Let me tell you a cautionary tale.
When I moved in with XH, before marriage and kids, we were renting. The letting agent needed a bank account, and so I gave them my details because I had them to hand so it was easier. And likewise I took over the utility bills because I had my account details to hand and it was easier.
So we moved in together, and I was spending a lot less because our new place was smaller than the place I’d been renting alone before and in a cheaper part of the country and by co-incidence I finished paying off a debt of thousands that my previous boyfriend left me with. I felt rich. XH didn’t contribute to our living costs but did pay for holidays, and said the pot of money growing in his account was being saved for a house deposit together. I was happy.
Then I fell pregnant with DC1. I was still paying all our living costs. Because I always had. But they had to go further now. I would run out of money each month and have to go to XH for more. He used to tell me I was irresponsible and had to find ways to cut costs; I had PND and was so browbeaten that it didn’t occur to me that the more sensible thing would be for us to have a joint account and for me to have visibility over “our” savings (in his name) and what he was spending money on. To give you a rough idea, we were earning almost exactly the same each month, but all of mine was going on living costs, whereas only a third of his was going to me to top up my overdraft each month. I was miserable.
We finally had a large enough deposit to buy a house. The bank wanted the mortgage patments to come out of a joint account. He said it would be quicker to have him added to my account than open a new one, so that’s what we did. So now he had full access to all my wages and I had no access to any of his.
I gradually recovered from PND. And realised that he was utterly taking me for granted and treating me like a household appliance or a pet. I tried again and again to get him to pull his weight and treat me as his equal, over a period of years, but although he said the right things (sometimes) it never translated into actions.
The inevitable happened. I gave him an ultimatum: marriage counselling or split. He agreed to counselling, but only if he could choose the counsellor. I said yes. He picked someone, didn’t tell me how much. I asked, he put me off. I asked, he put me off. I did some internet research. It turned out the counsellor was £16k upfront. XH paid it from an account I knew nothing about (and forged my signature on the contract so I wouldn’t see the fees clauses).
The final straw came the next month. I happened to get paid my annual bonus that month. And the bastard moved it immediately into HIS savings account. It was “only” a couple of thousand but it came less than a week after I had it out with him over the £16k counsellor fees.
I left him a few weeks later and started divorce proceedings.
He never did give full financial disclosure. Going back over the years, there are tens and tens of thousands of pounds “missing”. I don’t know if he salted them off, or spent them or lost them on bad investments. I didn’t care by that point. He bought me out of the former matrimonial home with a sum that was certainly vastly less than I could have got in court, but it was enough for a deposit on a small house of my own with room for the DCs, and I couldn’t stand the thought of years of forensic accountants and legal fees and fighting. It was more important for me to be able to move on with my life.
So my advice to you is: don’t assume that it’s a legal irrelevancy in a marriage as to whose name is on the savings accounts, and don’t assume that the person who says he loves you will automatically be doing right by you, and don’t assume you’ll get full financial disclosure if you divorce. Because some people just don’t play that way.