Your spouse is unhappy with you when you tell them that you want to get a divorce, but you still move forward with the process. You do want to end your marriage, and the two of you don’t have children, so you think it’s just going to be a simple matter of splitting up your marital assets.
But then you notice that your spouse, who will soon be your ex, has started giving money away. Maybe they just remembered an old loan that they had to pay back to one of their best friends from college. Perhaps their brother had a business idea and your spouse decided to give them seed money to start the company. Maybe their parents ran into some medical issues and so your spouse gave them money to cover the costs until they reached their deductible on their health insurance.
What’s going on here?
Odds are that the variety of excuses noted above have all been entirely invented. Your spouse probably isn’t just giving away money, paying back a loan, helping with business costs or covering healthcare costs.
What they’re really doing is trying to hide assets. They just want to transfer money to other people that they can trust. During the divorce, this means they don’t have to split that money with you. After the divorce has been finalized, then they will contact these other people – friends or family members, in most cases – to get the money back.
Your spouse is trying to prevent you from getting the percentage of the marital assets that you deserve. This is just one reason why it’s so important to understand your legal options as the process moves forward.