Anthony Bell's decision to provide his wife Kelly Landry with an allowance is insulting. Not just to Landry herself but to the very idea of an equal relationship.
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In case you've missed this most tawdry of court cases, Kelly Landry applied for a permanent apprehended violence order against her husband, Anthony Bell, whom she accused of being abusive. The matter is heard at the Downing Centre Local Court.
Bell's a prominent businessman and accountant who thinks nothing of spending a large fortune on his yacht. Former Getaway reporter Landry is now a full-time mother. They were married six years ago and, at the time, Landry said: "We just mirror each other in every way and get on so well ... we operate the same way, we have the same belief systems and same morals, and the way we treat people and our families; it's an incredible relationship."
But what's being heard most clearly is the disastrous way this incredible relationship disintegrated. There are accusations of violence, which are being disputed, but there's one claim that rivals that of physical violence, and that's controlling financial behaviours.
Research from Jozica Kutin and a team at RMIT reveals one in seven women have had the experience of partners controlling their access to finances, assets and decision-making. The research says this kind of control is economic abuse and shows almost two-thirds of women who experience high financial stress and nearly one-quarter of women with a disability or long-term health condition had a history of economic abuse. So the incidences for those groups are much higher than the one in seven in the general population.
Is putting your partner on an allowance a controlling financial behaviour?
Money is the one of the key areas of conflict in relationships. United States and Australian research report concerns about money as one of the most common reasons for fights and one-third of couples say it's a major source of relationship tension. Relationships Australia research goes as far as saying these disagreements affect 70 per cent of couples – and the these disagreements are a very strong predictor of divorce.
Is putting your partner on an allowance just a way to minimise conflict? Surely it's just about working together to figure out incomings and outgoings. It's just money, right?
As Kyle Benson writes on The Gottman Relationship blog: "Money is loaded with power and meaning that can make can discussions heated and hurtful. Arguments about money aren't about money. They are about our dreams, our fears, and our inadequacies."
And about control.
Money should be a joint responsibility and a joint discussion. An allowance removes all the autonomy and all the agency – and it also pretends that every financial situation in a relationships is predictable and preventable. There is no better advice for anyone starting out in a relationship than to take the advice of the folks from ASIC's Moneysmart about the four things you should do after you start having sex but before you move in together.
Talk to your partner about money. Take action together. Know the facts about sharing money. Take care of yourself. Having conversations about money before it becomes a drama is the No.1 way you can guarantee you will still be together in a decade. That's the conversation about how much you want to save: for now, for tomorrow, for much later. Yes, those conversations about how much you want to spend at the pub are excruciating. But lots of beers every week cost more than those once-a-month heels on ASOS, so make sure you are both free and open about where your spending Achilles heels are.
I'm a big proponent of joint discussions and joint accounts. There are no secrets in a joint account and every spending decision is writ large on the statement. I haven't had a separate bank account in nearly 40 years – or a credit card in more than 20 years – and, for us, that's a good thing. My impetuous spending was sending us both mad and the frank but respectful conversations about that made it possible for me to get that under control. Most of the time. All our accounts of all kinds are in joint names: gas, electricity, water, phones. We both have access to see how what we are spending measures up to what we think we are spending.
At the beginning of every pay period, we sit down and talk about what bills we will pay, what we will save and what fun we will have, in that order. And we stopped fighting about money.
If there are any allowances here, it's about the allowances we make for each other, our hopes and our desires, and our plans for the future. And that's what all relationships should be about.
Jenna Price is a columnist for The Canberra Times and Daily Life and a senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney.
Twitter: @JennaPrice
Facebook: JennaPriceJournalist
