7 Money Games Abusers Play After Separation (And How to Stop Them Cold)
Key Takeaway
Financial abuse after separation is a control tactic designed to force compliance, delay legal proceedings, and destabilize your independence through withheld support, hidden assets, and credit sabotage.
You thought separating would end the control.
Instead, the checking account you’ve used for ten years suddenly has a new password. The credit card you rely on for groceries gets declined at the register. Your phone buzzes with alerts about charges you didn’t make. And when you ask about the child support payment that was supposed to arrive last Tuesday… radio silence.
This is financial abuse after separation. It’s not random. It’s not accidental. And it sure as hell isn’t just “being forgetful about money.”
It’s a calculated strategy to keep you destabilized, dependent, and too overwhelmed to fight back effectively. Because here’s what abusers understand that most people don’t: you can’t leave someone you can’t afford to leave. You can’t negotiate from strength when you’re checking your bank balance before buying bread. You can’t focus on custody strategy when you’re three months behind on rent.
The moment you separate, money stops being about money. It becomes the primary weapon in an ongoing war of attrition.
And if you don’t recognize the tactics and respond systematically, you’ll spend the next six months fighting fires instead of building your case. Let’s fix that.
Quick Facts
- Financial abuse occurs in 99% of domestic violence cases, and it often intensifies after separation when the abuser loses physical proximity.
- Victims of post-separation financial abuse report an average credit score drop of 120 points within the first year, primarily from sabotage tactics like unreported joint debt.
- Courts can impose sanctions, order immediate temporary support, and even find a party in contempt for financial misconduct during separation, but only if you document the abuse systematically.
- The most common financial abuse tactics after separation involve withholding court-ordered support, running up joint credit accounts, hiding marital assets, and sabotaging employment or housing applications.
- According to the National Network to End Domestic Abuse, economic insecurity is the number one reason victims return to abusive partners or delay filing for divorce.
Financial abuse after separation doesn’t look like the Hollywood version of divorce drama. There’s no villain monologue. No obvious paper trail with “FRAUD” stamped across it.
Instead, it’s a text message saying the support check will be “a few days late” that turns into three weeks. It’s discovering your name on a lease application was run without your knowledge, tanking your credit. It’s learning that the retirement account you thought had $87,000 in it was quietly transferred to an offshore account in the Cayman Islands two months before you filed.
The abuser’s goal is simple. Make your life unworkable until you fold on custody, accept a garbage settlement, or come back entirely.
Let’s break down exactly how this works and what you do about it.
The 7 Money Games: Tactics and Countermeasures
| Abuser Tactic | What It Looks Like | Your Counter-Move |
|---|---|---|
| Withholding Support | Child support or temporary spousal support is late, partial, or never arrives. Excuses about “cash flow problems” or “waiting for a bonus.” | Document every missed payment with dates and amounts. File for contempt and request retroactive payments plus attorney fees. Use income execution orders to garnish wages directly. |
| Running Up Joint Debt | Maxing out joint credit cards, taking cash advances, opening new lines of credit in both names. Often framed as “necessary expenses.” | Immediately notify creditors in writing that you’re separated and dispute unauthorized charges. Close joint accounts. Request credit freezes. Preserve statements showing the timeline of charges relative to separation date. |
| Hiding Assets | Transferring money to hidden accounts, overpaying taxes to get refunds later, underreporting income, liquidating investments, or “gifting” assets to family members. | Issue subpoenas for all financial records. Hire a forensic accountant if assets exceed $100K. File motions for financial disclosure under penalty of perjury. Request automatic temporary restraining orders on asset dissipation. |
| Credit Sabotage | Not paying joint bills despite agreements, disputing legitimate accounts, running your credit without permission, reporting false debts to bureaus. | Pull your credit report immediately. Dispute inaccuracies in writing with bureaus. Set up fraud alerts. If your name was used without consent, file a police report and send copies to creditors. Consider a credit monitoring service. |
| Employment Interference | Harassing you at work, contacting your employer with false allegations, causing you to miss shifts or meetings, or sabotaging childcare so you can’t work. | Obtain a protective order that includes workplace provisions. Notify your HR department with documentation. Create backup childcare plans. Log every incident with dates, times, and witnesses. |
| Controlling Shared Property | Changing locks on the marital home, refusing to let you access vehicles in both names, withholding important documents like tax returns or children’s medical records. | File emergency motions for exclusive use and possession. Request police escorts to retrieve personal property. Subpoena copies of documents from third parties (employers, doctors, accountants). |
| False Poverty Claims | Claiming inability to pay support while maintaining a lifestyle inconsistent with stated income. Suddenly “unemployed” or working under the table. | Subpoena employer records, bank statements, and lifestyle expenses. Use social media evidence (photos of vacations, new purchases). Request imputation of income based on earning capacity, not claimed income. |
Authoritative overview: U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women.
