Credit Myth: Married Couples Share the Same Credit Score

You do pretty much everything together: you eat together, you watch movies together, you hit the sack together, and you raise your kids together. You also make big purchases together, and decide your financial future together, so it seems only natural that you’d have a credit score together. Many people still believe this to be true, despite the fact that it is anything but.

How Credit Scores Work

Credit scores work on an individual level. Whether you’re married, common law or divorced, your significant other’s credit score has no affect on your own. While the decisions you make together or apart can have an affect on both of your credit scores, you do not share one score.

Some people believe that if they are about to enter into a legal marriage with someone who carries a lot of debt and poor credit, that their own credit will go down as a result. This is simply not the case. You may suffer because of the financial situation your spouse is in, having to rearrange money to pay back the debts he or she owes. But so long as those debts are in their name, defaulting on them will only affect their score negatively and paying them back will only affect their score positively. Your score will remain unaffected.

How You Can Help Your Spouse's Credit

This means you need to keep in mind a few things: honesty between partners is imperative to the health of your combined financial wellbeing. Knowing what debts your spouse has to their name is going to be paramount to being able to make big purchases with credit, such as a car or a home. You do not want to be seated at a desk with a mortgage broker, about to pull up your respective credit reports and have there be any surprises. You also need to make sure you’re just as focused on bettering your spouse’s credit as you are your own, if you eventually want the financial freedom to do the things you want to do. If only you have good credit, you might not jointly qualify for the mortgage you need to purchase the home you both want.

Even though you do not share a credit score with your spouse, being fully in the know about each other’s financial history and everything that could affect your joint future, is the only way to a secure financial future.

So now you know! Spouses do not share a credit score!

If you would like to find out your own credit score, you can do so here.