People would be surprised just how much spouses lie, cheat and steal from each other.
What most often is revealed during the divorce process is financial cheating.
Hidden bank accounts, loans on 401(k)s, unknown credit cards, personal loans and equity lines to pay off secret credit cards or even worse to support another person outside of the marital home.
In a 2010 survey by the National Endowment for Financial Education found that 31 percent of people admitted to hiding information about debt, purchase, or bank balances from their spouses.
This is an alarming number! What is often discovered during the divorce process are financial assets and debts that one spouse was not fully honest about revealing to the other spouse.
What might have started as an innocent credit card, ended up mushrooming into a very large debt.
The items that were purchased on the credit card most often are never known by the other spouse.
Often that spouse will hide these items from the other spouse.
I remember one case that started out innocently enough as tracing bank accounts through the couples' joint checking account.
But what was found was an equity line that the wife knew nothing about.
I instructed her to go to her bank and request copies of the equity line back to the date it was opened.
What we found was shocking.
Her husband took out the equity line without her knowledge and was using it to pay off all the credit card debt he had racked up.
We also found a 401(k) loan of $40,000 that he spent.
Guess what asset he was willing to let her have? The house, with the 1st mortgage with a balloon payment due in one year, a maxed out equity line, and no possible way for her to refinance both the 1st and 2nd mortgage on her income alone.
This left her no choice but to sell the home in a year at a reduced value because the housing market had taken such a big hit.
The wife took the home against my advice.
The husband walked away with zero debt, his full 401(k), and no responsibility to help sell the marital home.
Was this a good deal for the wife? Not in this case.
Other cases I have found extra income sources through hidden bank accounts.
One case I found an extra $80,000 in it, solely in the wife's name.
She claimed it was her deceased mother's money, but upon further tracing, we found large chunks of money siphoned out of the couples' joint account every time the husband was deployed overseas.
This resulted in the husband keeping his full retirement and all of the equity in the marital home.
One recent case I was hired to solely check a year's worth of bank statements.
After categorizing all the debit card purchases I determined that the husband was not making a single credit card payment through this bank account, when he provided credit statements that showed payments being made.
What was missing here? Another bank account.
Allow the financial expert on your divorce team to turn over every financial rock so there is no question after your divorce that every stone was uncovered.
There is nothing worse than getting through the divorce to remember something that you hadn't thought about for years that could have made a difference in your settlement.
If your spouse will not share financial statements with you, then make copies for yourself when you see them.
Plus, if your spouse refuses to share financial documents with you, think of it as a big red flag!