A National Endowment for Financial Education poll analyzed “financial infidelity” among married adults. Two out of five of the adults polled admitted they had committed some type of financial deception during their marriage. Financial infidelity includes hiding purchases, money, or accounts or lying about debt owed or income earned.
Men were found to be more likely than women (47 vs. 39 percent) to report committing financial deception. While it would be nice to be able to trust one’s spouse during a divorce, realistically, if spouses are not transparent with finances during the marriage, they are unlikely to be transparent during the divorce, during the division of assets.
By the time a divorce is in the works, spouses may have little trust in one another, particularly when it comes to finances. One spouse may believe the other is already hiding assets or will hide or remove assets. As a result, one or both spouses can ask the court to freeze marital assets during the divorce until those assets can be appropriately divided and distributed.