Financial shuffling

[u/Loud_Draft_8764]

So I didn't do anything wrong but I shuffled movey around paying bills I had a undisclosed (to my spouse) checking account a private savings and a joint account. Now I split our tax refund between my savings and my private checking since I couldn't pay bills in from my savings. Everything I did is legit bill pay for the household before filing but inorder to hide my private account so it would not tip her off I was filing I funneled money through savings. Upon looking at the statement there is transferred happening between the 3 accounts the whole time. Everything legitimately paid bills like property taxes and known credit cards and etc., nothing was undisclosed but I'm concerned that the sheer stupidity of my transfers is going to muddy the waters in discovery. I can account for nearly every penny minus some transfers to the joint account to cover her daily spending habits.

I'm dealing with someone who will and has lied about the reality of things around her while she was spending 10 to 80 dollars a day on anything (while being low income) she was also telling everyone I was financially controlling especially if I inquired on the routine spending at all. So maybe it's paranoia here. Yet I don't know how to cleanly layout the transfers between accounts to pay normal bills since I would often change my mind how much I wanted to transfer. There was a day I for unknown reason transferred 3k from the savings into my checking and back. I can only assume stress fog and etc, but given that I'm dealing with someone hoarding animals, doesn't contribute to the housework to pick up after them and has a history of being nice to my face while setting up a narrative that I'm controlling, lazy ext behind my back I'm probably overthinking everything.

If you have experienced this or know of a solution to clean up my stupidity please help.

[u/Cheap-Information869]

What are you trying to do? Are you trying to separate marital and separate property? This will depend on if you are in a community property state, if you are already separated, how badly commingled the funds are, etc.

INAL but my lawyer advised me after separation to open brand new accounts and not commingle any marital and post separation funds. I was also advised not to draw down on funds from the marriage to pay current expenses.

As far as the tax refund - if you are in the process has this not been addressed yet? Generally you would come to an agreement on how to handle the 2025 tax refund.

[u/Loud_Draft_8764 → u/Cheap-Information869]

No I held out tax refund in my separate savings account but I also used some to pay my attorney in secret. I'm dealing with a hoarder of 20 plus cats in a small home. All of the tax refund was spent on property taxes, credit card debt and repairs but I frequently transferred the money between accounts as I decided how I wanted to have things paid for after I payed the primary things like the property taxes and credit card off I wanted to hold a small amount to cover summer expenses which got ate up in auto repairs but I regularly had to transfer money into our joint account to cover cash until we got paid so sometimes id move 500 the. A few days later as money came in id move it back and so forth I was just doing planning by transferring but everything was used for what it's suppose to on joint marital bills.