Or your spouse intentionally moves for a continuance because he or she knows you are desperate to start receiving support.
#MONEY STASH FULL#
You may get scheduled for a hearing in two or three months, but you show up in court and the calendar is full and your case isn’t reached. If you have to litigate an alimony claim, that too can take months. If you are able to address alimony in a separation agreement, it will still take at least a month (probably longer) for your attorney and your spouse’s attorney to draw up the agreement and negotiate terms that you and your spouse will both agree to.
Getting support takes time, regardless of how you end up handling your divorce. So if your spouse will be required to provide you support, then why is this secret fund necessary? If you have no earned income, then you probably qualify as a dependent spouse and would be entitled to post-separation support and alimony. Don’t simply assume your spouse will be level-headed when faced with divorce. While reading this, you may even be thinking “my spouse would never do that to me,” but rest assured that emotions tend to trump reason when people sense the breakdown of a marriage. This cleaning out the bank account and leaving your spouse with nothing is sometimes referred to as “spousal starving,” and happens more often than you might think. In that case you would certainly be relieved if you had some money hidden away that could get you by. If your spouse senses that you are trying to leave, he or she may simply close the bank account and leave you with no access to funds. The problem is that your spouse could easily cut off your access at any time. You may be thinking – well I can take money out of our joint checking account whenever I want to, right? Why do I need to secretly hide away money, if I needed money to leave I could just take it? While things are different today, there are still plenty of women (and some men) who stay at home and don’t have access to any earned income other than their spouse’s income. If something happened and she needed to leave the marriage, or her husband left her, she would have no financial resources to allow her to survive. She never had a career, or any source of income other than her husband’s paycheck. She was a stay-at-home mother until her children left for college, and then she became a stay-at-home wife. Her mother got married when she was 20, and had three children by the time she was 25. The Problem of “Spousal Starving”Ī good example of someone who may need to consider having a secret account would be someone who has no source of income.
The bottom line is that it certainly can’t hurt to take a more active role in the family finances. Flash forward to divorce proceedings and it is discovered that the opposite is true and that marital debts outweigh marital assets and the estate is on the verge of bankruptcy. Consider a scenario where one spouse assumes that the finances are under control, smartly invested and that the marital estate is worth a substantial amount of money. Make sure you consider the consequences before you start sneaking away any money.īeing more involved in the finances will ensure that you are not left completely in the dark if you end up having to split assets due to divorce.įor those who chose to turn a blind eye about the family finances, you could really be at a severe disadvantage when divorce proceedings begin. We are talking about having enough funds saved to enable you to leave the marriage, or perhaps enough money to hire an attorney.Įvery situation is different, and while keeping a secret cash stash may be appropriate or even necessary for one person, it may cause more problems than it is worth for another person.
We aren’t talking about hiding away money so that you can check into a hotel if you get into a fight. Keep in mind we aren’t talking about hiding away some money so you can go buy a new pair of shoes without your spouse knowing. This mindset may sound a little antiquated as plenty of married women have careers these days, and many even are the “breadwinners,” but it still begs the question of whether it is wise to have a little secret stash. Maybe you sense that divorce is on the horizon and you just want to be prepared when the time comes and you are ready to leave.Ī friend of mine has been happily married for 20 years, but her mother still occasionally sends her money to put in her “leaving fund.” Her mother firmly believes that every woman should have a similar fund just in case. Maybe you are in a happy marriage but this stash gives you peace of mind that you would have a cushion if things were to go downhill. There are many reasons why someone may be inclined to hide away money. It’s a topic we get a lot of questions about – should I put money aside for a rainy day divorce fund? How do I hide money from my spouse legally? Is that even legal?
Rosen Law FirmNorth Carolina Divorce Lawyers
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