# Helping friend go through a divorce



## Shamrockfaced (Feb 9, 2018)

My sister in law has made the hard decision, after 25 years of marriage, to divorce her husband.

I won't go into all the details, but will just say it hasn't been taken lightly. After years of emotional and financial abuse, with refusal to responded in marital counseling she feels she has no choice.

My role is one of a supporter for her. I am often looked to, in our family, as the one to give business or financial advice. I'm not an attorney, just an entrepreneur who has seen lots of things. 

My main piece of advice has been to tell my SIL to get her attorney and talk to the attorney. 

But there are still questions that come up that she either doesn't understand, misunderstand or needs help with. 

The marriage has been very imbalanced financially. He has either not worked, or floated from low paying job to another. She's enabled 28 years of wreckless spending by him. She makes very good money and has been a relentless workhorse in the medical field (putting him through grad school, enabling him to rack up credit card debt, buy houses 2-3x what is reasonable, etc.) 


As she has gotten closer to filing, and he knows it, he has started to bargain. He is demanding that she buy him a house so he can have "a decent life". If she doesn't do that he says I'm taking everything 50/50 down the middle. SIL is concerned because they have a 500k house (with lots of equity) and also two rental houses (combined to about 500k). She also will have to pay him alimony (I know it's not called that any more).

Besides talk to her attorney, what other advise should I give her? I've told her to open up her own checking account for her payroll to go to so he doesn't have easy access to spend it. She has asked me about a savings account she has (less than 50k) that's in her name and he doesn't know about (it was money she socked away for her daughters wedding that she knew he would spend if he got his hands on it) . She wants to xfer to someone so he can get to it. I advised her not to do that and to talk to her attiurney. He attorney stopped her mid sentence and said "don't tell me anything you don't want me to know, do what you need to do because once you disclose anything to me it will be in the divorce". I took that to mean move the money and shut up about it.

I know it's not a specific question, but any other advice?


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## SentHereForAReason (Oct 25, 2017)

That last paragraph seems like very strange advice by a lawyer but was something I heard a lot of from normal people.

2 things that applied in my case that I would pass on her in this situation. As soon as I filed there was a temp order put in place by my attorney that set the 'stage' for living together during the process. It dealt with the kids, some behavioral things, etc but it really put into place the financial guidelines and it set up that we would pay our bills normally but anything out of the ordinary would be flagged. So if she is worried about him spending money carelessly, she needs to get this in motion so a temp order is put into place on how the money that's there now, is handled.

Now to the strange thing about the lawyer giving her the off the record advice. She can sock money away, move it, etc but if his lawyer is worth anything, the lawyer will file a motion for discovery, which would examine all of the spending and money management by her (with a fine tooth comb) for at least the past 3 years and it would look really f'ng bad to the court if she was socking away money that he didn't know about and could blow up in her face even though she is trying to save herself from the negligent spending of her STBX.


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

This lawyer, her lawyer is ethical.
Or, he has been burned in the past by giving unethical advice.

He told her what the law is and as a servant of the court he must obey such laws.

With this new computer age it is very hard to hide money. 
Any money in a public institution is carefully monitored and recorded, audited.

This is to prevent money laundering and underground economies, escaping taxes, yes this.

Hiding money is now hard. Nearly impossible if laws are to be obeyed.

The second she pulls money out of her account, the government is notified.

As soon as she spends it, especially in large sums, the government is notified.

Notified by honest institutions.


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## Mr.Married (Feb 21, 2018)

The advice is very very very very simple and clear clear clear......see an attorney. You may want to help, but you are not a professional.
You may be helping her do exactly what she shouldn't be doing.

The golden rule: When you need professional help, get a professional.

This situation is very common. People under emotional stress will understand exactly what SHOULD be done.... but do not do it.

Anything you can do to get her in that attorneys office is a step in the correct direction.


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## wilson (Nov 5, 2012)

Which state are they in?

The situation sounds reversed from many marriages (high earning H and low-earning W). In many of those cases, it's 50/50 split with alimony as appropriate. It doesn't seem like the low-earning spouse is penalized for not working. Often this is because there is an implicit agreement between the spouses about why one is not working, such as childcare, taking care of the house, etc. Maybe that's not the case here, but the court doesn't seem to care too much about that specifically. In many marriages with a low-earning W, the H has wanted her to get a higher paying job, but that doesn't seem to factor in the divorce. 50/50 split regardless.

Don't do anything to hide money. Unless she's really good at it, she'll get caught and get penalized for it. I know it's painful do to the 50/50 split, but it'll be worse to start stashing away money if she gets caught. Especially don't xfer it to someone else, as that opens up tax and criminal liabilities with another person.

One thing that she can generally keep is an inheritance that was kept in a separate account. That generally is not considered shared property. But if she put it in the shared account, then it's shared.

She can protect the money in the joint account by moving it in her own account, but the money is still shared. But it will keep him from spending it frivolously. Also, terminate any joint credit cards to prevent him from racking up more charges. He can still open new cards, however, so it doesn't eliminate the problem.

It sounds like she has enough money to get a good lawyer. Unfortunately, he gets to pay for his lawyer out of the shared funds, so he can get one too. Following her attorney's advice will likely be the best course of action.


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## sunsetmist (Jul 12, 2018)

Divorce is imperative. She should not talk to him--no bargaining. Lawyers should handle this. Don't let him screw her this way. 

If the savings account is in her name and not the daughter's, she has likely been declaring interest in tax reports--easy to discover. If she is not declaring interest that is also a problem.

As everyone has said she must follow directions of her lawyer. State, years married, earning power and/or potential, age of child or children, etc. are all important. In most divorces, few people are happy about the settlements, but there is little personal control. Getting free is the most important thing at this time.


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## Bananapeel (May 4, 2015)

If she buys a house for him now it is still considered marital property so it would be split among the other assets, unless both parties agreed to something different. If he will agree to a favorable settlement where part of the marital assets are used to buy a house for him and he agrees to it in writing and both her attorney and his attorney present, she should probably take if it its in her best interest. She's not going to be able to avoid the 50/50 split, if that is what he wants, so she should get used to the idea of following the laws in the state where she lives.


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## honcho (Oct 5, 2013)

Much of her possible settlement will depend on what state she lives in but she is the higher wage earner, she's going to take a beating financially. 

She needs to talk to a lawyer obviously and more than one just to get a better feel for the financial hit. Tell her to be wary of a lawyer that promises too much and wary of others that tell her to roll over and take a beating.


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