Why Women Should Have Their Own Bank Account

Did you know that the average US marriage now lasts about eight years? And that 30% of the remaining marriages exist only because women are financially trapped? In my practice, I have seen it many times: Women stay in unhappy, abusive marriages because they have no way to get out. 

There are some men who seek control of their wives by holding the finances over the woman’s head, reminding her all the time that she would be nowhere without his money. My advice to clients in this situation is: for your own self-esteem, for your own mental health, and for your own future, find a way to have your own bank account.

You might be thinking this doesn’t apply to you. But people can change. No matter how great your marriage is now, you always need a plan B, an emergency exit. You cannot stick yourself in a situation where someone else controls all the money.

This is not to say you can’t have a joint bank account with your partner so you can both pay bills. That often works. At the same time, it doesn’t seem necessary for partners to see every purchase the other one makes. I’ve had clients where even though the woman is working, and making a very good income, her husband goes through every single one of her purchases and asks questions about it. He bullies her when she’s earning almost as much as him.

As a therapist, I’ve seen women be emotionally abused over money in a variety of ways. They are told they are not good at math, so they should just let the man handle the finances. I’ve seen situations where the husband leads the family into debt, or uses his position of accounting to hide an addiction. Meanwhile, women are left out in the cold, feeling desperate and unhappy. All because they wrap their entire finances around their husbands. 

As you may have surmised, having your own bank account quite likely also means working. It is a personal choice of course if a mother wants to stay home and raise her children, while the father goes out into the work force. But what if the husband should lose his job for some reason and the woman doesn’t have an income? Then they’re both out of luck. 

All I am saying is to have a fallback plan. A neighbor of mine recently got divorced after 17 years of marriage. She will receive some alimony, but she still needs to get out there and find a job. She doesn’t have the confidence she had when she last worked full-time, and she is scared, not knowing what she wants to do or where she fits into today’s society.

But hope is never lost. I have another client who was in a similar situation. When we first started working together, she was taking care of the kids while the husband worked. He had control of all of the finances, down to the fact that only his name was on the house. 

Meanwhile, her husband drank a lot and was verbally abusive. He would yell at the kids; he was a very unhappy person. She tried for years to make the marriage work, suggesting couples counseling along with multiple other possibilities.

But she never considered leaving. She told me straight out: “I don’t have a job. I haven’t worked. I don’t have a college degree. I have no way to get out of here.”

As luck would have it, however, she started talking to a high school friend, who is a licensed and bonded electrician. First he hired her to come into his company and do some inventory for him. The next thing you know, she’s out on the road accompanying him to some of their jobs and finding that the work came very naturally to her. Now, she’s going for her journeyman electrician’s license. Even while she’s training, she’s earning money, to the point where now she has moved out with her kids and has her own place. 

It’s a beautiful story. And you can be sure she has her own bank account.