Episode Details

Say a spouse burned fifty thousand dollars on an affair, the trips and the transfers. Half of that was marital money, so twenty-five thousand is yours to recover, if you can prove it. Tracy Coenen, a forensic accountant, says that one word, prove, is where most people lose the fight.

Tracy Coenen is a forensic accountant and CPA who has spent her career finding money, running fraud investigations for companies and reconstructing the finances of divorcing couples. She created the Divorce Money Guide, a do-it-yourself product, after years of telling callers the honest truth: her services would cost more than they would recover, and there was nothing good to send them instead. She joins Lisa to hand that knowledge over directly.

Tracy lays out the red flags that suggest a spouse is hiding money or spending in secret, and why she built a fifteen-question assessment to help people judge whether their worry is real or, as an abuser will insist, just paranoia. She explains the limits of the work: offshore accounts are rare and dangerous to chase, cryptocurrency is hard without a paper trail, and any investigator promising results through illegal means will cost you in court. And she is clear that even when hidden money can't be recovered, getting a definitive answer, yes or no, brings its own peace.

The heart of it is discovery. Tracy is done with the slow, polite dance of asking an ex again and again for documents. Pull the joint tax returns from the IRS yourself, and subpoena the bank directly, once, instead of waiting half a year. She also covers the harder cases, intellectual property, a business a spouse claims is worth nothing, a celebrity's unfinished project, and where a do-it-yourself approach ends and you need the right attorney and expert. Her Divorce Money Guide is where she puts the whole process within reach.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why a forensic accountant makes no financial sense for most divorces, and the cost-benefit math
• The red flags that a spouse is hiding money or spending in secret
• Why offshore-account and "I can find any account" claims are usually illegal and backfire in court
• When cryptocurrency is traceable, and when the paper trail runs out
• How to recover money a spouse spent on an affair, through equity, retirement, or other accounts
• Why you should pull joint tax returns from the IRS yourself, for free
• Why subpoenaing the bank directly beats months of asking your ex for statements
• How complex assets (a business, IP, a celebrity's unfinished project) get valued and split

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Tracy's work, and why she built a DIY guide
3:00 Red flags that a spouse is hiding money
7:00 Why a forensic accountant isn't worth it for most divorces
11:00 Offshore accounts, and the danger of illegal investigators
13:00 Cryptocurrency, and following the paper trail
15:00 Recovering money spent on an affair
17:00 The financial discovery process
19:00 Getting documents faster: the IRS and the subpoena
21:00 Complex assets, and the 'worth nothing' trick
25:00 Inside the Divorce Money Guide

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Tracy Coenen's Divorce Money Guide: https://divorcemoneyguide.com

🎧 More with Tracy Coenen on this podcast
Ep 195: Know the Money Before You Settle (Part 1)
Ep 196: Div