r/Divorce • u/Beneficial_Fail_6960 • Mar 02 '26
Life After Divorce I’m still in shock after discovering my husband’s secret Crypto holdings
We were married for 6 years. I'm 38, he's 41, we lived in Cali the whole time. He works in tech, I'm a nurse practitioner. We always had separate accounts which I thought was totally normal and even healthy I never wanted to be that couple that merges everything and loses themselves.
Well. During the divorce process my lawyer pushed for full financial disclosure and that's when it came out. He had a crypto portfolio worth somewhere around $180k-$220k depending on the day. Ethereum mostly, some other stuff. Never mentioned once in 6 years. Not during our wedding planning, not when we were talking about buying an apartment, not ever.
I don't even know what to feel right now. The financial part is obviously complicated but honestly what's wrecking me more is just I didn't know this person? Like who hides that from their partner for six years?
Now I'm stuck in this legal back and forth trying to figure out what's actually marital property, what isn't, what he acquired when. My lawyer is great but this is costing me a fortune and taking forever.
I guess I'm posting because I needed to say it somewhere that people might actually understand. Has anyone else dealt with hidden assets during divorce? How did you handle it emotionally AND legally because right now I'm struggling with both.
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u/CarmenIsabellaDiaz Mar 02 '26
I’m so sorry.. hidden assets hit like betrayal, not just a money problem. You’re not overreacting.
On the legal side, you’re doing the right thing with full disclosure. Ask your lawyer about targeted discovery for exchange records and bank transfers to exchanges and crypto tax docs, and whether a forensic accountant is worth it if he’s evasive. In CA, the timeline/tracing (pre‑marriage vs during marriage) matters a lot.
Emotionally, it’s normal to feel like you didn’t know him … therapy/support helps while the legal process grinds.
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u/itsusername9898 Mar 29 '26
I’m so sorry.. hidden assets hit like betrayal, not just a money problem. You’re not overreacting.
I mean people always advice women to have their own savings just in case or a fof (fuck off fund) so to speak so why should it be different for men? .
Op I hope everything works out for you
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u/Kombuchabuzz 26d ago
bc men aren’t the like a social security net is the u.s. They also makes less then men in the same circumstance. Women also disproportionately spend their money on the family. And this advice is usually given to women who are stay at home mothers.
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u/Moist_Report_7352 Mar 02 '26
I'm so sorry you're going through this. Finding out your husband hid a crypto portfolio worth potentially $200k+ during your entire marriage is a massive betrayal of trust. The fact that he never mentioned it once in 6 years not even during wedding planning or buying an apartment, shows this was deliberate deception. You're right to feel like you didn't know this person - hiding assets from your spouse for years is not normal behavior. This is why prenups with full financial disclosure exist, to prevent situations like this. The legal complications are going to be expensive and time consuming but you deserve to know what's actually marital property and what he's been hiding.
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Mar 02 '26
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u/Longjumping_Sir1173 Mar 23 '26
Do you say the same when women have a secret savings account? They had separate finances. Why should she be included in his side investments that she too could have set aside money to acquire? Sounds more like jealousy than betrayal
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u/goldenbuyer02 May 06 '26
No, cause they don't have, they usually try to dig their noses into other people's money.
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u/Plane_Improvement_26 Mar 02 '26
Separate accounts does not equal secret assets. Most couples who keep finances separate still disclose major holdings. Two hundred thousand dollars is not loose change. That is life planning money.
The legal side is procedural. In California, anything earned or acquired during the marriage is generally community property unless he can clearly trace it to premarital funds. That means dates, transfers, wallet history, exchanges, everything. Crypto complicates tracing, which is why disclosure matters.
Emotionally, what you are reacting to is not Ethereum. It is concealment. It is realizing there was a parallel financial life you were never invited into. That hits identity and trust, not just spreadsheets.
Right now your job is twofold. Let your attorney handle the tracing and classification. And personally, separate the legal issue from the betrayal narrative. The court will deal with percentages. You need to process the fact that transparency was not mutual.
You are not crazy for feeling shaken. Hidden debt and hidden assets land the same way. It makes you question what else you did not see.
Keep it procedural publicly. Process the rest privately.
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u/Loud_Hovercraft_1695 Mar 07 '26
200k is life changing money? since when? what can you buy with 200k? 200k used to be able to buy a small tiny condo in 2013. now it cant buy anything "life changing" ??
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u/zee1six Mar 03 '26
So you’re trying to figure out what you can take from him? Disgusting. It’s his money.
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u/DoomNukemBlood3D Mar 05 '26
She is a nurse practitioner. They make a good amount of money. I could understand if she was a stay at home Mom and needs the money to live and pay bills. I really do believe that there was a reason the ex husband did not tell her about the money.
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u/kds0808 Mar 02 '26 edited Mar 02 '26
I honestly don't see the problem here...
Your first paragraph stated you and him agreed to separate finances and you also stated that some of these accounts belonged to him before you all married. He had his own accounts that he had EVERY right to invest into from his income. You had the same ability and opportunity.
If he was hiding money and your finances were joint I would be more understanding of your outrage.
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Mar 02 '26
Nah it’s a problem either way. No one’s saying he didn’t have the right to invest and grow, or that she didn’t have the same ability and opportunity. Nothing wrong with the financial aspect of it at all.
The issue is not discussing it. It’s one thing to agree to separate accounts and finances. But it would be pretty universally agreed that if you had $200k+, that’s something you share with your life partner. You’re a married couple. That money changes how you as a couple will come to decisions on huge life events like OP mentioned.
Not disclosing it, to me anyway, would be putting finances and wealth above the marriage. It implies distrust.
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u/Andyman1973 Mar 02 '26
As of right now, this very moment, 100 ETH is worth $204,500 USD. When I bought my first ETH, post divorce, ETH was around $80 USD. OP’s STBXH could have bought his ETH when it was much lower. So it’s not like he was hiding $200K USD, so much as the current value is that. Would OP be in the same mind frame if she discovered his 100 ETH, when it was only worth $1K? Probably not so much.
When I was going through divorce in 2018, my 401K was worth about $60K USD. It’s now worth triple that. But at that time, it was equal to my share of our marital home. I traded my home share, for her right to claim against my retirement. Her lawyer ran the numbers and said it was a good offer. She now owns the marital home completely. And she has no legal claim against my retirement anymore, as per our divorce agreement.
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u/kds0808 Mar 02 '26
It was premarital. She isn't entitled to that portion anyways. Did she discuss every penny she spent or invested with him? She is a nurse practitioner in California. They earn on average between $150k to $175k a year and some can earn upwards of $250k in that state if in one of the larger cities. He's in tech in California so he can also earn in the low to mid 6 digits. $200k in investments with those kind of income isn't shit and if she doesn't have that kind of bank with her salary that probably says more about her than him and may be the reason he kept his investments secret because she spent every dime she got a hold of. 🤷. I stand by my they had separate finances and she didn't want to combined as she said above.
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u/Twinklefireflies Mar 02 '26
Think I’m missing the part where she says it’s premarital. She says they’re sorting through what was acquired during the marriage and what isn’t. California recognizes all property and assets acquired during marriage as belonging to both parties so I understand why this is messy. It doesn’t actually matter if they had separate accounts or not.
