Prenup or no Prenup?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Friend was an early software engineer at Google. Moved to CA after college with his girlfriend, and they eventually got married. When Google went public in 2004, he became instantly wealthy, ~$28M. Due to his insane work schedule, he got divorced 2 years later, and she took $14M.

If you think that is reasonable, you don't need a prenup. If you think that is unjust, then get a prenup.

This is a great example of a values litmus test.

Here I think what's unreasonable is that you would divorce somebody you loved for not seeing them very much.

The millions seem more like a windfall/luck and neither would be harmed by splitting up $28M into $14M. I don't think they needed a prenup.

Elon Musk's first wife wrote an article about her life as Elon's first wife. She found the prenup process/pressure from his investors very ugly and upsetting. She was put under a lot of pressure from people who were more concerned about their financial investment in the company than the health of her marriage.

And as we now see, no amount of money makes up for choosing a toxic spouse. The impact on her kids' lives is permanent. They literally find out about new siblings randomly from social media.

And in case of Musk I believe none of his exes got windfalls. It's super easy for uber wealthy to show negative income year by year, own no assets on paper (Musk lives in a trailer on dirty mattress), and hide assets in offshore trusts.

My exH lives in a $6m mansion in NW DC all on his own. He makes no money in the US, I couldn't even take him to court for child support. He is an executive at a foreign company and it would cost me millions in lawyers fees to get measly child support

Watch the move "All Good Things". In my experience, wealthy men use money as a tool to control. I don't date uber rich for that reasons: our values would be way too different. NOT singing the prenup is the best thing a lower earning spouse can do for their future standing in marriage and for the security of their kids.

Prenups can also be "staggered": expire when kids are born, guaranteeing a higher share in joint assets with duration of marriage etc.

Maybe $14m after 3 years of marriage with no kids is too much: but it's not like the husband earned working hard all this money.He likely was just skilled enough and lucky to be in the right place at a right time in this tech economy. And we don't know the role of his ex-wife in that. Some wives actually are part of businesses and ideas that made these businesses great

[Anonymous]

Yeah probably

[Anonymous]

Is it even possible to prenup something that isn't a real asset?

[Anonymous]

"I make $135k and my boyfriend makes around $4M. I expect him to bring up a prenup at some point."

My advice is for you to bring it up first, after you promptly consult with an attorney. Start the conversation on YOUR terms, not his lawyer's.

Do NOT assume you'll divorce or die in the exact same jurisdiction as you're living in now. Prenups help with both divorce and death. They can also deal with conditional things like whether you have a child from your marriage. What will happen if one of you stops working? Will one of you want the other to stop working, like to stay home with kids? For example, you might want to include that once he gets that $28M payout, he stops working and stays home when your first child is born. Are there things he will ask you to do to help advance his earning? (Like not take a job in another city, or not work full time so you can host work parties?) If so, then that should be stated now as a possibility, and there should be an agreement on how you'll handle the financial consequences of that. Maybe your dream is to go to med school and be completely unavailable to host parties. If so, you need to state that now.

You need to talk through how you'd handle various scenarious now, while you're still in love and you both want what's fair and best for one another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"I make $135k and my boyfriend makes around $4M. I expect him to bring up a prenup at some point."

My advice is for you to bring it up first, after you promptly consult with an attorney. Start the conversation on YOUR terms, not his lawyer's.

Do NOT assume you'll divorce or die in the exact same jurisdiction as you're living in now. Prenups help with both divorce and death. They can also deal with conditional things like whether you have a child from your marriage. What will happen if one of you stops working? Will one of you want the other to stop working, like to stay home with kids? For example, you might want to include that once he gets that $28M payout, he stops working and stays home when your first child is born. Are there things he will ask you to do to help advance his earning? (Like not take a job in another city, or not work full time so you can host work parties?) If so, then that should be stated now as a possibility, and there should be an agreement on how you'll handle the financial consequences of that. Maybe your dream is to go to med school and be completely unavailable to host parties. If so, you need to state that now.

You need to talk through how you'd handle various scenarious now, while you're still in love and you both want what's fair and best for one another.

I was able to negotiate college paid by exH in the prenup, in addition to 50/50 split of everything earned in marriage . He's still bitter about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can a prenup, even when it is well written to protect asset, be invalidated by a judge? I am sure it has happened many times before, right?

I am interested to hear about this.

It would be incredibly rare for a judge to invalidate a prenup outside of a legitimate fraud claim. There is decades of case law upholding prenups and would be a slippery slope to start overriding them.

