There are a lot of reasons why a person is going to want to get a divorce. Some people get divorced due to falling out of love, while other people get divorced in situations that are far less amicable. Divorces that arise from an abusive relationship are all too common, and while people think of abuse as physical, or even mental, a lot of people forget that financial abuse is also a risk. Financial abuse, also known as economic abuse, refers to when a partner controls the finances of the other partner, preventing them from properly supporting themselves. One question many victims of financial abuse ask, however, is how they can prove that they were a victim of financial abuse.
Proving the presence of financial abuse in a divorce proceeding
The important first step in proving financial abuse is that you work with experienced family lawyers, who will do everything in their power to determine whether financial abuse occurred, as well as determine whether they can prove in a court of law that financial abuse actually occurred. In order to do this, the first thing that they will do is seek out your own financial information in order to determine your assets, or lack thereof. The next thing they are going to do is seek out any and all relevant documentation relating to your spouse’s financial situation. In doing so, the goal is to find anything that would align with your story. The relevant documents are going to include a number of things, including your spouse’s tax returns as well as profit and loss statements. They will also look into other things, such as bank account information, retirement accounts, and so much more. Not only can this be used to determine that financial abuse occurred, but it also makes it more difficult for your spouse to try to cheat you out of alimony that should be rightfully yours. In a situation where you are a victim of financial abuse, the tragic fact is that you are likely going to be left relatively high and dry, having given no opportunity to create savings, assets, or investments for yourself, because your spouse did not allow it. The actual process of the situation involves a number of different actors, including private investigators, accountants, and appraisers, all of whom work hard to determine just how much your spouse is worth and how your spouse treated you financially.
Now that they have done as much as they could to get all relevant financial information from both parties, the next step is to determine that the actions taken by your spouse constitute financial abuse. This could be a little complicated, however, as proving that the spouse intentionally engage in financial abuse is a little more complicated than simply showing one party has more assets than the other. There are numerous pieces of evidence that can help substantiate the accusation, such as if you have proof that your spouse has been refusing to provide finances to help you out. The above-mentioned assets may also be of a great help to prove that your spouse hid assets from you in order to create the impression that he cannot afford to give you funds for what you need. This is particularly prevalent in situations where a spouse is a business owner, and it is an all-too-common tactic for people to do this in order to tether their spouse to them. In their head, if the spouse does not have assets of their own, they will be less likely to want to get a divorce or to defy them. Control is a major aspect of their reasoning for doing this. Another form of financial abuse is by simply preventing you from even seeing the financial accounts, let alone being able to have access to them. They may also try to prevent or discourage you from getting a job. This is commonly done through comments like “we can afford to have only one of us working” or by saying that they have to stay at home in order to take care of the children or take care of the home in general. Refusing to allow the spouse the opportunity to be involved in financial decisions with the household is another common tactic.
Some forms of financial abuse can be a lot more problematic. Namely, they will try to emotionally and mentally abuse their spouse, attempting to gaslight you into believing that you are living your life lavishly and spending more money than they can afford. They may also look for ways to distribute their money and assets in a way that will make the divorce less costly for them. For example, it is not at all uncommon for a spouse to distribute money to friends and family, selling or gifting items for lower than their market value to them. The goal of this is to have them take ownership of this property and, once the divorce is finished and assets are distributed to you, they will go to them and get their assets back. This may be a little more difficult to establish, especially if they have been doing this for a while.
