Everyone goes through adversity in life, but what matters is how you learn from it.

Lou Holtz

Some people destroy their financial records, and that can be illegal once a divorce process has begun. This could include all electronic records.

There are a lot of rules now about electronic records that you may have saved in your computer, for example. Deleting those files can bring penalties if you've done that. So again, just think reasonably.

Negotiate with Flexible Thinking

Use flexible thinking. Don't take an all-or-nothing approach to confronting the other person, to making assumptions, positive or negative.

Be realistic, get information, choose your battles, and decide what's worth it and what isn’t.

Through support, child support and spousal support, you stay connected to each other. Sometimes people negotiate out of court to settle these issues so there isn’t an ongoing payment necessary, but a lump sum. That's something to consider, especially if you're dealing with a high-conflict co-parent whom you think may just disappear or stop working someday.

In court these financial issues require enough information for a judge to make decisions; discovery and computer records all may come into play. But you don't have to do that if you can deal with these issues with your co-parent in family dispute resolution or collaborative divorce or through mediator or lawyer negotiation.

When there are disagreements about money, one approach is to have the person with more money, or who's accused of hiding money, explain their finances in a mediation or collaborative divorce joint meeting.

We've had many cases where one parent had their own family business and it wasn't understood by the other parent. Bringing in someone who knows the company, explaining the business on a whiteboard and bringing documents often really helps. Sometimes it makes clear that there never was a lot of money.

Other times it doesn't make things clearer, but the person questioning the financial status figures they've gone as far as they can go. It is not worth the amount of money to keep searching that may be what's hidden.

If they're not living an extravagant lifestyle, it may be less likely that they've hidden an extravagant amount of money. So, many people are disappointed to find out that there is not a lot of money hidden away after all, or if it is, they really don’t know how they can ever find that.