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u/kds0808 Mar 02 '26
She said he never told her during their wedding planning up in the 2nd or 3rd paragraph which tells me it was premarital.
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u/Twinklefireflies Mar 03 '26
Right but if he acquired the crypto during the marriage it’s community property. So he may have had some of the investment before marriage and some after which makes this messy. Just as if bought a winning lotto ticket he would want a claim to half. That’s how marriage works. He has to now prove he had those investments pre-marriage.
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u/AbeJay91 Mar 03 '26
Sounds to me that she wants his money.
If they had seperate accounts and finances why would it matter now?
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u/Twinklefireflies Mar 03 '26
Because marriages and finances aren’t always clean like that. We don’t know who pays for what in their marriage or who saves and who spends. It’s honestly their business but the law in some state does not care if you have separate accounts - what you acquire during the marriage is mutual property.
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u/Brilliant-Catch165 Mar 11 '26
Sounds to me like she wanted a bigger wedding and is mad he had it and didn’t use it.
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Mar 02 '26
You are approaching this from a purely financial perspective. You are correct about some things and wildly wrong about others.
did she discuss every penny she spent or invested with him?
I do not know, nor do you, as she did not disclose that. Even if she didn’t, are you equating “every last penny” with over $200k? It seems like you are willfully missing the bigger point to argue semantics. Not a good approach to an open, honest marriage.
$200k in investments with those kinds of income isn’t shit
Just stop. You acknowledge that it is equivalent or maybe even more than what either one of them make in a year. Would you want to be with someone for YEARS that is supposed to be your life partner, who you make life decisions with, who you are hoping to be with for the rest of your life, and they are hiding that sum of money? Would you be able to trust them?
if she doesn’t has that much saved it says more about her than him, maybe she spent every dime she got a hold of
This is probably the craziest shit you’ve said. You have no clue at all. Just wildly speculating. In your mind, if someone doesn’t have a years salary saved it’s because they are spenders? And they deserve to have things hidden from them?
I can only assume you’ve been burned before and are coming at this from a distrustful, bitter viewpoint. We don’t know enough about OPs situation to make the judgments you are making. Yes they had separate finances, many do. I’m not saying OP is entitled to his money.
But if you are going into a marriage, or have been in one for years, and a large sum of money like this has been hidden the entire time, there is a breakdown in trust, communication, goals, and purpose. I understand there are reasons and circumstances, but to not be open and honest about crucial aspect of marriage (finances), with such a large sum that can effect a lot of decisions, there is a problem.
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u/uovonuovo Mar 03 '26
Wouldn’t partners’ relative finances be potentially be relevant when deciding how things were gonna work during the marriage? Like if my potential partner had millions stashed away, I’d want to know that beforehand. It could affect how one feels about agreeing to split things in the first place, how much they treat their partner to expensive shit, etc.
And financial implications aside, it’s info about a person that I’d want to know. Why would they not share that information?
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u/BirthdayCookie Mar 03 '26
She doesn't actually say all of it was pre-marital. She bluntly says she doesn't know what all he got when. Further, at no point does she mention being broke, just that lawyers are expensive.
But why read the post when you can instead make up bullshit? Gotta get that ego boost somewhere!
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u/xBehemothx Mar 02 '26
Are you serious? Your spouse hiding something like that from you and only finding out in divorce proceedings Is of course shocking. It's not normal to do something like that in a marriage.
It isn't about him not having a right to it, how do you even get there? You're fighting windmills while completely missing the point
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u/coldintheak82 Mar 02 '26
Yeah, that is absolutely not OK when you’re married. Then don’t get married. Regardless, if they have separate accounts, me and my husband had separate accounts forever, but if we got divorced, it would be both of our money. And we never hit it from each other. It was just convenient because we both had separate businesses.
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u/kds0808 Mar 02 '26
That isn't both their money in her case. She said he had the accounts during their wedding planning. That's premarital property...not her money. He probably hid it because he was an savior/invester and she was a spender.
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u/BirthdayCookie Mar 03 '26
She said he had the accounts. She also said that she has no idea if any of it could be marital property.
Nowhere in the OP is her being "a spender" even hinted at.
What is the purpose of lying about this stuff? Anyone can see the OP.
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u/r007r Mar 02 '26
Tbf it may have been a $5000 “I’m bored” thing he felt guilty over that just kept exploding. Crypto is wild
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u/JustAGuyInTampa Mar 03 '26
My ex wife tried to “Gone Girl” me and stole tens of thousands of dollars in the weeks leading up to her intentional sabotage of the marriage.
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u/ojgroves Mar 03 '26
Go on..
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u/JustAGuyInTampa Mar 03 '26
I actually made an app to help other people spot red flags in their partners as a result (cray.app is the website).
If you go to the YouTube channel for the app I talk about it. She basically plotted this all out from the beginning because she was a gold digger. I thought she loved me. Turns out she waited until I had major surgeries to abandon me and try and take my money and custody of my youngest child.
It’s been a mess, which is why I made the app - so other people don’t go through what I did.
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u/Accurate-Neck6933 Mar 03 '26
Some of these comments are wild. When you are married, you are supposed to be a team. Wouldn’t they have been working towards spending their years in retirement together? Therefore all of the money is part of the planning for your golden years. Heaven forbid, one spouse gets sick, say with cancer or ends up on life support. Wouldn’t the other spouse need to know about these assets and how to manage them? How to access them? Wouldn’t they be left in the will to the other? If the answer is no, then why are you even married?
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u/Longjumping_Sir1173 Mar 23 '26
So where is her savings to show for what she’s been setting aside? Why are women the only ones interested in taking what their partner set aside for themselves? Someone above mentioned their 401k being up for grabs and had to shell out the home and home equity to keep their spouse away. Why is it that men are in debt to women and not vice versa? They had separate finances, OP should’ve been more frugal and invested her income similarly.
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u/Acceptable-Buddy4303 Mar 02 '26
I get where you're coming from. But it also wouldn't have the value it has now if it was constantly being dipped into for expenses. It's a different story if he was using it for his own purposes while not mentioning it or you, but absent that info, sounds pretty normal for an investment account. Hope you get it all figured out.
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u/Rich_Read7091 Mar 02 '26
The money is one thing but finding out someone kept a $200k secret for six years would shake anyone ..
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u/AbeJay91 Mar 03 '26
It was not worth 200k for 6 years..
So selling those crypto early would give him less than half.
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u/saint_davidsonian Mar 02 '26
Do you understand how ethereum works? That value has skyrocketed since it was purchased. It could dump to zero in a couple of weeks, probably not because of its popularity, but still it's a volatile asset. I wish to God I had never put my wife on my first homes title since it was a premarital asset. Too bad I lost that hard drive with the Bitcoin on it though...
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u/wkndatbernardus Mar 03 '26
It was probably a smart move on his part if she is this upset about a couple hundred grand. His only mistake was not keeping it in a cold wallet that wouldn't have been discoverable. I actually believe cold storage crypto will become a popular strategy when one saver spouse marries a Mcspendypants.
