Rich Zeoli Talks To La Salle Professor About Spouses Hiding Bank Accounts
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Rich Zeoli spoke with Dr. Donna Tonrey, Director of Clinical Counseling and Family Therapy at La Salle University, on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT about spouses keeping secret bank accounts and hiding purchases from each other.
Tonrey said things like this play a big deal in breaking up marriages.
"It's significant and it's something that brings a lot of people into therapy. Typically, what is underlying is that there's other issues. It can show up as hiding money, but then there's the trust issue, they're not communicating well. So there's other issues and that becomes one of the symptoms. What can happen is, when that symptom becomes serious, say someone has a credit card that their spouse doesn't know about, and the money has built up and built up and the expenses have built, they have compounded the problem and if they already have poor communication, then the situation gets much more serious."
She believes, in a healthy relationship, each spouse will have their own autonomy.
"I think it's important that spouses have their own money. Say there's a joint account that each person contributes to if both parties are working, so they contribute to the funds of living together, the house, whatever they have to pay for and then I think it's really important that each of them have some money that is their own, so that they don't have to tell each other about every purchase that they make and every time they want to buy something. What happens is it starts going into a place that feels like the person is asking permission. You don't want to have to be in a place with your spouse that you need to get permission to do something that you think is viable or reasonable."
Tonrey reiterated that adequate communication is necessary for a functional marriage.
"When the couple isn't communicating about it, that they're not comfortable talking about things that are difficult, typically it could be money, it could be sex, there could be some major issues that two people uncomfortable talking to each other about. What happens is when you don't talk about it, the issue builds, it gets more intense. It becomes more complex."
