As you move toward divorce, you have probably heard about individuals who will attempt to hide assets from their spouses. You may already be worrying that your spouse could try to do this in order to keep those assets from you. Some ways people do this include giving money to a friend until the divorce is over or simply putting money into an account that the other person doesn’t know exists.
But there’s another potential issue you need to watch out for, which is the dissipation of these same marital assets. Rather than hiding the money, dissipation simply means using or squandering that money. Why would your spouse do this?
They’re attempting to spend your percentage of the money
Essentially, your spouse understands that you are going to get some percentage of that money and they are going to get a different percentage. If they spend all of the money in advance, in their manner of thinking, this means that they derive all of the benefits from that spending. You will now miss out on getting money that you should have been given.
This is often done by purchasing things that cannot be returned after the fact. Examples include taking trips, eating expensive meals, going on vacation and things of this nature. Your spouse may do this out of spite, just to keep you from getting any of the money. While wasting funds is not good for them either, they see it as a way to get back at you. They may also know that they can simply earn the money back after the divorce but that you’ll have more trouble doing so.
If you do find yourself in this position, there may be legal options that you can take to seek compensation for the money that has been squandered.