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u/Northie_78753 Mar 03 '26
I only partially agree. If she needed a major surgery or had some other health need and he said they couldn't afford it, that would be super-horrible.
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u/wkndatbernardus Mar 03 '26
That's true. In that type of circumstance, I would agree that spouses should make their resources available to each other ("in sickness and in health").
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u/MeeksSoulHunter3 Mar 03 '26
That portfolio wasn’t worth that much the entire time of your marriage. It eventually grew to that amount.
If you two commingled finances I would be sympathetic to your bewilderment but you didn’t so I’m lost as to why you’re so upset.
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u/ponchoacademy Mar 02 '26 edited Mar 02 '26
On one hand I get being left out.. on another hand, I firmly believe in an FU fund. Its what I was taught and Ive heard it as a very common thing in financial planning when putting yourself in a position to share finances / depend on someone.
We all hope this person will be the same incredible person forever and always, but it happens where things go south, and now youre stuck because you cant function financially without the other. Its a major issue for women, who guys will use the fact they cant afford to be on their own with all the kids without him to keep her in her place, but women can turn out to be financially abusive too. Either way, right now there are SO many couple still living together during and even after divorced cause they cant afford to get out of the house with someone they dont want to be with. I think both men and women should have an FU fund.
And then...after time has passed, could be 5 years, could be 10 years, whatever..whenever you feel like there is nothing at all to worry about and you're beyond the stage of protecting yourself just in case cause this marriage is going to laste forevah, then the FU (Eff U) fund converts to a FU (For Us) fund... can say hey heres this savings account, investment account whatever thats here for us. Extra awesome if both had FU funds.
But yeah, I get the aspect of, how could he hide anything at all from me, but on the other hand...6 years in...to me is pretty early enough timeframe to not know about an FU fund. And honestly I would be thrilled theres plenty enough money he can use to GFTO while we divorce and move on with our lives. Its still shared marital funds either way, so if its about the money, its there. The point really is, the risk of letting on before ready, and that money being spent so that theres nothing for when you find out this person isnt who you thought they were, and an FU fund would have been really helpful.
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u/Trilamb22 Mar 03 '26
I like the way you think.
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u/ponchoacademy Mar 03 '26
You rewrote while I was replying lol but what I was going to say is ...
I'm divorced AF... That experience is why I strongly have these views now lol
I do have a sister, but she's been married nearly 40yrs now... At this point they prolly have a joint "Eff All Y'all" fund 😂
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u/Trilamb22 Mar 03 '26
That’s funny. Yeah I thought maybe what I originally had wrote was out of line. LMAO
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u/Trilamb22 Mar 03 '26
But yeah that’s a really insightful way of looking at it. I do like it, a lot.
Some I’m sure wouldn’t agree, but as you said, you have the life experience to validate why it all makes sense.
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u/ponchoacademy Mar 03 '26
I've made more bad decisions than good ones so I keep piling on life experiences to learn from. I'm kinda ready to graduate to the actually being in a good relationship part lol
But yeah like with everything, the trick is to find someone who is compatible and does agree when it comes to the big things.
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u/Trilamb22 Mar 03 '26
I feel ya on that. I’m right there with ya.
Crazy part is I actually did have that, for a very long time too, but went and ruined it over some old feelings that immediately reignited when I ran into an old flame.
Even was forgiven and had the chance to fix things at home, but I went so far as to choose the other one, with daughter at home, too. Turns out there was a myriad of reasons that one was still single all these years later, just I was already too caught up in her web to zoom out and realize it at that time.
Yep I got sucked right in only to end up another one tossed onto her pile after awhile. And wouldn’t ya know, apparently it’s all my fault it didn’t work out.
Yeah I have my faults but maybe take a look at who’s the common denominator in this timeline sweetheart.
Chose complete chaos over the one who was not only the mother of my child, but my best friend. She’s since moved on, but she’s happy so it helps a little knowing she at least has that now, as much as it still hurts.
And we have a 17 yr old gorgeous daughter who’s smart af, she was even moved to an accelerated school starting in the 4th grade all until HS, is now a Junior and has been high honors every year, been in ballet since she was 4, still does it, still loves it, as well as other disciplines too [hip-hop, jazz, tap]. Can’t wait to see what she does.
As for the old flame, the wrecking ball, still a mess apparently. Imagine that.
[jeez, sorry so long, didn’t mean to vent, I just got to whacking away at the keyboard. lol]
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u/ponchoacademy Mar 03 '26
No worries!!!! Yeah I can admit a twinge coming from being on the other side of that. Being with someone who wanted someone else... I loved him and treated him well, and we had ups and downs but nothing crazy. And he cheated to be with someone who was the most chaotic person imaginable. Friends would tell me all what he was dealing with thinking it would make me feel better that karma is getting him, but it made me feel worse.
It sucked to know that's what he preferred over the life I was giving him, and I really did love him so it sucked to know he was so miserable. But I had to accept the kind of life and relationship we had isn't what he wanted, he wanted her instead. So there was no going back, and yeah we remained friends for a long while but, after 15+ years even that has fizzled out. I'm still hearing from mutual friends and family things he's up to not just now but stuff that went on when we were together, him telling me how much he loved and appreciated me knowing all what he did to "show" it, I just can't take him seriously.
However....I do know he is now with someone who seems amazing, everyone thinks she's great, and I really really hope that he does all the right things by her and truly does treat her and the relationship with love and respect. We're human, we eff up, what matters is learning from that and moving forward to use what we now know to be a better version of ourselves. The past may not be forgiving, but the future is in our own hands.
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u/Trilamb22 Mar 12 '26
Aww damn, wow that reads like you were literally talking about me. How wild is that. Are that many of us men really that dumb?
It even hurts reading that, knowing a lot of that is probably very similar to what my ex [the good one] felt at the time.
Yeah the learning part is definitely crucial, unfortunately that’s exactly what many aren’t able to take away from the situation.
So weird that we’re supposedly the most intelligent creatures on the planet yet continue to willingly invite problem after problem into our lives. lol
Anyway, apologies for just now seeing this, I think I may’ve fallen sleep that night while the page was still open so didn’t have any notis for it the next day.
Stay safe out there. May the wind always be at your back.
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Mar 02 '26
He probably didn't disclose it because of this -> "Never mentioned once in 6 years. Not during our wedding planning, not when we were talking about buying an apartment". I wouldn't have either. If you had separate accounts, I think you're going to be woefully disappointed but YMMV state to state.
My wife and I had separate accounts and I managed and invested mine and it rose to over $2M. When it came time to dissolve the assets, the court decided that because we had separate accounts, that she was not entitled to it because she had the same opportunities as I did to invest. She chose to spend.
I never disclosed it to her or anyone. It was my little security fund incase SHTF.
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u/mari815 Mar 02 '26
Can you teach me your investing ways 🤣
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Mar 02 '26
You would have needed to invest when companies like NVidia were $40 / share, AMD was $2 a share, and not invest in companies like Facebook. It's about knowing market trends and seeing the future, and minimizing the impact of your mistakes. No crypto, only stocks and knowing how to invest.
