While no one likes to think of the possibility that their spouse is preparing to leave them, it does unfortunately happen. An unhappy spouse may decide on divorce long before they actually divorce their partner because it can take time to prepare for the split, especially from a financial standpoint. This kind of planned divorce can leave the other spouse reeling if they didn’t see it coming. If you suspect that your spouse is considering or preparing for a divorce, these signs may confirm your suspicions.
Financial Changes
Taking a hard look at your finances is one of the best ways to confirm that your spouse is planning to divorce you. Most married couples have shared bank accounts, which can make it difficult to hide things such as divorce attorney bills, money being withdrawn for housing and other undiscussed changes. Look for these signs in your finances:
- Bank statements from an account you weren’t aware of
- Abnormally high withdrawals over time
- Unusual and unexplainable credit card charges
- Missing or moved tax returns
If your spouse typically handles most or all of the finances, you should consider sudden unwillingness to share financial information with you to be a major red flag. Your spouse may try to handle all of the finances without you in order to hide clues that they’re preparing to divorce you. This might come in the form of changing the password to your shared bank account, not sharing bank statements with you or halting physical bank statements altogether.
Sudden Involvement With the Children
When someone planning for divorce speaks with a divorce lawyer about their children, the lawyer will emphasize how important it is to be an actively involved parent before and during the divorce process. Not only is this beneficial to the children but it also may influence child custody decisions. If your spouse isn’t typically the main caretaker for your children, suddenly increasing their responsibility and involvement with the kids may be your dream come true as a parent. But it could be a sign that they are divorce planning.
If your spouse suddenly starts carving out special one-on-one time with the kids, taking them to extracurricular activities and attending doctors appointments, it may be because they have already spoken to a lawyer. Cooking family dinners, going to the grocery store and getting more involved with the child’s education are also signs of this.
Unwillingness to Make Long-term Plans
While more involvement with the kids could be unrelated to divorce planning, an unwillingness to make long-term plans with you is a major sign that your spouse is unhappy and planning for divorce. Examples of this include not wanting to buy a new house or car, avoiding making future vacation plans and even unwillingness to decide which side of the family to spend holidays with.
This is because a spouse who is making plans to divorce knows that the marriage won’t last much longer. This is true especially when it comes to long-term financial commitments.
Secrecy
Not every marriage ends with an affair, but affairs and other secrets are common in divorce. If your spouse has suddenly become secretive of their whereabouts, communications and expenses, they could be hiding their divorce plans with you. Like we discussed above, a spouse planning for divorce may try to hide their finances to lawyer bills a secret, but they also may be hiding expenses related to an affair, such as hotel stays and gifts.
In addition, a spouse planning for divorce may also change their phone password or never leave their phone out for you to see in case you notice communications with their lawyer or significant other. They may also hide these communications under the guise of “work” emails.
If you suspect that your spouse is planning to divorce you, call on the San Antonio divorce attorneys at Bineham & Gillen. We have decades of experience helping our clients file for divorce in Texas, and there’s nothing we haven’t seen before.
Contact the trusted partners at Bineham & Gillen today for a consultation.
