Legal Question in Family Law in Pennsylvania

(A) consult a divorce lawyer;

(B) freeze your credit

(C) obtain a police report and identify your spouse as the perpetrator

(D) contact the credit card companies and get them to send you a fraud affidavit so that you will not have to be liable.

Above steps do not have to be done in a set order. However, you will need the police report to freeze your credit and dispute any false accounts on your credit. And once you get the police report and fill out fraud affidavits, it will be up to the police and credit card companies to prosecute your spouse. Identity theft is a crime. Then see a divorce lawyer because after you ensure that your spouse is going to be prosecuted you may be headed for divorce court.

At a minimum you have to freeze your credit so that the information cannot be accessed by your spouse to establish new credit. If you do not want your spouse prosecuted for existing debt, then you are going to have to agree to be responsible, which means you are acting as an enabler. Your spouse has a problem of some kind - alcohol, gambling, drug habit or something else. Whatever, your spouse needs help and paying the bills is not going to help in the long run because he/she will do it again to you. If you are going to decline prosecution and accept liability for the debts then you have to condition your assistance on your spouse getting help for his/her problem. Then you need to tackle paying the debts - or make your spouse timely pay. Once the accounts are paid off you can begin closing them.