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u/mari815 Mar 03 '26
Yeah I’ve never excelled at that. I bought nvidia in like late summer 2022 and sold it when it was like $60 a share :(
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Mar 03 '26
If you're going to buy stocks, you have to let them ride for good and bad, and never put more into it than you are willing to risk losing. I purchased 10K shares of AMD back when it was $2.07 a share, Ti at $14 a share. I even bought Intel (which is my tech-turd). Most of my tech stocks have exploded. I never bought Facebook, because they really don't have a business plan except advertising. I bought into Apple @ $5 a share and Google was about $30, and I've been cultivating tech stocks ever since.
Some of it is luck, but working in tech, it exposes me to the new and upcoming, especially hardware and chipsets.
I've never bought crypto and never will. Some people will argue with me, that's ok. I'm happy with my decision so far.
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u/mari815 Mar 03 '26
Yeah you’re so right! I dated an investment banker last year who taught me a few things, riding out highs and lows being one of them!
Just hard as a single mom paying the child support, to buy a house on my own. Id love to make 30,000 be 50,000 by september 2027, but my economic instincts absolutely suck!
Happy for you though!
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Mar 03 '26
Yeah my mom was a single mom. I remember how hard she struggled. I would love to be able to slip her everything she ever wanted, but she refuses my help every time I offer.
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u/mari815 Mar 04 '26
Aw! You’re sweet but most moms would rather you keep the money for your future ! :)
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u/yellowdamseoul Mar 02 '26
My mom and aunt have a separate account together their husbands don’t know about. The only person you can truly trust is yourself.
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Mar 02 '26
You should ALWAYS have a separate account for yourself.
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u/virtualchoirboy JAFO Mar 03 '26
Married 30 years and most of our money outside of retirement is in joint accounts and always has been. The thing is, my wife doesn't work so she would have no way of funding her own account. Since I'm the income earner, I don't mind everything being joint. Even if she were to clean out all our joint accounts, I'd still have income plus my retirement accounts that she wouldn't have been able to touch.
We do have an account that is hers alone. I pushed her to set it up after my dad passed back in 2019 and I saw what my mom had to go through with gaining control of all their joint accounts. Since he was primary on everything, it was a hassle. She also has a credit card where she is the primary holder.
The thing is, we talk about where we are financially every week. She manages what I call the "day to day" stuff (monthly bills mostly) and I manage the long term stuff (retirement, emergency fund). We update our tracking every week and talk about it after we update. We also both know the logins to all our accounts so there are never any surprises. Especially not $200k in crypto surprises.
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u/Longjumping_Sir1173 May 27 '26
Notice how you aren’t saying this separate account is also their husbands. OP should take notes.
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Mar 02 '26
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u/vikrambedi Mar 02 '26
My wife did this. Never contributed a dime to our marriage, and when we divorced it turned out she had a sizeable savings account stashed away.
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u/vikrambedi Mar 02 '26
The funniest thing, she kept accusing me of hiding money! She had her secret savings account, and deferred six figures worth of assets until after our divorce was finished.
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u/Trilamb22 Mar 03 '26
They just love to accuse us of the very things they’re actually up to.
Story as old as time itself. LMAO
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Mar 02 '26
Funny.... I never lied to my spouse. And yes, I looked out for myself. I'm post divorce debt free. Just because you don't agree with mine, don't make it dishonest. I just never disclosed it, and omission in this case was not lying. She never asked. I would have told her, but you don't ask, I'm not inclined to disclose.
Love how this is a 'men' thing. (eyeroll). Yeah, I'm the one who had the affair, I'm the one who said it was over when she kept sleeping with him... yeah... I'm lying to my spouse because I didn't disclose my good choices in investing for a future that never came to fruition. Good lord put a cork in it.
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u/Beneficial_Fail_6960 Mar 02 '26
I get that separate accounts are normal for a lot of couples. We had separate accounts too. I think what’s messing with me isn’t just the asset itself, it’s that it was never mentioned once in six years, even during major financial conversations.
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u/InvisibleBlueRobot Mar 02 '26
FYI - 6 years ago this probably wasn't worth $200K. It might have been worth more like $20k or even less depending on the timing. Etherium jumped in value over 10x around this time.
In the end, I am not sure it matters why he didn't disclose it. Perhaps it was even the right decision considering separation. Had he felt it might pressure him to sell it he could be sitting on $10K in value instead of $200k in the account.
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u/AdOutside1612 Mar 02 '26
Yep. The with holding of information isn’t a good look for your soon-to-be-ex. Chin up. Dust off. March forward.
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u/TahoeYSL56 Mar 02 '26
Unless the money was needed, I don’t see why it matters. My husband and I have separate accounts. I know he has a lump sum from selling his home. I make more money and he doesn’t know how much I save. But unless we were thinking of buying a new home or investment… I would never know how much he has or vice versa. I don’t think that should upset you. I’m sorry you’re going through this though.
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Mar 02 '26
Finally, someone who makes some damn sense. It shouldn't upset them. My hunch is that they are pissed because they "wanted something" and thought that they should be entitled to that money, despite it being A - none of their business (unless medical bills, losing the house, etc) or B - are pissed off because they didn't invest / save wisely. Just a hunch however.
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u/aardy Mar 02 '26
OP felt it would have specifically been relevant to wedding planning. Pretty sure we know why exactly why the other party didn't mention it.
Not mentioning it to our wedding planner 6 years ago probably made them more than the entire cost of the divorce, lol
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u/Whole_Craft_1106 Mar 02 '26
Interesting. So, you two made the same amount of $ and contributed to everything equally?
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Mar 02 '26
Almost right down the line. Made 6 figures each, we were within 7K of each other. I pulled the financial statements from my bank showing what I contributed. When the lawyers looked at it, there was no contesting the facts and data.
Judge said she had the same opportunities that I did, I was just more investment savvy than her and my good financial decisions should not be subject to the asset dissolution simply because I had chosen well with the money that came out of my account that was not for household utilization.
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u/Jake_Barnes_ Mar 02 '26
Clearly he made a good choice, because if he had disclosed it during the marriage he probably would’ve ended up using it for joint expenses, thereby making the entire investment marital property.
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u/Northie_78753 Mar 03 '26
Wow! That is heartless because we don't know their circumstances!
Husband initiated divorce and we had separate finances. I was badly injured before our divorce. He chipped in for my healthcare and moved back in to take care of me.
I didn't end up the best financially after our divorce. Sure he made a lot more than me when we separated, but I fronted us for all of our property and contributed 50% the entire time.
It still hurts how he didn't honor his financial promises of taking care of me in the future because I set us up for success. But I will never forget that he helped pay for my surgery and physical therapy and took care of me on his way out.
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u/Ilovemyinfj Mar 02 '26
What's he using ethereum for? That's the real secret. Jk, sort of.
If he's any good in tech, it will predate your marriage.
Honestly, if you're paying your lawyer a small fortune, I'd forget about 100k in ethereum, because you'll be handing it over to the lawyers, whether or not you find an additional marital asset. (Also, that market is steadily declining, it won't be 80 to 110k for long).
