded during the wedding prep that 'with all my worldly goods I thee endow' is a big thing. We had separate bank accounts at that point - partly because he had been fleeced by his first wife. This made him understandably cautious, but 21 months on we have a joint account and know exactly where each other's finances are.

It meant a great deal to me, given his past history, that he felt able to be trusting with me. However, had he wanted to keep things separate at the point of marriage I would have been very concerned.

If you really do love someone, enough to marry them, then to my mind everything should be out in the open.

Simples! (Where's the meercat icon???)

Whilst doing the mindless task of cleaning the loo this morning, I have come up with a further hypothesis: He is spending the inheritance to shore up his loss-making business.

Right! Still got the downstairs loo to clean and for further reflections on life and love.

It is not that Jane Austen might have been perceptive, she definitely was. She was the spinster aunt relied on by everyone and spending time in the households of her relations, she saw marriage and the dynamics of money and power from the outside. Her books are the result and the display of that perception, so it is not wrong to say that they are perceptive. Perceptively written, if you want to cavill at a book being perceptive.

“It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language”
Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Volume I, Chapter 5, p 34

Why does she want to know how much he has? Why does he want to keep his assets secret? There seems to be more suspicion than trust in this relationship which might signal that they should try to live harmoniously before tying the knot. How can a free and equal marriage flourish with such doubts?

Having said that, there has been so much 'gold digging and withholding of assets in the past few years of no-fault divorces that it does give pause for thought, especially for second marriages or those contracted when houses, savings and assets have accumulated.

The modern marriage market reminds me of the financial shenanigans involved in the matrimonial affairs in Jane Austen's novels. I know a man who retired early because he had had the luck to marry an only child whose parents' house and capital funded his subsequent lifestyle. Another colleague's beautiful (but idle) daughter snaffled herself a rich and unattractive man and she lives the life of Riley on his considerable fortune. My husband knew a poor man whose wife threw him out of their marital home as she was bored with him and continued to 'live high' (with private school fees for the children) on his earnings while the poor man starved in penury in a bedsit until he committed suicide.

Since it is an actual contract, marriage is an interesting mixture of love and money.

I agree with the advice but not for the exact reason the "expert" gave. It just seems to me there's too much doubt and mistrust on both sides. They may need more time to get to know each other before they get married or they may just need to split up and look for other partners.

But I realize if they're in love (doesn't sound like it but that may be cuz she was talking about the money), they may just go ahead and get married, anyhow. Same if she's anxious to be married and start a family.

I agree with you, Jalima, much nicer as a story.
It cannot be perceptive. Jane Austen might have been, but it could not be.
It is a novel.

It is also very perceptive about people and their relationships.

Pride and Prejudice is definitely not "just a story". It is history and early women's lib as well, and that's just for starters.

Much nicer as a story than dissecting it for an English exam!

And there was I thinking it was just a story!

Did Elizabeth Bennet fall in love with Mr Darcy or with Pemberley?

As Lavande says she could have money and very good prospects of her own and, if she only has his word that he has a considerable amount of money and his business is solvent, may have doubts about his motives.

What we don't know is her financial position. It could be that she has wealth (inherited or earnt) in her right. Or that she also runs a business and there could be tax or inheritance implications for either one or both of them.

I took the term access to his business account to mean that she has sight or knowledge of them, not necessarily the use of them.

Maybe she needs to know whether she can plan to have a child and that there would be sufficient income if she was dependent upon him financially.

I would expect to read of greater openness between a couple of how they are going to arrange their future life together, to include what each brings to the marriage and is to be shared.

Perhaps a longer 'engagement' in this case.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Opening lines of Pride and Prejudice

Single men in possession of a good fortune soon learn to be cagey of women who wish to share in that bounty. This may perhaps be cynical of me, but all in all I don't think that either of them would find this a marriage made in heaven.