People fight about the house.
They fight about the cars, the furniture, the dog, and occasionally the good knives. And while all that is happening, the largest asset in the marriage is often sitting quietly in a retirement account, getting almost no attention until somebody's attorney finally says the word.
For a lot of American couples, the 401(k) is worth more than the house. Not the equity in the house. The whole house.
And unlike the house, retirement accounts get divided under a completely separate set of federal rules that most people, and a surprising number of general practice attorneys, get wrong.
Here is how it actually works.