Although marriage combines the financial lives of two people, the law may not view all assets as marital and therefore subject to division in divorce. Someone who owned an asset before the marriage and who kept it separate from the marital estate could designate the asset as nonmarital. Gifts from third parties, including an inheritance, may be an individual asset as long as it was not mingled with marital assets. Earnings after filing divorce papers are generally exempt as well. The deciding factor on many questions revolving around the designation of marital or nonmarital is often whether or not the funds or assets were comingled with marital assets. For example, an inheritance deposited into a joint marital account may transform it into a marital asset.