Because the answer varies enormously and almost nobody knows their own state’s answer.

There are community property states.

There are equitable distribution states that exclude inherited and pre-marital property.

And there are a handful — Connecticut is one — where a court can assign any property of either spouse regardless of title, origin or date.

Three sentences from Julian were true.

One conclusion was false.

And the false one is the one I acted on for three days, because I had never once in eighteen years checked anything he told me about money.

If you take nothing else from this: the person telling you that you have no options is the person with the strongest possible interest in your believing it.