One of the biggest risk factors for women in divorce is the fact that, statistically speaking, they are the lesser wage earners. This means that, in many cases, many of the most valuable assets are largely controlled by the husband – including, but not limited to, any real estate, retirement accounts, bank accounts, and debt.
Without specific knowledge about basic details – his income, what exists to be divided – it is difficult to negotiate a fair, amicable result. The only other alternative is to either ask and hope that he’s willing to provide the documentation or, as is far more likely, going to court so that you can have a pendente lite hearing and conduct formal discovery.
The thing is, though, that going to court is expensive – and courts often don’t see these disparities in income (even if you’ve been a stay at home wife or earn a fraction of what he does) as a reason to advance attorney’s fees or make any early decisions about how costs should be shared so that BOTH parties can afford to retain (and continue to pay for) counsel.
Women are at a significant disadvantage and then the way the system works further compounds those inequities. Especially when there is abuse involved, I see women who are willing to waive anything – literally anything – in order to get out of their marriages. They will literally buy their freedom at whatever cost.
And, of course, their husbands are only too happy to play the strong and powerful card so that she does leave with less than what she’s entitled to receive; after all, they reason, they earned it anyway, so it’s not like she should get it. It’s mine, right? She didn’t earn the bulk of the money – so the work that she did to support me and support the family and run our household has no value.
This creates not only an environment in the here and now which is ripe for abuse and inequity that can have long-lasting consequences – like poverty in old age – but an environment that is ripe for secondary abuse, too. Not only might a woman be abused in leaving her marriage, but – especially if they have kids in common – the campaign against her might continue long after the divorce is finalized.
Without access to the money that she helped earn and would have been legally entitled to receive in her divorce, she is vulnerable, especially to an attack against her for custody and visitation. Seemingly simple things – like paying for a Guardian ad litem, a custody evaluator, an employment expert, tracing of assets, or a drug test – can cost astronomical amounts that can make it impossible – again – to mount a defense.
So, though she may be in a healthier, happier, more able place now, her financial circumstances make it so that she can’t even protect her children in the way that she would if she had received what she was entitled to receive in the divorce.
I’ve seen this happen again and again, and it feels awful every single time. To have these desperate, fearful women who have signed away it all in the hopes that divorce would give them peace … only to find out that their ex-husband can still abuse them from afar through their children, and they have little to no ability to fight back against it.
Because these kinds of defenses can be extremely expensive – tens of thousands of dollars, in some cases – it can be hard for these women to even find family and friends who are able to help. Not only that, but it can lead to instability in other areas. A woman who is suffering in this way might spend too much on legal representation at the front end, only to find out that she can no longer continue to pay the attorney – and she’s short on her rent or mortgage, leading to homelessness. She may struggle to focus at her job – or suffer repeated attacks from her ex husband during working hours under the guise of coparenting – that can cause her to lose her job or, at the very least, not get raises and/or regular promotions because her messy personal life is seen as a reflection of her personal and professional skills.
It’s coercive control and it’s abuse – but once the object is in motion it can be hard, even for a skilled attorney, to gain enough traction to slow things down and make the court consider. Not only that, but men like this tend to hire attorneys who are well suited to this kind of work, who focus on delays and expensive processes designed to further limit the already-disadvantaged woman’s ability to counteract the damage.
One of the best pieces of advice I can give is to not give away too much in the divorce; to not fall into this trap to begin with. Sure, it may be a little messier and more aggressive up front, but it prevents this slippery slope that can end with far more dramatic consequences.
It’s always a good idea to talk to an attorney in your area – especially if your soon-to-be ex husband is narcissistic, high conflict, controlling, or otherwise incredibly difficult – about what your rights and entitlements are, and to come up with a plan of action to deal with his attacks. It’s often easier to do this on the front end than it is to do it from a diminished, defensive position later.
For more information, to request a copy of our divorce book for Virginia women, or to register to attend a divorce seminar for Virginia women, give our office a call at 757-425-5200 or visit our website at hoflaw.com.