seperating armatures/meshes

I am working on a animation with two armatures and meshes, not sure how i did it but the meshes seem to be connected. I skinned each armature to each mesh and while the first mesh doesn’t react to the second armature the second mesh reacts to the first armature. i had found it weird that despite the fact that the second armature had fewer bones it still had the same bone count as the first, though the bones that weren’t there didn’t highlight anything when selected. basically my problem is that when i select and manipulate a bone on the first armature it moves the mesh around the bone of the same number on the second armature. is this a problem with the mesh or armature. can i get away without deleting one or the other. if you need clarification to help let me know

ok after deleting the mesh and making a new one the problem is still there. does this mean my only option is to remake the whole armature