* Names have been changed to protect identities
Meghan* had always thought she was good with money. She had saved most of the down payment on the family home near Toronto, ran her own business and, before she got married, managed her finances herself.
Michelle* bought her Vancouver home for $290,000 before marriage. It’s now worth roughly $2.4 million, and she had a prenup in place.
Jessica* was the breadwinner in her marriage, spending 37 years with the same company while her husband stayed home to raise their children.
None of them expected divorce to leave them feeling financially vulnerable.
But when their marriages ended, each woman discovered a version of the same uncomfortable truth: being financially responsible in life isn’t the same as understanding your financial position inside a marriage.
You can save, earn, own a home and pay the bills, and still have no idea what your spouse earns, what assets are held in their name, what debts you’re potentially responsible for or what you’re actually entitled to if the relationship ends.
“Information is power,” says Stefanie Ricchio, a CPA and financial literacy advocate who helps women navigate major life transitions, including divorce. She has worked with several women who didn’t have the information, power or resources they needed to protect their financial interests.
And she says the knowledge gap is more common than people realize.
When you don’t know what you don’t know
For Meghan, the financial shock came after nearly a decade together and a separation she never saw coming.
She found herself buying out her ex-husband from the house she’d largely paid for while also paying spousal support.
“I ended up owing him so much,” she says. “Things like both cars were under his name, but I bought them. And I couldn’t do anything about it at that point.”
What stings most is that she never thought she needed to know what was happening on the other side of the marriage.
“I never had access to his account, never saw what he was bringing in. Hindsight is 20/20 – I’d never thought that was a problem.”
Ricchio has seen the same blind spot play out with much larger numbers.
“I’ve seen women with no idea their spouse had hundreds of thousands in workplace assets,” she says, including deferred profit-sharing plans and stock units buried in statements they had never seen.
In one case, a client only discovered the extent of her husband’s wealth after forcing a full financial disclosure. Turns out he had secretly redirected statements to his workplace.
The issue, says Ricchio, isn’t always deliberate financial dishonesty. Sometimes women simply aren’t asking questions.
“There are questions they’re more than entitled to ask,” she explains. But they aren’t “either because they don’t know to, or they feel embarrassed to say they don’t have the answers.”
The protections you thought you had
For Michelle, she also thought she was doing everything right in protecting her assets. She bought her Vancouver home before marriage and had a prenup. She also spent 12 years helping build her husband’s business.
When he left, he came after the house anyway.
What followed was a years-long legal battle, 14 months of unpaid child support and a separate fight with the Canada Revenue Agency that cut off her child tax benefits, child disability benefits and GST credit after a mismatch on a benefits validation questionnaire.
“I have PTSD from it,” Michelle says.
Her experience has made her unequivocal about protecting yourself before marriage – and having uncomfortable conversations early.
“Get a prenup,” she says. And don’t let someone else’s discomfort convince you that talking about money is unromantic. “If there’s any pushback, that’s your answer right there.”
When one person becomes the financial expert
In Jessica’s case, she was the breadwinner, but handed over financial control because her husband seemed more confident.
“I felt he was better with money and knew more than me,” she says.
They didn’t invest anything – a decision she now calls a “huge mistake” – and eventually there wasn’t much left.
Four years after leaving, Jessica still contributes to a joint account with her estranged husband to cover expenses on a home they co-own but no longer share. She wants to sell it and fully disconnect from him financially.
“We don’t think these things will ever occur in the beginning … he was reliable, responsible, dependable – until he wasn’t.”
Anna-Marie Musson, managing lawyer of M & Company family law, sees the consequences when women haven’t been involved in their family’s finances.
“Women aren’t becoming financially literate in a meaningful way during and post-divorce,” she says. Some may have focused on their careers while also running the household and caring for children, without paying much attention to the family’s finances.
And becoming financially informed after separation isn’t always easy.
Ricchio points to the fact that access to professional advice isn’t equal.
“If you’re making less money or are less educated, you might genuinely have no idea where to go. You can sit in this fear and immobilization,” she says.
Meanwhile, women with more resources can often get to the right lawyer, accountant or financial advisor sooner and make decisions with better information.
What women should know before they need to know it
There are some financial details Ricchio wishes more women understood before separation.
- Spousal support isn’t always equal, as monthly payments are taxable income for the recipient and tax-deductible for the payer. But a lump-sum settlement can be tax-free. “Absolutely consider that if you can negotiate it into your agreement,” she says.
- Business debt doesn’t stay on your spouse’s side of the ledger. If your partner is a sole proprietor, you may be on the hook for 50 per cent of the business’ debt. Ricchio has had several clients come to her in disbelief about this one.
- Common-law is not the same as marriage. For example, in Ontario, common-law partners don’t automatically have access to equalization of net family property the way legally married spouses do.
“Having that knowledge behind you when you make decisions about your relationship is incredibly important,” she stresses. “If you know you won’t get equalization access in the event of divorce, then cohabitation agreements, prenups, whatever, could become incredibly powerful to set yourself up for future success.”
- The rule of 65 can change your entitlement entirely. If your age at separation plus years married equals 65 or more, you may be entitled to indefinite spousal support. She recently advised a client to use this as a mechanism for negotiation.
Now, the point here isn’t that every woman needs to become a family-law expert, but she does need to know enough to recognize what she doesn’t know.
Ricchio encourages women to ask their partners now: What happens to me if something happens to you?
If you don’t know the answer, that’s a gap worth closing.
That means knowing what assets and debts you both hold, attending financial advisor meetings together and understanding your own tax return. A contested divorce in Canada costs around $15,000–$35,000, with complex cases potentially exceeding $100,000. Women who walk in informed walk out in a better position.
As for advice from women who have been through it? Protect yourself any way you can.
“Know your rights,” Michelle says. “Be on it and be into it.”
Emma Caplan-Fisher
