Are You All In?

While taking my daughter to school, I caught a morning radio show in which the hosts were talking about a recent news story of a wife who had a hidden savings account with over $800,000 in it.  The issue was that she never told her husband about it. poker-all-in

What was further disconcerting was that most of the female co-hosts and many of women who called in thought this was not only acceptable but smart practice.  When it comes to marriage, are we holding back or are we all in?

Don't get me wrong, I see nothing wrong with separate checking/saving/investing accounts and some of these women inherited money which is why it was separate in the first place.  But the overall tone of this piece was that we should hide things from our spouse to protect us "just in case."  Plus, many of the married women agreed with this idea that they needed a secret escape clause and money in case things did not work out.  Now, this could be done by both men and women, it was simply women used in this particular show.

The host tried to illustrate the point that it was not about the money but the fact that the women were keeping secrets from their spouse thus creating division and possibly mistrust in the marriage.  To this the women said that due to the current divorce rates,  they needed to not show all their cards and keep things from their husbands just in case things didn't work out.

In my opinion, this is one of the fundamental problems with societal attitudes toward marriage.  I look at my own marriage as a "burn the ships" and go "all in" type of arrangement between my wife, me and God.  There is no holding back or an escape clause because human fallibility will naturally use that as an excuse.  It's like going into a plan and expecting to fail, you will naturally hold back.  Instead, I see my role and the health of my marriage as a "succeed at all costs" arrangement and therefore have no fall back plan.  I have to give all of myself and accept the risk of being hurt, that's true intimacy.

The attitudes displayed in this radio show were not "til death do us part" but more like "til something better comes along" or things don't work out.  Maybe I'm just crazy or old fashion but I cannot understand this thought process when it comes to marriage.  You are basically setting yourself up for mistrust, suspicions and intimacy issues with your spouse.

Maybe the basic problem is that the secular culture sees marriage as a business contract and not holy matrimony?

I appreciate your thoughts and opinions?