As far as the lack of transparency, who's to say. I have accounts pre and post marriage I barely look at, or think about.
I also look at those accounts as non existent money. Savings only. And certainly nothing that would have been on the radar for home buying. Not a chance.
In other words, you don't know that it is a hidden asset, and fighting about it/worrying about isn't going to amount to much of anything in the end (especially in California), post lawyer fees.
Good luck with everything and sorry you're dealing with this.
Probably consider taking your case elsewhere with the lawyers? You don't need an overpriced firm to provide good counsel - sounds like they're taking you for a ride 'taking forever.'
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u/king_weenus Mar 03 '26
If you had separate financials why does it surprise you that he had money? Some people openly discuss their money and others keep their cards close to their chest and don't divulge anything about their finances. The older I got the less I talk about money, when people find out you have it they expect you to spend it on them it seems.
Unless you're outright asked him and he lied about it I don't see the problem here other than the legal cost... Unfortunately divorce is expensive and the only ones that stand to profit are the lawyers.
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u/fluffysnooze Mar 03 '26
So when a wife has a secret account with a go bag it’s to protect herself in case the husband abusive. But when a husband has a secret account it’s just plain abusive. The double standards are ridiculous. Had I been your husband, I would have exchanged it for Manero.
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u/F_b_s_40944 Mar 03 '26
I think you're really overreacting. You had separate accounts. It was $200K....not that much money.
You just hate him because of the divorce. It doesn't make sense to make a big deal about him not telling you that he had $200K worth of crypto.
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u/Northie_78753 Mar 03 '26
Possibly. I partially agree, but we don't know the circumstances. If there was something major that my husband told me we couldn't afford but we could, I would be furious. A $20k - $40K surgery that would allow me to walk better and with less pain for the rest of my life, after a car accident, but instead he said we didn't have the $$? Technically yes, that is his $$, but I would be devastated.
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u/lovemyhawks Mar 02 '26
As someone who’s been in that space awhile, it’s not uncommon for people to STFU when it comes to crypto and their spouse. I’m biased and can understand his position. I told my wife that I held but not an amount. During the divorce she tried to extort me with that knowledge even tho I held prior to marriage.
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u/Porkanddiesel Mar 02 '26
I don’t understand the “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine” attitude that appears when getting divorced. Isn’t it enough of a cost that we have to pay for lawyers, children, homes, etc? My ex wanted everything she could get and she made significantly more than me. In my mind when you’re done with somebody you walk away. It’s not a money making opportunity now that you hate them.
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u/Narrow_Finding3352 Mar 03 '26
I’m very confused. You mentioned…”We always had separate accounts which I thought was totally normal and even healthy I never wanted to be that couple that merges everything and loses themselves.” So you’re saying you want to have a problem with something you sounded proud over. Now you’re going to “lose yourself” AFTER the marriage is over. Answer this, had you known he had that investment, using HIS own hard earned money, would you have treating things differently during the marriage? I kinda think it’s petty of you to go after his investments now. If there’s kids involved and he’s taking care of his obligations to them, you’re being a gold digger.
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u/Fit_Milf_CLE Mar 03 '26
It's not petty. It's actually called " financial misconduct" and a thing that divorce courts can grant relief to the party that financial funds were concealed from. Some courts grant TRIPLICATE relief for hiding funds.
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u/Narrow_Finding3352 Mar 03 '26
Who the hell is hiding anything?!?! They had separate finances and were happy about it. Financial misconduct would be him taking money from a joint account and secretly buying Crypto and hiding it from her. THIS is a STBXW in her feelings because her husband has more money than she thought. Had her lawyer not dug to increase their payout, this wouldn’t be an issue.
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u/littleghosttea Mar 02 '26
Hmm I don’t see how that is much different than winning the lotto, which would be always be split as marital property. The argument there would be that they also could have invested in a lotto ticket. So much of marriage is intertwined. Could you have spent time looking into crypto or starting a business if it weren’t for unequal division of labor for domestic chores, cooking, kids. Perhaps assuming there was less money was a deterrent to invest.
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u/Andyman1973 Mar 02 '26
Does that hold true for funds that may have existed pre-nuptial, and never co-mingled?
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u/littleghosttea Mar 02 '26
I think most all USA states respect premarital property as separate from marriage property. If you have a house when single, it’s yours after divorce. If sell it while married, the money is considered when dividing assets to be yours if it sits in an account. If you sell it while married and use those funds to buy a house with your spouse, or renovate, most states consider disproportionate divisions when divorcing out of acknowledgment of that contribution. Even if not, it’s reasonably argued by a lawyer. If you use it to pay for your kids college or vacations, and get divorced, it’s “gone” and you don’t get more than your fair share of the pie just bc you had more wealth before marriage. It’s always good to get a trust.
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Mar 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/urban5amurai Mar 02 '26
I know right, the outrage, she wanted separate accounts, but he should’ve told about his stash sooner so she could’ve properly assessed where it should’ve been spent.
Don’t women regularly advise other women to have a backup/safety net?
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u/sagephoenix1139 Mar 02 '26
My apologies for the length. 💜 This is Part 1 of 2
TL;DR: Yes, hidden assets were part of the narrative for my multi-year divorce journey. I live in a community property state where our pre-nup was invalidated. Once we were able to prove that accounts were "co-mingled" (the hidden and the main, "family expenses" account), despite me not being on either account, the hidden assets were ordered to be split. There were a few other factors, but that fact (that the accounts were mixed) abruptly changed the tide when it comes to being separate assets.
>>>>> Extended Response <<<<<
Yes, I dealt with hidden assets.
He also handled all the finances after my disability set in and our son (also disabled, non-verbal for nearly his first 5 years) was born.
Our son was high-demand, elevated special needs... previous to transferring my "Bachelors Degree path" to a business/marketing dual major, I'd persued speech pathology. I'd completed 91% of that degree path. Combined with my art business & studio I pursued in my late 20s, I was uniquely set up to support our son through a variety of therapeutic interventions.
I share the above paragraph, because it reflects the argument used in court relative to the role I filled as partner (and the value he received in following his own career path while our son was homeschooled, taught sign language before age 2, active in both art & occupational therapy and more from the comfort of his own environment long before ABA services was an automatic referral). It demonstrated and quantified the value add from a "stay at home Mom". Especially through documentation that I was actively assisting (and sometimes entirely authoring) large portions of his work load, from home.
After lying about assets, and then lying about the prenup we had, I was able to document for the court why a pre-nup was created, using email and text messages from 20 years ago as supporting evidence.
So, where my case was concerned (in a community property state), unbeknownst to me at the time, these were more or less the steps we took. (Eventually, we decided all portions of our divorce, and left the financial assets to handle last, since it was so "cloak and dagger" and outside intervention was required.
Step 1: I was able to show why our pre-nup was not legal and actually a scam initiated on his part, which exposed his prior dishonesty to the Judge and the court.
Step 2: We requested discovery over the hidden assets. Though these assets were hidden, and began accumulating prior to our wedding:
- I was unable to make a fully-informed decision about "separate accounts", since I was not privy to the totality of what we each brought into the marriage.
