In a perfect world, marriage would be a total union of the heart, mind, soul and bank accounts. Unfortunately, even though you are husband and wife, many times we end up dividing our assets long before we ever see the inside of a divorce court.

The most common area of our marriage where we tend to divide up things is financially. Money may make the world go round but it can make a marriage a mess. This problem itself manifests itself differently depending on the financial circumstances themselves.

For example. In a one income family where the man works and the woman takes care of the house, all too often, the man hands up the funds with an eye dropper, giving his wife an allowance. The wife takes it because she's not contributing to the house financially. She resents every minute of it but doesn't feel she has any choice.

Then there is the situation where both the husband and wife have their own jobs. When this happens it becomes a war of "It's my money and I can do what I want with it". Ultimately, what will happen in these scenarios is that the wife will go out and buy something extravagant, just to show her husband that she can do it because she has her "own" money. In most cases, the husband will resent this because he looks at it as an attack on his manhood. He's not the only income provider and therefore his role in the home isn't that important. This is also a way for the wife to assert her independence. The question you have to ask is, since when did we need to be independent in a marriage? What happened to that joining of souls?

But the problem with mine, yours and ours doesn't just end with money. It goes way beyond that to just about everything we own. Many times in a marriage we do bring things into it that we owned previously such as a stereo system or maybe even something as big as our own car. Many times, even after the marriage vows, that car is still mine and not ours. Many times we find ourselves asking our spouse if we can borrow the car keys or use their stereo.

So why is it like this? The truth is, it would take a team of head shrinks and a millennium to answer that question. Maybe we don't want to relinquish the things we have. Maybe we're afraid that if we share everything we'll lose our identities. Maybe we're just jealous and insecure because our spouse brought "more" into the marriage. Maybe we need to feel superior because we're the one who brought more into the marriage. With all the prenuptial agreements being made everyday, it certainly is something to consider.

Whatever the reasons are, the mine yours and ours syndrome is not likely to go away soon unless we can go into a marriage and truly become one with our spouse. The chances of that happening any time soon or slim to none.

Just ask the lawyers.