Dissipation claims arise when one spouse depletes marital resources through gambling, an extramarital affair, excessive gifts to a third party, or reckless spending, especially where the spending occurs after the marriage has begun to break down. Courts distinguish ordinary marital spending — even lavish or poorly judged spending during an intact marriage — from spending specifically aimed at diminishing what the other spouse would otherwise receive at divorce.

Where a court finds dissipation, the typical remedy is to credit the dissipating spouse with the dissipated amount, effectively adding it back into the marital estate on paper so the other spouse's share is calculated as though the funds still existed. Proving dissipation usually requires financial records establishing both the expenditure and its timing relative to the marital breakdown, and many states require the claim to be raised within a defined window before or during the divorce proceeding.

Because a dissipation claim shifts the effective size of the marital estate rather than the division formula itself, Juricratic models it as an adjustment to the estate-size dial with its own separate confidence range, letting a user see the projected award both with and without a successful dissipation finding.

Attorneys pursuing a dissipation claim build a financial timeline correlating specific expenditures with the marriage's breakdown, often using bank and credit card records, while attorneys defending against one work to characterize the spending as ordinary or pre-dating any marital discord. Because dissipation findings can effectively reallocate a meaningful sum without any asset actually remaining to divide, it is frequently a high-leverage settlement issue.