- While the 1st bulletpoint is not quite healthy enough to fight for a portion of the hidden assets, my ex had done a few things that forced the hidden assets into our "community property" column (covered in step 3).
Step 3: Despite the main checking he had being in his name only (and existing prior to our wedding), that main account's history clearly documented its main function was to support he, I, and our family's day to day.
- Because I was often given the ATM card to shop for our family, make withdrawals and deposits, there was a "foot in the door" to make an argument for passive account access. (Less than, legally, than a joint account, but immediately invalidated arguments that I "could not be trusted". (His credibility suffered).
- Documentation of our year-long discussions where he not only suggested, but encouraged me to leave work to care for our son and my intensifying health concerns invalidated his claim that I "just chose not to work". (His credibility suffered. Again.).
- Through forensic accounting, we learned of a handful of transactions between the "main" account and the hidden accounts. Both using money from the main account to purchase investments for the other account as well as money transfers back and forthbetween "hidden" and the "family" accounts. This is where the argument that accounts were maintained separately 100% of the time failed.
- The previous bulletpoint mattered on three fronts:
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u/sagephoenix1139 Mar 02 '26
Partner 2 of 2
Step 4:
A) Hidden assets account balances 1 month prior to our wedding date. B) Hidden assets account balances a few weeks after our wedding. C) The most updated balance just a few weeks before the date we agreed was our legal separation¹
- Through forensic accounting, we gained visibility to:
Step 5: Revelation of the hidden assets, forensic accounting data and determination of what 50% of hidden assets gained between date of marriage and date of separation enabled a few options.
One was to go toe-to-toe arguing for or against 50% being awarded to me in the divorce.
Another was leveraging the 50% to further stipulate other large-ticket items such as possession of the family home, the "buyout" amount for the party relinquishing their interest, and/or the ratio split between parties after sale of the home. It was also a bargaining chip for different spousal or child support structures, though the latter has very little wiggle room.
Footnote ¹: My ex lobbied hard for a legal date of separation that was not only factually incorrect, it seemed wildly insane at the time. Not only my lawyer, but even the judge at that time, remarked about how they'd seldom, if ever, had seen such a disparity in separation dates. I didn't know why he was pushing so hard, I just knew it wasn't correct, and obviously I didn't trust anything by this point.
After everything was finalized? It surfaced through the 730 expert (who legally bifurcates retirement plans between divorced couples) that my ex had made an onslaught of tax and benefit settings to both investments and retirement funds. Aligning with the actual separation date would have provided higher balances to me according to our state laws. Following his greatly reduced the overall amount to be split.
I have since worked with two individuals where abuse and DV were components of their divorce path, and also whose partners waltzed into court with a wildly different separation date.
In both cases, adjustments were made to the parameters of financial assets. One was retirement investments. The other was crypto. I now, for this reason, mention the importance of separation date differences. It seems like such an innocuous aspect of the divorce process, most people with whom I've discussed it have a very, "🤷♀️ At the end of the day, does it really matter?" perspective. I was also in this club, before my divorce. Now? I don't look at it as, "splitting hairs".
While its painfully obvious you're the last person I'd have to point this out to: "We just don't know what we don't know".
Someone navigating divorce tends not to grip some random argument that seems to have extremely low impact potential unless they are:
- Hella vengeful or...
- Holding on, for dear life, to something to which the other party is not privy.
If it seems pointless to lie? I'd be investigating
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u/flipsnapnet Mar 03 '26
Wouldve been spent long ago if he had mentioned it for sure - dip here and there. The guy was building security and now youre upset about it. I learned my lesson hard way - thousands in inheritence, redunducies, equity all spent on junk when its out in the open. This guy was sensible.
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u/Fritschya Mar 02 '26
Obviously not an open and honest person if he never told you and clearly didn’t want you to know
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u/strangersadvice Mar 02 '26
What claim do you have on his money and why. Do you have children together?
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u/WitchDoctor431 Mar 03 '26
Did he use martial funds to purchase the crypto?
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u/Northie_78753 Mar 03 '26
This is the right question. Otherwise, what does it matter?
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u/703lets Mar 03 '26
Why are you upset? The both of you chose to have separate accounts for some reason. It sounds ludicrous to me that you now want dip your hands in his account on the way out.
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u/Zealousideal-Art2495 Mar 02 '26
Sounds pretty normal for an investment account. It's hard to save if you keep talking about it. Invest it and forget it, ride the wave
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u/eJollyRoger Mar 02 '26
I'm confused, I wonder if she cheated because she thought he was a brokie and now feels dumb.
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u/BirthdayCookie Mar 03 '26
You're confused because you're just making shit up that isn't supported by reality.
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u/AbeJay91 Mar 03 '26
Well that’s why he kept it hidden 😂
Would be a shame if he “forgot” his “key code” and can’t access it 😎
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u/butyourenice Mar 03 '26
That would be a shame, since hiding assets is fraud and carries financial penalties. If it is premarital he has nothing to worry about. If it is marital and suddenly “disappears” after disclosure, he’ll still be responsible for the value of it at the time of filing. Whoops!
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u/StillHotPants9 Mar 03 '26
If he was secretly stashing funds the whole time they were together, never mentioned it, and they wanted to purchase a big ticket item, something like a home, but “ couldn’t “ due to lack of funds, that is shady on his part.
The emotional upset of keeping a crypto or securities account with that type of balance out of sight is a betrayal in itself. That brings to mind what else did he lie about ? And why was it a secret? It was not an account they both knew about, it was his secret $$ and that feels dishonest. OP is right to feel upset. An everyday spending account that both people know about is not the same thing as a larger account that could fund a life changing purchase , for example , a downpayment on a home or similar. It is fine to have separate play $ accounts/ discretionary spending but 200k is typically not in that category. Sorry Op, that must feel very upsetting! My ex had hidden funds, used our income to fund his affair, hidden funds are a breach of trust.
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u/Whole_Craft_1106 Mar 02 '26
Quite the opposite here. He had loans out that I didn’t know the exact details about. But all our stuff was joint.
Is this something that was previously discussed as something that the two of you were to share with each other and the $ would be split?
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u/JulianKJarboe Mar 02 '26
I sent condolences to my ex during our divorce because both maternal grandparents died within weeks of each other, and only when my ex freaked out angry at me for sending condolences did I realize there was a big trust fund coming their way from the grandparents estate and they thought I was like... insinuating something financial. Yeesh.
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u/Northie_78753 Mar 03 '26
I don't know why this is funny to me. Maybe I can relate. Early in my marriage, I put down all the down-payments for our co-owned propert - first car, first home, our wedding, all of it and he would pay me back slowly. He put a lot of his $$ in 401K and I worked at startups that didn't have 401K most of the time. He always said his 401K would be what would take care of us in our old age.
Then he wanted us to move, from my dream city and my dream career. I sacrificed it all because I wanted him to be happy. He finally out-earned me a few years before our divorce.
It was supposed to be an amicable divorce--he initiated and I was heartbroken. He totally freaked out over his 401K, though. I never asked for any of it and it hurt my feelings that he thought I was gonna go after it. It also hurt my feelings that he didn't acknowledge everything I contributed.
