What Can be Used Against you in a Divorce

Going through a divorce may be among the most difficult and distressing moments in a person’s life. This immensely affects every aspect of your life, causing a psychological meltdown, a tight budget, a significant change in the way of life and living standards, conflict and controversies. At times cases can be complex and challenging, which is the reason you must know what can be used against you in a divorce.

Even if the divorce is mutual or acrimonious, the tiniest of actions serve as evidence, exploited and used against you. This could undermine your case. In this article, I will explain the things that can be used against you in your divorce case and ways you can protect yourself.

Things That Can Be Used Against You In A Divorce

As earlier stated, a divorce can be a horrifying experience for married people who wish to dissolve their marriage, especially when it is disputed. It can be expensive and drawn out. You won’t just make the hard choice of splitting from your partner but have to put together other logistics – getting a lawyer, organizing your finance, child custody etc.

With plenty of things going on, you are likely to be very emotional and do things that can damage your case. It is highly crucial to behave yourself appropriately before and after the divorce proceedings. Behavior perceived as improper by your partner can be turned into evidence against you in court.

So which items can be used against you in a divorce? These include hostile attitudes and anger, SMS, posts on social media platforms, secret assets, emails, profligate spending and wastefulness, infidelity and so on. You have to pay attention to these things if you are opting for a divorce or in the midst of one.

Let’s go into them in more detail:

Posts on Social Media

Your spouse’s lawyer can force you to present metadata from your account on any social media platform when investigating or at the preliminary stage of your divorce. However, if your privacy is set to “public,” they can access unpleasant or shameful social media posts without you finding out. This information can be used in court to portray you as a bad parent or that you haven’t been faithful. Thus, take time off social media activities or exercise caution about the things you post online.

Hiding Assets

The divorce laws of various jurisdictions recommend marital assets be shared between parties evenly. Hence, you have to disclose your assets and financial records to your spouse. You will get into trouble if you try to hide your assets. In fact, your spouse may get a bigger share of your assets, and you may incur a heavy fine or other disciplinary measures.

Squandering Marital Assets

We recommend that you control your spending, especially if you own a joint bank account. It might be smart to desist from putting up any valuable marital assets for sale or transferring money while the divorce case is ongoing.  To explain it further, if you deliberately engage in extravagant or profligate spending, liquidate your marital assets, or sell any property, it can be argued that the action is categorized as “marital waste” or “dissipation of assets.” Thus, your spouse can use this against you during the divorce and win a bigger share of marital assets.

Spiteful or Angry Behavior

Because divorce cases can get very emotional and personal, a lot of people can twist everyone into a distressing conflict with everyone. Rather than causing serious pain to your spouse, your priority should be making the process less hurtful. If your emotions get the best of you, then your spouse’s lawyer can paint you as very egoistical and annoying and an unsuitable parent.

Delaying the Divorce

Similar to spiteful behavior, you might want to postpone or drag out your divorce process to punish your spouse via psychological and financial misery. However, this might hurt you as well because a judge can instruct you to reimburse your spouse for her legal expenses when it is decided that you acted dishonestly or wrongfully.

Enter a romantic relationship while your divorce case is ongoing

While the dissolution of your marriage will provide you with some level of freedom, you have to exercise caution about who you enter into a relationship with during this time. Although a romantic relationship by nature isn’t a bad thing, your spouse can be able to take advantage of the situation and use it for her benefit. For instance, if your new love interest has a violent past, your spouse can claim that granting you custody of your kid(s)

Emails & SMS

Yes, even your SMS and emails can be used against you in a divorce. Just like social media posts, it is simple these days to retrieve emails and SMSs when needed. Your spouse can damage your reputation or portray you as awful using your SMSs or emails. So ensure you exercise caution on how you text or send emails during divorce proceedings.

Trying to rush the Settlement Process

While there is merit in managing your divorce efficiently, you shouldn’t try to hurry the process of the divorce settlement. Don’t forget that divorce is a new phase of your life. By taking a more diligent and cautious approach, your lawyer can settle on beneficial divorce terms for you.

Dishonesty

Always tell the truth during the divorce process. A lot of divorce cases comprise one or both spouses being dishonest and tossing around baseless and untrue allegations. However, this is always discovered during the investigation process. By not being honest, there’s the possibility of damaging your arguments and testimonies.

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