STH17, I'm guessing you meant to say that when your W had a job, she DID NOT share any income with you, is that correct?
Prolly need to talk to a lawyer before cutting off her finances or giving her half of anything. She could take the half you "gave her" and then go spend more money. Protect yourself.
oops, yeah definitely meant DID NOT share with me.
No matter what I do W can spend whatever she wants, I can't control that. Divorce or legal separation is the only real protection for myself against that which I am aware of. I'm waiting for an answer from L if court would even allow us to agree to split assets and debts different than 50/50, since we're in a community property state. Things could be different if we both move back to home state soon, which is an equitable distribution state.
I think the goal in separating accounts was to have more peace of mind myself, to be able to budget expenses without the wild card of W's spending.
EricC, my worry about her reaction is because she has an expectation that I will be controlling with finances. I have never truly restricted her access to our finances before (never took her cards away or locked her out of any accounts), but I routinely questioned her spending.
I looked up economic abuse on wikipedia, and most of what I read talks about it being a form of control to keep the victim dependent on the abuser. That's certainly not my goal here. I want W to take responsibility for herself and end the dependency. But I could see W only viewing it as me being selfish and not caring about her.
Me:30 W:31 S:4 M:7 T:12 PA: 5/6/18 - ? W moved out 7/18
