How it works (unless you settle for some amount, which I did, which ended up biting me in the ass when our stock took a 30% haircut, but I digress...) is that there is a community property interest in all assets earned during the marriage, regardless of future vesting schedule. It's all based on when the options were granted, when they vest, how long you worked there, etc.

If you have RSUs, you get to go through the fun process of either giving some value to these RSUs and paying off the other party's community interest in that valuation, or you can try to argue that RSUs have a zero dollars value until granted. Good luck with RSUs and stock options either way, as it can become a complicated mess of laws and formulas.

You can set it up different ways, but you will definitely have to get a QDRO for splitting up any retirement accounts into two new accounts.

You can try to do the same thing with stocks, where you pay when you vest or sell, or sell on behalf of the other party, but in my case, and I suspect many others, I wanted the cleanest break possible and I settled on a payout amount simply to reduce the amount of communication with my ex-wife that would be necessary to pull this off.