Why Financial Abuse After Separation Works So Well
The legal system moves slowly. Financial emergencies move fast.
That’s the entire game. An abuser can drain a joint account on a Tuesday afternoon. Your motion to freeze assets won’t be heard for three weeks. By the time the judge signs the order, the money’s already been transferred twice, “loaned” to a cousin, or converted into Bitcoin.
Meanwhile, you’re dealing with real-time consequences. Rent is due Friday. The kids need winter coats. Your car insurance lapsed because the payment bounced.
This is why financial abuse after separation is so effective as a control mechanism. It’s not about the money itself, although that certainly matters. It’s about forcing you into crisis mode where you can’t think strategically. Where you’re too exhausted to file the right motions. Where settling for anything feels better than one more month of this chaos.
And here’s the worst part… courts often treat this as a “he said, she said” financial dispute rather than recognizing it as abuse. Judges see missing support payments as a civil enforcement issue, not a safety issue. They view hidden assets as a discovery problem, not a pattern of coercive control.
That’s why documentation is everything. You need to reframe financial abuse after separation from “we’re having money disagreements” to “this is a systematic pattern of economic coercion designed to undermine my ability to function independently.”
The evidence tells that story. Without it, you’re just complaining about being broke.
Game One: The Disappearing Support Payment
This is the most common tactic. Support is late. Then later. Then accompanied by excuses that sound almost reasonable: “Payroll was delayed.” “I’m waiting on a client payment.” “My account got hacked.”
What’s really happening? The abuser is testing whether you’ll enforce the order. If you don’t, the late payments become the new normal. If you do, they’ve still won a few weeks of financial chaos while you figure out the court process.
The Real Impact
One missed payment might seem manageable. You borrow from a friend. You put groceries on a credit card. You tell yourself it’s temporary.
But financial abuse after separation works through accumulation. By month three, you’ve borrowed $6,000 from family you can’t pay back. Your credit cards are maxed. You’re behind on utilities. You’re spending mental energy juggling creditors instead of preparing for custody mediation.
And your ex? They’re building a narrative for court. “She’s financially irresponsible. Look at all this debt she racked up. I don’t think she can provide a stable home for the kids.”
Except they’re the reason you’re in that hole.
Your Counter-Strategy
Document everything in a spreadsheet. Date due. Date received (if ever). Amount short. Any communication about it. Include screenshots of texts, copies of emails, and bank records showing the absence of deposits.
File for contempt after the second missed payment, not the fifth. Most people wait too long to enforce. They think they’re being reasonable or avoiding conflict. What they’re actually doing is training the abuser that non-compliance has no consequences.
Request automatic income execution so future payments bypass the abuser entirely and come straight from their employer. This is also called wage garnishment or income withholding. Most states allow it for child support and sometimes for spousal support.
Once it’s in place, the abuser loses discretion. The money comes out of their paycheck before they see it. The state or a third party administrator sends it to you. They can’t “forget” or decide to short you $600 this month because they’re mad about something.
