My fiance thinks keeping finances separate after marriage is a red flag.
My fiance (30F) and I (32M) are getting married next spring, and we just had the biggest argument of our relationship, for context we both make good money I work in tech, she works in healthcare and we split expenses now we have our own savings, investments, etc. Last week we started talking about what finances would look like after marriage so I assumed we'd keep our personal accounts and open one joint account for shared expenses, and continue managing our own money otherwise but she looked genuinely shocked. She said that if we're getting married there shouldn't be your money and my money. In her words, keeping separate finances means I'm already planning for the marriage to fail but I told her that I see it the exact opposite way. To me having some financial independence is healthy because I watched my mom stay in an unhappy marriage for years because she was completely financially dependent on my dad so I've always believed adults should maintain some level of autonomy, even in a marriage. Things escalated when she asked whether I'd feel the same way if one of us took time off to raise kids someday. I said we'd obviously adjust things and make it fair, but I still don't think every dollar needs to go into one giant pot. Now she's questioning whether our values are compatible. A few of our friends got involved, and surprisingly most of them are on her side. One friend even said if you're worried about protecting your own money, why get married at all so that comment annoyed me I don't see financial independence and commitment as mutually exclusive. Am I completely out of touch here or should I merge everything, keep things separate, or do some combination of both?