In my marriage, all accounts are shared. The only money that I could call "mine and not hers" is the cash in my wallet.

This arrangement seems extremely sensible to me. I know it's not for everybody, but in our case we trust each other completely and share a similar outlook on financial things, so it makes perfect sense to just share.

Since we're in it together, we run big purchases by each other just as an additional check. This helps soften irrational impulses, lets us suggest alternatives to each other, and just keeps us up to date with what's going on.

Please tell me, how does this mean that I "don't have control of [my] own money"? In what way does it make me "look weak"? Why should I keep this a secret? And why should I care about my "social standing" in the eyes of people who think this means anything important?

Both things can be true. That is, your arrangement sounds reasonable enough, but it remains the case that you have to get permission from somebody else to spend your money.

Sure. But the person I'm replying to thinks this means I don't have control over my own money, that it makes me look weak, and that it's the sort of thing I should be so ashamed of that I should keep it a secret. That's what I'm asking about.

Many married couples have joint accounts, into which all/most funds go and from which all/most funds come. For them, there's no "my money vs your money"... it's "our money". The idea is that their marriage joins them into a unit, and the money is spent on the unit. For many people $500-600 is a lot, and such a couple would want the decision to be a joint decision.

The crux is to understand that other people don't think exactly the same as you do. Many people will not actually see this as a sign of weakness. I am frequently able to understand why people do things that I would not do, and I'm no kind of genius.

> perhaps it could have been put more diplomatically

As mentioned in my other comment I was relating a phrase that was quite common "back in the day" for editorial purposes. This is what I don't like about the current world. There is no difference between saying someone yourself and relating either history or what someone else might say.

You didn't call out any difference, and you strongly implied that you agreed with this old-fashioned term. And I'm quite confident you did this on purpose, just so that you could come back and whine about how oppressed you are afterwards.

THat's one way of looking at it.

The other way of looking at it (and the way your comment came across) is that you're using 'back in the day' as a means to say what you feel, under the veneer of not actually saying it yourself. After all, if it didn't reflect what you thought, why would the phrase come to mind - and why take the trouble to call it out?

Underscoring this is that it's not actually "back in the day" at all. It's still a term that's commonly used.