 If you're married or in a serious relationship, you might be weighing the merits of combining your finances with your partner. For some couples, having a fully joint account feels great because they are able to spend and save and talk about it very openly. That's Lindsay Bryan Podman, a Michigan-based financial therapist and author of The Financial Anxiety Solution. For other couples, having that joint account only feels like they are losing out on that autonomy or on that independence.