Most often the husband is the income-earner and has been in charge of all of the investments and the finances during the duration of the marriage. When the wife comes in, she is usually the one who says, “I can’t get this information. I don’t know what we have.”
My first question would be, “Did you sign a joint tax return?”
The client may say, “Yes, but I don’t know what is in it. I just get the piece of paper, and he points here and says, “sign here,” and I don’t look at it.”
Then, my job as her divorce attorney is first to make sure that she knows that that is very normal and not to be embarrassed that she doesn’t have this information.