And here’s what courts actually do when you bring receipts: they award you the unpaid amount plus interest. They make the abuser pay your attorney fees for having to enforce a basic order. And if the non-payment continues, they can hold the person in contempt, which can mean fines or even jail time.
But you have to ask. Specifically. With documentation attached.
Game Two: The Joint Account Raid
You wake up to an alert: $8,000 withdrawn from the joint savings account. When you check, the balance is $127. When you call, you’re told your ex “needed it for legal fees” or “had an emergency.”
This game works because joint accounts are exactly that: joint. Either party can legally drain them until a court order says otherwise. And by the time you get that order, the money’s gone.
Why This Happens
Most people don’t separate their finances immediately upon physical separation. They’re overwhelmed. They’re in crisis. They think, “I’ll deal with the banking stuff next week.”
The abuser knows this. And they act fast.
Sometimes it’s premeditated: they drain accounts the day you move out. Sometimes it’s reactive: they empty accounts after you file for divorce. Either way, the impact is the same. You suddenly have no access to marital funds you’re legally entitled to half of.
In some cases, they don’t drain the entire account. They take just enough to create hardship but not enough to look completely egregious. Maybe they leave you $2,000 in an account that had $18,000. Now you have some money, so it’s harder to claim emergency status, but not enough to actually function for more than a few weeks.
Your Counter-Strategy
Immediately open a new individual account at a different bank. Not just a different branch. A completely different institution. This prevents any possibility of cross-access or confusion.
Transfer your portion of joint funds if any remain. In most states, you’re entitled to withdraw up to half of joint account balances without court permission. If there’s $10,000 in the account, you can legally take $5,000. Document the balance before withdrawal and the amount you took.
If your ex has already drained it? File an emergency motion for an accounting and reimbursement of half the marital funds. In most states, courts presume joint accounts contain marital property subject to equal division. If one party unilaterally drains them, the court can order reimbursement in the final settlement or even immediately via a temporary order.
Going forward, all your income goes into your solo account, not any shared one. Direct deposit, paychecks, tax refunds, everything. If you keep depositing into joint accounts “for convenience” or because you haven’t updated your payroll yet, you’re funding your own abuse.
Do this within 48 hours of separation. Not next week when you “have time to deal with it.” Every day that joint account stays open is another day it can be emptied.
Game Three: The Credit Card Blitz
Your credit card gets declined. You call the company. They inform you the card is maxed out. You didn’t make those charges. Your ex did, on the joint account that both your names are on.
Maybe it’s $15,000 at luxury hotels you’ve never visited. Maybe it’s cash advances. Maybe it’s balance transfers to new cards you didn’t know existed. Doesn’t matter. Your name is on the account, so you’re equally liable in the creditor’s eyes, regardless of what your divorce decree eventually says.
The Legal Trap
Here’s what most people don’t understand about joint credit accounts: the divorce decree that assigns debt to your ex doesn’t actually protect you from the creditor.
Let’s say the judge orders your ex to pay the $18,000 Visa bill. Great. Except Visa wasn’t a party to your divorce. Visa has a contract with both of you. If your ex doesn’t pay, Visa will come after you. They’ll report late payments on your credit. They’ll sue you if it goes unpaid long enough.
Your remedy is to go back to family court and enforce the order against your ex. But in the meantime, your credit is trashed and you’re dealing with collections.
This is why preventing the debt in the first place matters so much more than getting it assigned later.
Your Counter-Strategy
Call every credit card company today. Close joint accounts immediately. If they won’t close them without both signatures (some won’t), remove your authorization to make charges and request they freeze the account at the current balance.
Send a certified letter to each creditor stating you’re separated and you dispute any charges made after the separation date. Include the separation date specifically. This creates a record that you notified them.
Pull your credit report from all three bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. You’re entitled to one free report per year from each bureau at AnnualCreditReport.com. Look for accounts you don’t recognize. New credit cards opened in both names. Increased balances on cards you thought had low limits.