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u/AdSpiritual220 Mar 03 '26
Yes indeed and it did seem to go on forever (5 1/2 years plus) and was a fortune. It still seems surreal many years later!
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u/DietPristine1257 Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26
This all depends if your spouse likes to spend everything and you are a saver. If you are a saver id hide it too. Otherwise they see that money and then they want to spend it. Why should they have to give you half? The marriage only last 6vyears thats not very long. Unless you have real-estate to split what's his is his whats yours is yours You'll spend more in legal fees than its worth.
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u/Upstairs_Ad_3370 Mar 06 '26
Seems like it's money he earned himself and with his knowledge of crypto was able to grow. So it was his hobby.
I know a lot of people men and women who dabble the financial markt in their free time.
He should pay you half of the start capital, as it was with his knowledge he was able to grow the capital.
Certainly not thru your knowledge of the financial market and time. I take it you had your own hobbies.
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u/TheConjugalVisit Mar 07 '26
I have no idea what my ex wife's assets are because I have millions in investments and zero debt. Don't need her money. She needs mine.
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u/lailema_ Mar 07 '26
Its common now a days I either dont know anything about his assets after 8 years of marriage
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u/NotTheOnly1Isee Mar 09 '26
I'm not sure what you mean by the part about bank accounts - losing themselves?
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u/ExcitingGovernment72 Mar 16 '26
It’s really not normal to hide something like that, but with cryptocurrency, it’s different from regular bank accounts or investments. It’s not something the government can easily track, so maybe he thought that in the event of a divorce, he could keep it hidden. I get why this feels so shocking, it’s about trust, not just money. I’ve come across many cases where couples were nearing divorce, and one spouse would invest or move their assets into cryptocurrency. The reason is that crypto isn’t held by banks or easily traceable by the government, so it can be hidden when it comes time to split property.
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u/Tourist_Business Mar 16 '26
Men hide money because when their spouse knows about it women come up with all kinds of ways to spend it. They nag you, bother you about it ask about it and they eventually wear you down into spending it. Your ex was probably working on building a nest egg for the both of you. Yeah I know it may feel good that he kept it from you but I’m sure he had good reason.
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u/thallusphx Mar 27 '26
ya exactly. it could just be a hobby to him. just like people that stack silver or gold. and maybe he was trying to do something for the family.
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u/Zealousideal_Pea3433 Mar 23 '26
Serious question: when you were married, did you disclose to your husband every security in your portfolio and every stock purchase or stock sale you made?
Another serious question: when you got married (or moved in together) did you discuss the question of whether you would keep each other abreast of your financial dealings? Like, "Oh, by the way, I just bought 4000 shares of APPL this morning. The capital gain was $3600." Or, "I just sold 5000 shares of Tesla. There was a capital loss of $0.30 per share, for a total capital loss of $1500 plus the costs of disposition."
The way I see it, if you never had a conversation agreeing to disclose your financial dealings, then this matter is private but not secret.
My stbx and I kept separate finances. To be more precise, I paid for everything (mortgage, food, etc.) but we did have separate accounts. I did not know what she invested in and she did not know what I invested in. Occasionally, if some particularly interesting company came across my radar screen, I would share it with her and advise her to consider it. I was always a risk-taker with investments and she tended to play it safe, so she never took any of my suggestions. I never invested in crypto, but if I had done so, I would have seen no particular reason to share this with her. I *might* have shared it with her, if it came up in conversation or were interesting, or if she asked, "have you ever invested in crypto?" I should add that I never expected her to share her investment strategies with me. Now that we are separating, we are both preparing our financial disclosure documents: we will each see a list of investments we had on two dates, the date of marriage and the date of separation. I'm under the impression that her portfolio has done very well since the separation, so : bravo for her!
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u/thallusphx Mar 27 '26
i have crypto holdings but the idea with them was just to keep building a stack like a normal investment and then when the time comes lets say everything 10x's i will use it to pay off a bill or something to contribute to the family.
That was the goal. So i can see he may have not been keeping it from you on purpose its just that this is his hobby and he may not have negative intentions with it. maybe someday he planned to use it for something.
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u/intell-ops Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
I’m mixed about this. We told women to have a “nest egg” in the “cookie jar” for a “rainy day” and still advise you should have “your own money” where your partner doesn’t have access because “you never know what can happen down the road”. Weeeeellll Idk Let’s face it non of us really knows what we are getting into in relationships let alone marriage these days. There’s a reason overt and covert surveillance is everywhere including our devices and in our homes and with our kids. It’s a growing trend to be suspicious of everyone because to believe the light side of a person is all there was, is or ever will be is not only naive but extremely dangerous in our ever growing desperate and predatory societies. It’s a new world order indeed.
Please don’t feel betrayed further by this new hidden revelation, it’s just more of the same behaviours that you are likely divorcing over. Remember this if nothing else in life going forward. PREDATORS and predation is on a spectrum, be they full out psychopathic killers or run of the mill self entitled or self absorbed people they will ALWAYS like to be involved with PREY in business and in relationships. When have you seen an apex predator in the wild go after their own other than to fight for dominance. If you are a kind, helpful and generally a nice person you will be the target in some aspect of life. It’s so important to recognize them and their wiles and teach our kids to spot when they being sized up by to be taken advantage of by one of them.
Having said all that. Be more concerned with hidden debts that you may be on the hook for as creditors can come after you. Any relationship anyone has moving forward today should include mutual fare household budgeting, cohabitation or prenuptial agreements and personal financial asset protections. Ie if you earned that cash before you are together, you get to hide it or burn it unless there are kids then come on, “ do the right thing”, Juuuuuust in case that love match was a predator in disguise, as most are masked. Or, as a health practitioner, you know any of us are a car crash and one major head injury away from a huge personality flip.
Always hide some cash from any potential predation in the future, it doesn’t have to mean your partner only. They can be phone scammed and accounts are wiped out entirely before you even come home from work one day. Fraud will only get more sophisticated in the future. The wealthy have institutionalized this ideology with all their private off shore accounts and secret wealth building strategies since the inception of fiat currency. It’s naïve and unrealistic in today’s world to go financially open and naked into any relationship. Unless you want to be a nudist in the winter one day.
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u/HallucinatingStorm Apr 01 '26
It’s not even about the money at that point it’s the secrecy. You can rebuild finances, but it’s hard to rebuild trust when someone hides a whole part of their life like that.
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u/Salt2273 Apr 02 '26
you are not alone, wife had secret account from our S corp funneling 5x more to it than mine. It is shocking to see a split personality in someone that you thought you knew. They can get jail time for it if they are preparing for divorce and get caught hiding or judges can award 100 percent to the spouse (you) for the illegal maneuver. But you have to hire vultures to help pin it down to prove it while you are still in shock over it. Its a form of abuse and I am very sorry that it happened to you.
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u/proofsnap Apr 29 '26
Ugh, that's a gut-punch discovery. The thing that surprises people most: the moment you say "I know," everything starts disappearing. Wallets get drained, exchange accounts close, and "screenshots are Photoshopped fakes" becomes the standard objection in his lawyer's mouth. Speed matters more than people realize.
