I have another question as everyone thinks I need to protect myself financially.... The money she used to open the secrect account was money she used from our joint account to pay for her trip to visit her dad. She said he would pay for it but to make things easier, she paid for the plane trip. Knowing her dad, he gave her extra to use to leave me with but I don't know how much is in it. I do know because part of it was money reimbursed from our joint account, half of any funds in that account belong to me as this is a community property state. For 15 years I worked and she stayed at home with the kids and I never held any funds from her. This is the first time in 20 years she makes the majority of the money. I used more than $30,000 of money I earned just 2 years ago to pay a debt she incurred BEFORE we married!
She told her dad it was "empowering' to open her own account and not tell me but in this state it belongs to us both! Her dad did this to her mom when they divorced and put the money in the OW's name as well as his business. He never paid any child support even though my wife was 10 and her brother 7 years old and he kept the divorce tied up in court for 10 years so he didn't have to give anything to his ex.
Do I confront my wife about the account? She has asked me to take money out of our joint account several times since opening her own and still spends from our joint accounts, never her "own'. I looked into how it works and if we file, 1/2 of that money does belong to me but knowing how her MLC mind works, she will get angry AT ME if I confront her.
A few months ago I printed some paperwork about divorce and didn't know a copy was on the printer and she found it. She just brought it to me and said "This is your's" and threw it to me. Now, I wasn't even thinking of filing, I just wanted to know what the process was as she was driving us in that direction. I would never file without talking to her and I think she must know this. Maybe she thinks I'm going to file and is doing this to protect herself? I can't imagine that she would think I would ever do such a thing but with MLC maybe I need to ask her? At the time I didn't think she needed to hear that I wasn't going to file as I'm the one trying to keep us together. Any thoughts?
