To those who rationalize the "split expenses with separate incomes" strategy - why don't you view yourselves as a household that makes joint decisions, and then you each get a set amount of spending money to do whatever with? If the higher earner's job requires living in a HCOLA, then that severely disadvantages the lower earner (this exact situation happened with a friend of mine). Partner1 is an aerospace engineer, and lives in and around major cities, because that's where big airports are. Partner2 had online work that could be done anywhere, but had no bump for living in a HCOLA. Keeping their incomes separate was deeply unfair, in my opinion, to Parter2. Another friend couple has PartnerA in the military, so while they get pay bumps/decreases based on where they live, PartnerB has to reapply for jobs in the new area, and has has more and less success depending on where they live. Again, another situation where splitting expenses evenly is unfair to the second partner.
Finally, relationships and marriage are mini socialism. You take care of each other. What would you do, income and budget-wise, if one person is out of work for 6 months? A year? Got Covid and is in the hospital for a month? The split arrangement doesn't accommodate those much.
Because to people like us, that's just really unappealing and we have no desire to do so? I personally don't believe in having "spending money". It's not how I operate. Some people, like me, just have a personality type where they need total autonomy in such regards, and the idea of joint finances is really repulsive.
Now, for how I'd handle each of those situations.
There's no such thing as HCOL in my opinion. Any city you look at, you'll have people spending at all different levels. I've lived very cheaply in the most expensive city in Canada for most of my adult life. So for the first situation, I would say just find a way to live cheaply in the so-called HCOL place, that's no problem.
If I was going to be moving a lot for the sake of a partner, I would steer my job path towards remote work or highly transferable skills that let me find work quickly.
I would never be out of work for long periods of time, because I'm not like that. I'm the kind of person who's happy to take whatever job there is if I can't find something perfect. Office, factory, labour, whatever, no problem.
It would suck being in the hospital with COVID, but I'm not sure what the problem there would be with regards to separate finances? It's not like I'd be spending anything while hooked up to machines in the hospital.
For what it's worth, I don't think there's only one holy grail system for this stuff, because every person's relationship and feelings on the matter are different. But I do think it's funny how like clockwork, the two sides on this issue are always the same. Separate finances people are like "This is how we do things, one option among many" and the joint people are like "This is the only way, otherwise you're basically not even married, do you even TEAM". Seriously, like clockwork.
I was going to type this but you already did. We all make choices and with some life choices, separate finances may be more difficult to maintain. For some people, like me, the one pot approach would be extremely difficult. My partner makes the choice, for himself, to work as little as possible, to focus on his art. That was a 'take it or leave it' deal from the start. I took the deal knowing full well what the consequences would be for me. And he knew from the start that I always want to have access to money that's exclusively mine.
Which is, for example, a reason that I'd never start a relationship with someone in the military. I know that I'm the type of person that needs to put down roots. I wouldn't be suited to that life. My friend's husband is in the military and she did what Zikoris already suggested, she became an excellent interim office manager/PA/secretary. She is very well paid and has turned the frequent moving into something that's actually a career advantage in her case.
I'm from a country with decent social security so if my partner was unemployed or disabled or in hospital with Covid that would not affect our household finances at all. All those benefits would by the way go to him, personally, and would be based on his income, because in our country, for the purpose of social security, there's no such thing as a household, only individual tax payers.
The only way our household finances would be affected is when he would quit working without having a stash or any kind of claim to social security, so just quitting a job to basically sit on his ass all day. If he did that I would kick him out and I'd live on my own income and I'd still have more than enough.
We do have access to each others bank accounts, so in case of emergency, if I ran out of money while he was in a coma, I could take money out of his account. We've been together for years and years so I trust his judgement with my money when I'm unconscious.
@RetiredAt63 I assume that people with seperate finances usually have pre-nups. Otherwise you don't really have seperate finances, just separate wallets. That's a bad idea, because you don't know what you're spouse is doing but you are still responsible. Like my unmarried housewife friend. It's fine if you choose to have a traditional relationship with a breadwinner and a housewife, but please make sure you get the protective framework of marriage.
The standard legal contract of marriage isn't for everyone, but it's better than not having any legal document in place. The best option is to go to a lawyer and have them draw up all the paperwork you need in your unique situation. We did that but it's not cheap.