Ask Liz Weston

Dear Liz: My husband is quite a bit older than I (about 18 years). When we married, we agreed that we should put all our savings into joint funds and into his retirement accounts. Our thought was that since I’m younger, we’d have much earlier access to retirement money by funneling it into his retirement accounts (as opposed to mine), and that it was unfair for me to sock away money that he may never have access to.

Intellectually it feels like the fair way to go, since we both work and are equally responsible for our family’s finances. The money we’ve been putting in his retirement accounts will ultimately belong to both of us. But emotionally, I feel anxious about not having my own accounts. Should I just work this out in therapy (joking) or am I right to be concerned? What would you advise for a couple like us with an age difference?

Answer: You are likely to outlive your husband by at least two decades. Rather than focusing on early access to retirement funds, you should be making sure that money lasts for a lifetime: your lifetime, not just his. By the way, considering your own needs is not unfair — it’s sensible. A loving husband wouldn’t want to leave you old, alone and impoverished.

You may not need a session with a therapist, but you should definitely have a meeting with a fee-only financial planner who can review your situation and make sure the needs of both of you are considered.

Dear Liz: I applied for a 10-month, interest-free loan at an appliance store to purchase a washing machine and was refused. We own our house, have no outstanding debt and pay our credit cards in full each month. I’m worried that if something happens to my husband and I want to buy a car or whatever I need, I won’t be able to get credit.

Answer: If you were turned down for credit, you should have been given free access to the credit report the lender used to make its decision. In any case, everyone in the United States can get a free look at their credit reports from the three bureaus once a year at www.annualcreditreport.com. You should peruse the reports to see whether there are any obvious errors, such as accounts that aren’t yours or late payments when you paid on time.

The problem could be that all the credit you have is in your husband’s name. If that’s the case, you should begin building your own credit. If you’re already an authorized user on his cards, see if the credit card issuers will report the accounts to your credit reports as well as his. Opening a credit card account in both your names, as joint account holders, also can help build your history.

Dear Liz: My spouse has extremely high credit card debt. All cards are in her name only. Where do I stand legally if she dies or we divorce? What can a person do about such uncontrollable abuse of credit cards? The interest alone is horrific, but she pays it.

Answer: If you live in a community property state and don’t have a prenuptial agreement, debts incurred during marriage are typically considered owed by both parties (even if there’s only one name on the credit card). Community property states include California, Arizona, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.

In other states, debts incurred by one spouse are usually that spouse’s responsibility alone, unless the money was used to buy family necessities such as food or shelter. If you divorce, she probably would be responsible for these separate debts. If she dies, creditors could go after her separate property and may be able to go after her half of any jointly held property.

The rules vary enough by state that you’d be smart to consult an attorney about your potential liability.

Wherever you live, though, this debt is affecting your union and your future together. The money she’s paying in interest isn’t available for other purposes, such as saving for retirement or your children’s educations, plus it’s clearly causing tension between you. If you want your marriage to succeed, you should invest in sessions with a marriage counselor and a fee-only financial planner.

Dear Liz: I have reunited with the love of my life. There is one problem: She has a bankruptcy on her record. If I have very strong credit scores and we marry, how will her credit affect my chances of buying a house?

Answer: You each will retain your individual credit reports when you marry. They won’t be combined.

If you plan to use her income to help qualify for a home purchase, though, her credit scores will be used to determine the rate and terms you get. If the bankruptcy is recent or if she hasn’t taken steps to rehabilitate her credit, that means you could pay more interest or have more trouble finding a loan.

If you don’t need her income to qualify, on the other hand, her credit troubles don’t need to affect your loan.

While it’s not actually true that money is the leading cause of divorce, finances are certainly a big source of tension in many relationships. Recessions put extra strain on those relationships, which is why the new book “In Good Times and Bad: Strengthening Your Relationship When the Going Gets Tough and the Money Gets Tight,” comes at just the right time.

Written by husband and wife team Gary and Melisa Neuman, the book has some wise words and gentle wisdom about how to help your relationship survive life’s setbacks. Among them:

Fight the problem, not each other. Tensions over money can cause people to lash out and blame each other. It’s understandable, but horribly counter-productive. To weather bad times, you need to come together as a team and work out solutions.

Let go of the past. Any therapist will tell you a relationship can’t improve if you keep throwing past mistakes in each other’s faces. But in this case, the past refers to your past financial life, whatever that looked like. Maybe you’ll never again make the kind of money you used to make, or live in as fancy a house as the one you lost to foreclosure. Life may have better things in store for you, such as a less-stressful job that allows you to spend more time with your family, or a smaller home that’s simpler to take care of. In any case, you can’t go back, and hanging on to the past will just make you miserable.

Commit to communicating. If talking about money leads to fighting, you’re likely to start avoiding the topic just to keep the peace. But silence leads to misunderstandings and isolation from each other. To keep the intimacy in your relationship, you need to talk about money, and continue talking. Some ground rules:

• Set aside 30 minutes to talk each week. Schedule a time when you’re not tired or distracted.
• Share your earliest memories about money and how money was handled in your household growing up. These revelations can help couples better understand how their partners view money.
• Acknowledge you’re not always right. Couples need to compromise and acknowledge each other’s needs and wants.
• Work together to define your top financial goals and draw up a budget to help you get there.
• Track and review your spending weekly to make sure you’re on track.

Communication about finances is one of the keys to a happy marriage, as I wrote in “7 steps to take before you wed.”

Unfortunately, most of the couples recently surveyed by Fidelity Investments are falling short, at least when it comes to their own finances.

More than half of the older, affluent couples (aged 45 and up, with incomes of $75,000 and above) surveyed said that one of the best pieces of advice they would give to newlyweds is to make all financial decisions together. But fewer than half (45 percent) of the same couples reported making decisions jointly about day-to-day finances. Only 15 percent of couples feel confident that both of them could assume responsibility for their joint finances if necessary.

These couples often weren’t on the same page about their retirement finances, either. Key findings:

• 60 percent of couples do not agree on their retirement ages
• Almost half don’t agree on whether they will continue to work in retirement
• More  than 40 percent don’t agree on their expected retirement lifestyle

Time to start talking to each other and working things out. You need a plan that both of you can agree with and understand. Here are some of my columns with tips to get you going:

• Get real: Marriage is a business
• 9 ways to rein in a spendthrift spouse
• How to retire in bad times

Dear Liz: My husband signed up for a time share when we were on vacation, just months before we bought our first home. Now one year later, with a baby on the way, this time share is taking $189 a month out of our pockets plus $2,828 a year for maintenance fees.

This is dragging us down financially, and no one can tell us how to get rid of it! Please, please tell me how.

Answer: You can try to sell your time share, but typically there are far more desperate sellers than there are buyers for these “opportunities.”

At best, you’ll reap only a fraction of what you originally paid, and you may have to in essence give away the time share to anyone willing to pay the maintenance fees.

You’ll still need to pay off the loan you used to buy the time share, or you’ll risk damage to your credit.

You can learn more about selling time shares from the Timeshare Users Group.

If you haven’t already done so, it’s time to have a chat with your spouse about impulse purchases. Many happily married couples learn to discuss all purchases above a certain dollar amount, such as $100. They certainly don’t enter into long-term commitments without advance discussion and the agreement of both partners.

Because your husband is clearly vulnerable to a good sales pitch, you also might want to talk about not entering any high-risk zones — such as an auto dealership or a seminar at an airport hotel — unless you’re both present.