Medical expenses deducted from Loan Balance

#1

My wife claims that the home equity loan we have is not equally divided, but that any medical expenses I paid for my children (from a previous marriage) should be deducted from her share.

It will be very hard to proof if these funds indeed came out of our Home Equity Loan, as we paid numerous other expenses from this account. Every month she overspends by about $1500, some this money (she overspends) came from purchases on credit cards, some of it by “borrowing” money from items we had budgeted elsewhere. At the end of some months we had to go into our home equity loan to pay bills, such as utilities, mortgage, etc.

Because of our accounting system, or lack of it, it is very hard to trace back what for medical expenses we exactly had and paid for from our Home Equity loan.

I she correct that she is not responsible for the kids medical expenses during our short (20 months) marriage?

I paid over $4500 for an operation her dog had, this should offset about the medical expenses I might have had for my children.

#2

She can argue the money was not used for a marital purpose, but the odds are that a court will rule it was since you withdrew the funds during the marriage, presumably with her permission. The same thing applies for the dog’s bills. The court is not going to go back and look through what the money was spent on during the marriage, unless it is clearly a non-marital expenditure (spending money on a paramour).