Am I responsible for my spouse's debt?
There are two separate questions here, and the answers can differ. What a divorce court will make you responsible for is one thing. What a bank can collect from you is another, and your decree has no effect on the second.
Most of the confusion in this area comes from those two being treated as one question.
What the court decides
In dividing your marriage, a court allocates debts as well as assets. The rules vary by state, and broadly they turn on when the debt was incurred, what it was for, and whether it benefited the marriage. Debt taken on during the marriage for family purposes is generally treated as marital even when only one name is on the account.
Which means the intuitive answer, my name isn't on it, so it isn't mine, is not reliable. A credit card in your spouse's name alone that paid for groceries and family holidays may well be treated as a shared obligation.
What the creditor decides
Here is the part that surprises people, and it is the more important half.
Your creditors were not parties to your divorce and are not bound by your decree. If your name is on an account, you remain liable to that lender for the full balance no matter what a judge ordered between you and your spouse. If the decree says your ex pays the card and your ex does not pay the card, the bank comes to you, and it lands on your credit report.
The decree still matters, because it gives you the right to go back to court and enforce it against your ex. But that is a claim against your ex, not a defense against the bank, and it happens after the damage to your credit has already occurred.
Authorized user, joint account, or cosigner
Three arrangements that feel similar and are not.
Joint account holder. Both fully liable. The clearest case.
Cosigner or guarantor. Fully liable, and not merely as a backstop: the FTC's own required cosigner notice states the creditor can collect from you without first trying to collect from the borrower, including by suing you or garnishing your wages.
Authorized user. You could use the card but generally did not promise to repay it, so lenders typically cannot pursue you. Note that the account may still appear on your credit report, and being removed as an authorized user can change your credit profile.
Student loans have their own rules, including a federal fix for joint consolidation loans that was impossible until 2022 - that has its own page.
One large exception: in the nine community property states, debt either spouse takes on during the marriage is often community debt, and a creditor may be able to reach you for it even where your name never appeared on the account. Authorized-user status is a defense to the contract, not to community property law.
Worth checking which of the three you actually are, since people frequently guess wrong.
What to do about it
Pull your credit report. Free, and the only reliable way to see every account carrying your name. People routinely find accounts they had forgotten and occasionally ones they never agreed to.
Close or separate joint accounts where you can, before the balances become someone else's problem to pay and your problem to be liable for.
Get indemnification language into the decree. A clause saying that if your ex fails to pay an assigned debt and a creditor pursues you, your ex owes you what it cost. It does not stop the creditor, but it gives you a clear claim without re-litigating what was already decided. Which decree provisions are actually enforceable covers the wording that holds up.
Push for a hard deadline on anything requiring refinancing or account closure, along with a consequence if the deadline passes. Open-ended obligations tend to stay open.
Freeze your credit. Free, reversible in minutes, and it stops new accounts being opened in your name.
How debts are characterized and allocated varies substantially by state, particularly between community-property and equitable-distribution states, and some states treat debt incurred after separation differently. Confirm what applies where you live before agreeing to take on or hand over an obligation.