Depending on the judge's interpretation: 1) she already owns half my assets, and I own half her debt, or 2) she owns half of any assets acquired post-M and post-M appreciation of pre-marital assets. (i.e. I might get credit for any pre-marital equity in house/investments) 3) I may be able to evade owning half of her debt that I had no knowledge of.
This is unfortunately vague and significant since I already had substantial equity in my house/401K at the time of my M.
So given that, she already owns half the money. I'm not concerned with her draining the account since I don't plan to keep any real amount in it. The only risk is if she can damage my credit rating or expose me to creditors by doing something stupid with the joint account. Like she goes and buys something big and deliberately writes a bad check to cover it - then I'm on the hook, only recourse is personal legal action against her. This is why I was trying to stipulate no checks. I can just not get checks, but she could always order some. Must phone the bank and see if they can customize an account...
Of course, if she did something stupid like that, it would all come out in the D negotiations, albeit after the fact when the damage is already done.
My faith in being able to move forward with this at all is that she is trying to gain independence, and she knows she has to rebuild her credit rating, and if she does anything stupid, she not only hurts me, but herself. Assuming she's rational.
BTW, did I mention that there is now a financial compatibility section on the checklist for my next W?
At this point, I think I'll propose the whole thing tonight as is. She'll undoubtedly want nothing short of joint access to my primary account, and the whole idea of her contributing to expenses is going to shock her, so it's not like she's going to bite today. It's only worth the risk if she agrees to make contributions.
I took out that whole $750 thing, BTW. That payment can just happen quietly - it doesn't need to be codified.
