In many states, debts incurred during a marriage can end up being treated as marital debt even if only one spouse opened the credit card.
That means a spouse can sometimes still be hurt financially during divorce proceedings, lawsuits, collections, or asset division even if they didn’t know about the debt.
The exact rules depend heavily on the state, whether it’s a community property state, whose name is on the account, and whether the debt was considered for the benefit of the household.
The downside to having separate accounts is that one person can rack up tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt on credit cards that you wmay be held accountable for and have no idea that it ever happened because you are blind to what's going on in the account.
This happens way more than most people realize...just actually read 3 separate stories about this exact thing this week alone.