Legal Question in Family Law in Texas

Regarding the debt, understand that you are only responsible for her debt if you are contractually liable. If you are liable on the credit card account and placed her on the account as an authorized user, you are responsible for the debt. If she just signed on one of your cards, where she was not authorized, it is not clear that you are responsible. However the company may argue that you are. You need to ask the credit card company to produce the signed receipts to prove that you are responsible.

You do not have to repay her debt that only she is contractually liable for. If you were married you would have an obligation to pay debts for necessaries (food, clothing, shelter) that she incurred. But you are not married, so that obligation does not kick in.

You may have a cause of action against her for repaying the debts at least those incurred after the bankruptcy. You probably will not be able to collect them.

First step, call the credit card companies and cut her off as an authorized user.

I doubt she is entitled to your retirement check.

To be entitled to your retirement check, she would have to hire an attorney and file a lawsuit to prove the informal marriage. Then she would have to file suit for divorce. If she did and the court awarded part of the retirment check to her then she would be entitled to it. Of course this assumes that your retirment plan does not contain language that provides for her.

You may want to consider filing bankruptcy yourself.