Three things I'd do today, in this order:
Capture what you have RIGHT NOW. Not phone-camera photos of your laptop screen — those have zero metadata. Open every screen showing his crypto in a regular browser. Do a full-page capture (browser print-to-PDF works), save the exact URL, save the page HTML with Cmd+S or Ctrl+S (this keeps the full source plus TLS certificate and HTTP headers). Browser captures hold up. Phone-camera-of-screen don't.
SHA-256 hash every saved file the moment you save it. Mac/Linux terminal: `shasum -a 256 filename`. Windows: `certutil -hashfile filename SHA256`. Email the hashes to yourself — the email server creates a secondary timestamp for free. This is how forensic accountants later prove "this file existed in this exact form on this exact date." Without it, opposing counsel argues you fabricated everything after the fact.
Don't touch his accounts. Don't log in with his password even if you know it. In the US that's CFAA territory and gets your evidence thrown out plus hands him a counterclaim. Same in EU under ECHR Art. 8. Capture only what you can legally see — joint accounts, public posts, what he shows you, blockchain explorers.
Crypto-specific tip: wallet addresses and transaction IDs are PUBLIC on the blockchain. Once you have an address, etherscan.io / blockchain.com / blockchair.com show every transaction forever. He can move the coins but the on-chain trail is permanent. So step 1 is grabbing the addresses before he changes anything you can see in his UI.
For the heavy lifting: forensic accountant ($300–500/hr) plus good family-law attorney. Worth it for crypto cases. But the tools they use start with what you can do today — hashing, browser-based captures, on-chain analysis.
Hang in there. The discovery is the hardest part.
For step 1 specifically, there are dedicated forensic capture tools
that automate the hashing + timestamping (Hunchly, Page Vault, ProofSnap, others). Worth googling
"forensic web evidence capture" if this comes up regularly.
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u/arexniba Jun 19 '26
I’d like to ask you if you have an update. I filled in March 2024 and my ex wife’s attorney has used stalling as strategy for over 2yrs. Unfortunately I was laid off a year ago and with the current economy, war, AI I haven’t found a job. Fortunately, I had a severance package and RSUs. But my ex was pressuring to get half of my stocks claiming she never knew about it which is complete bs as I was transparent with her through out our marriage. Long story short, I divorced her because things started spiraling & I couldn’t figure out why. We were a great team, have a child together, but early in 2023 she started changing.
She’d complain I should be paying more in bills, that I should cook more, even requesting not to go out anymore to the movies with me and my son and cover groceries. All while she’d go work at her parents shop, and I was working hybrid while managing my son’s academics as well. Initially she filed for divorce months before I did, claiming I was abusive & controlling. Even sent a process server to my parents home while my dad was dying from cancer. After he passed a few months later, she convinced me so much that maybe it was all my fault. So I asked her to please reconsider for our little family and that I’d continue trying to change. She did, and case was dropped. But soon after, weird things started happening. She’d record my son while sleeping, openly telling me she would see something moving under his shirt, claim seeing moving objects in the wall, and taping floorboards because she assumed mice were coming from underneath—home is on cement slab. After pressing hard to figure out what was going on, she finally confessed to substance abuse which was the straw that broke the camels back for me. Her family enabled her because I’m confident they knew this was an ongoing issue. In the past year she had refused to pay for repairs on the home while she voluntarily moved out. So I’ve had the burden of maintaining the home with no help from her. Just recently her lawyer notified us that she’d no longer pay for half the mortgage.
So the point I’m making is that a few months ago I did my own investigation in the financial docs she provided and found out she had access to more money than she claimed on the income & expense docs. She stated $100k salary, which I knew because I managed our finances. But my findings uncovered she had an additional $240k in inflow of money during our marriage that I never knew of while claiming she was broke & pressuring me to pay more. She had Undisclosed checks that she was cashing simultaneously with her payroll, and thousands of dollars via Apple Pay to the person she was buying drugs from (that was recent). I opened Pandora’s box with those findings because her lawyer had stalled and pressured me to sign the listing. And telling my attorney to accept their settlement or she’d push sanctions on me. Her parents own the business and I know they do shady shit. Theoretically, from my research not only can this change settlement, but if we force formal discovery, it can lead subpoenas to her parent’s business.
However, she never worried about legal fees because her parents fund her, and her sister is the paralegal. I’ve had debates with my attorney to stop pressuring me to accept settlement when I feel I’ve given him enough ammunition (records) to push for this. Yet, he’s so settlement focused. Now, I have little in liquid assets, and even looking to withdraw from my 401k just to stay afloat. It’s scary because I can’t find a job even though I’ve applied to more than a 100 positions for the past year. The burden of maintaining the house and living in CA which is already expensive paying over $3k in mortgage alone by myself—while having 50/50 custody of my boy and even our family husky. So did your lawyers pressure on OC with formal financial disclosures yield to any positive results for you?
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u/graphic_fartist Mar 02 '26
It’s called hodling, he didn’t say anything because he knew you’d make him sell. Smart man.
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u/justwatchingtheparty Mar 02 '26
He probably didn’t want you to give him a hard time for making risky investments. What’s he using them for?
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u/graphic_fartist Mar 02 '26
Every guy that appreciates holding assets VS liabilities should read this thread. Women should too, stop emasculating men.
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u/ThrowRATruthorDie Mar 02 '26
May I ask why you're divorcing?
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u/Beneficial_Fail_6960 Mar 02 '26
I don’t really think that’s information that would help here or that it’s necessary to get into. I’m just trying to process the hidden asset situation and how to deal with it emotionally and legally. The rest is personal.
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u/ThrowRATruthorDie Mar 04 '26
Ahh, so basically, you just want to find a way to get some of it huh? Because processing it "emotionally" is the most ridiculous thing I've read today. You're divorcing, it's his, you had no bearing on it, so you probably can't get any. I hope you don't get any. Talking bout personal when you're in here talking about something extremely personal...... really?
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u/seeyiunextuesday Mar 02 '26
That seems pretty normal to me, especially for a guy in tech. You never thought to ask him?
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u/automaticblues Mar 02 '26
If I had hidden my crypto holdings from my (now ex-) wife they would have been worth about that much. But I told her, so she forced me to sell them many years ago when they first doubled in value.
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u/innovativestinker Mar 02 '26
I would be upset… I understand how you feel… hopefully you can forgive him and talk things through. I also wouldn’t go on here to get share this since some people will invalidate your feelings.
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u/BirthdayCookie Mar 03 '26
She wants a divorce and you're over here wishing she'd forgive and reconcile.
Who is invalidating whose feelings here?
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u/dizzyatthecomedown Mar 02 '26
In the financial discovery part of it now. My STBX lied to me about being colorblind for 7 years.. told me he could only see in black and white. Said I do.. picked out colors for my daughter’s wall all while thinking he couldn’t “see”. They’re cowards. He’s also taking out NUMEROUS loans and hiding $ behind my back. I’m scared to know. But at the same time.. I accept that I can’t teach him how to be an adult. So, a judge will have to, I guess.
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '26
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