Of course it does—at least most of the time. 
Under New Jersey divorce law, the trial judge must evaluate several factors before deciding how to equitably distribute the marital assets.
One factor is whether either spouse has “dissipated” any of those marital assets. In a New Jersey divorce, “dissipation” is deemed to occur when one party spends marital assets with the intent of diminishing the other party’s share of the marital assets.
A New Jersey appeals court recently had to consider that issue in a case called Wadhwa v. Sethi. That court began by pointing out that, for many years, New Jersey divorce judges have recognized that there are two competing interests which must be reconciled in order to make that determination.