I think more often what you might see is a negotiation and settlement for a bit more than the prenup to save on legal fees if the prenup is challenged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it even possible to prenup something that isn't a real asset?

Yes of course you can protect future earnings.

[Anonymous]

If the big wealth-building event occurs during the marriage, could it not be considered a joint asset? If it goes bust during the marriage, that, too, is marital.

I get the question, because the work that would result in the asset is pre-marital.

But I don’t see a pre-nup as appropriate here when both are young and there are no kids.

Yes, prenups have derailed many a wedding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, prenups have derailed many a wedding.

Better to find out upfront then be left holding the bag when you’re facing 50 with poor job prospects, kids to support and getting traded in for the young replacement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it even possible to prenup something that isn't a real asset?

Yes of course you can protect future earnings.

If my soon to be spouse tells me they want to "protect" themselves from me, it's time to run

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it even possible to prenup something that isn't a real asset?

Yes of course you can protect future earnings.

If my soon to be spouse tells me they want to "protect" themselves from me, it's time to run

From future you.

[Anonymous]

If you have assets at marriage, do a pre-nup agreement for sure.

My ex and I had no assets to speak of in our early 20s but I had gone to a girls HS where typing was a required class "in case your husband divorces you". I temped when his mom watched our babies and typed 120wpm to actually keep the lights on while he went to very important neurosurgeon lawyer astronaut school.

Our rent was $900 and I brought in like $1400 a month while he accumulated debt. I drove a 1980 car to my job that leaked oil. Our electric bill was like $89 at the time and I know because I kept meticulous records.

I clipped coupons from circulars like Edward Scissorhands and we lived on ramen stews with reduced price vegetables. There was no money for hobbies so sometimes I woke up at 4am on a Sunday if he was home and went to dumpster dive behind Joanne's. Find enough unpaired knitting needles and eventually you can pair them. I unraveled enough old sweaters to re-knit them in different forms for our kids. I shopped at Savers and Salvation Army for the kids clothes.

We didn't even think of a pre-nup at the time.

Now he's kind of screwed because we didn't have one.

I'm not screwed, though, I got paid.

If you have assets to bring to a marriage, get a pre-nuptial at least that says you get to take back the value of what you brought to the marriage.

In most marriages where there is serious financial success, it eventually becomes an issue whether or not you think it will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have assets at marriage, do a pre-nup agreement for sure.

My ex and I had no assets to speak of in our early 20s but I had gone to a girls HS where typing was a required class "in case your husband divorces you". I temped when his mom watched our babies and typed 120wpm to actually keep the lights on while he went to very important neurosurgeon lawyer astronaut school.

Our rent was $900 and I brought in like $1400 a month while he accumulated debt. I drove a 1980 car to my job that leaked oil. Our electric bill was like $89 at the time and I know because I kept meticulous records.

I clipped coupons from circulars like Edward Scissorhands and we lived on ramen stews with reduced price vegetables. There was no money for hobbies so sometimes I woke up at 4am on a Sunday if he was home and went to dumpster dive behind Joanne's. Find enough unpaired knitting needles and eventually you can pair them. I unraveled enough old sweaters to re-knit them in different forms for our kids. I shopped at Savers and Salvation Army for the kids clothes.

We didn't even think of a pre-nup at the time.

Now he's kind of screwed because we didn't have one.

I'm not screwed, though, I got paid.

If you have assets to bring to a marriage, get a pre-nuptial at least that says you get to take back the value of what you brought to the marriage.

In most marriages where there is serious financial success, it eventually becomes an issue whether or not you think it will.

It seems though that your story backs the no prenup idea. Imagine your husband asked to sign it revoking all his future earnings . You would have gotten nothing after many years of living in poverty supporting him through the law school

[Anonymous]

yes, you should and never tell her about the money.

[Anonymous]

Female here. When I got married, I insisted on a prenup, even though we didn't have much, and he was the higher earner, although I was at the time of divorce. My mom had given me the down payment for the home I already owned, and I wanted to protect her money. It was simple and just said that anything titled in our own names would stay ours, and jointly titled things would be split in half. I don't have access to tax deferred retirement accounts through work, so I invested in real estate and put the homes in only my name. I made sure he maxed out his 403b and his IRA. When we divorced, I was very glad to have it so we didn't have anything to argue about. He kept his retirement accounts and pension, and I kept the real estate. It wasn't 50/50, but we were both in much better positions than when we got married, and he would have never done it on his own, so he was happy that I helped him get to that point. The divorce cost $1750, and we split that in half....easy peasy.