Until you are ordered by the court to do otherwise, you can put your money into any account you please.
You should be aware (and you probably are) that if you take the money from the joint account that was presumably used to pay family bills, and you start putting it into another account, but don’t use that money to pay the mortgage and other bills, you could end up with a mess on your hands.
It’s common when a divorce is filed for a court to put temporary orders into place that will direct how a couple’s finances are to be handled while a case is pending.
The court may require temporary spousal support and/or child support, which could include an obligation to make payments to the spouse, as well as possibly responsibility for certain bills.
In some cases, the court may not do any of this.
If you are in the process of a divorce and your spouse has decided to keep his or her money, and you are stuck with bills that you have no way of paying, it’s important that you ask the court for temporary spousal support.
If your spouse’s income was used to pay all or some of the bills during your marriage, it’s likely that he or she will have to continue to pay those bills.
Also, if you are a spouse in the process of divorce and you wish to not deposit your money into a joint account for fear that your spouse will take it and hide it, you can ask that the court not award spousal support, and make a good case about why you should not be required to pay.
In either of those situations, you should seek the advice of a qualified divorce attorney.
An attorney can help advise you on the best arguments to make in court, and can be invaluable during the entire divorce process.