If you find unauthorized accounts, call the creditor and explain you did not open or authorize the account. Request they mark it as disputed. Follow up in writing. If the creditor insists you’re responsible because your name is on it, that’s a fact pattern for identity theft or fraud. File a police report and send a copy to the creditor.
Then, in your financial disclosure during divorce, you’ll argue that debt incurred post-separation for non-family purposes should be assigned solely to the person who incurred it. Courts generally agree, but only if you can prove you didn’t benefit from or authorize the spending.
The credit card statements showing charges after separation at places you’ve never been, for items you never received, in amounts you never approved… that’s your proof.
Game Four: The Hidden Asset Shuffle
This one’s more sophisticated. Money doesn’t vanish overnight. It just… relocates. To an account you didn’t know about. To an LLC formed three months before separation. To a sibling’s name. To cryptocurrency wallets. To overpayments on taxes so a big refund comes after the divorce is filed.
These people aren’t amateurs. They’ve thought about this. They know that if you can’t find it, you can’t claim half of it.
Common Hiding Spots
Bank accounts at institutions you don’t know about. Sometimes they’re local, sometimes offshore. The key is they’re not on any statement you’ve ever seen.
Business entities formed in another state or under a nominee name. Maybe it’s an LLC that “owns” equipment or property, but really it’s just a place to park $200,000 in cash away from the marital estate.
Cryptocurrency and digital assets. Bitcoin, Ethereum, NFTs, whatever. These are notoriously difficult to trace if you don’t know the wallet addresses. And if your ex set them up without telling you, you might not even know to look.
Deferred compensation or stock options that vest after the divorce is filed. Some people deliberately delay income or structure bonuses to hit after separation so they argue it’s not marital property.
Loans to family members that will conveniently never be repaid. “I loaned my brother $50,000” sounds like a debt that reduces the marital estate. Except the brother never intends to pay it back. It’s just $50,000 your ex hid in a friendly place until the divorce is over.
Overpaying the IRS on estimated taxes. If you overpay by $30,000 and get a refund of $30,000 six months later, that’s $30,000 you temporarily removed from accessible accounts. If the refund is issued after the divorce, you argue it’s post-divorce income.
Your Counter-Strategy
Financial disclosure is your weapon. In most states, both parties must provide complete disclosure of assets under penalty of perjury. This includes completing financial affidavits, attaching tax returns, bank statements, retirement account statements, and business records.
If you suspect hidden assets, hire a forensic accountant. Yes, it’s expensive, typically $5,000 to $20,000 depending on complexity. But if you’re talking about $200,000 in hidden retirement funds or $80,000 in unreported business income, that accountant pays for themselves ten times over.
Subpoena bank records, tax returns, business records, and brokerage statements for the past three to five years. Look for patterns: large transfers right before separation, new accounts opened, sudden “loans” to family members, unusual business expenses that don’t match historical spending.
Request discovery from third parties. If you know your ex banks at Wells Fargo but they only disclosed one checking account, subpoena Wells Fargo directly for all accounts under their Social Security number. Same with brokerage firms, employers (for stock options or deferred comp), and business partners.
Use lifestyle analysis. If your ex claims they make $60,000 per year but you have evidence they took three international vacations, bought a new car, and made $40,000 in mortgage payments on a second property… the math doesn’t work. A forensic accountant can reverse-engineer income based on lifestyle expenses.
And here’s the thing courts take seriously: if you can prove someone hid assets, judges get mad. You’re not just entitled to your half of what was hidden. Many jurisdictions will award you more than half as a sanction for the misconduct.
The abuser’s attempt to cheat you ends up costing them extra. But only if you find it.
Which is why systematic financial discovery, ideally with professional help, is non-negotiable in any case where you suspect hidden money. Don’t accept your ex’s word that they’ve disclosed everything. Trust but verify. Actually, just verify.
Continue to Part 2 for Games Five through Seven, the 7-step action plan, case studies, and how Splitifi’s tools help you document and fight financial abuse after separation.
