Prenups
Is it reasonable to ask for prenuptial agreement before marrying men with kids?
I wonder if some of the Disneyland Dad behavior would be curbed if they new they'd be divorced (again) and have to pay out (even more) if they failed to check their behavior/failed to be a better spouse who prioritizes marriage
*this could go for any gender
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When there is an imbalance of
When there is an imbalance of resources or earning power going into a marriage, having a prenup can provide protection. It can also benefit the person that might not have as many assets by not allowing the person to use it as a weapon too. If the more wealthy person realizes that if they divorce they will have to pay out.. then they may work harder as well.
In steplife, most of our marriages are not first marriages... especially on the part of the person who has had children with someone before.. they probably (I understand not always).. were married previously.
So, we are already dealing with people that realize committed relationships can end.. and not always predictably. So, a prenup may help people be assured of retaining assets they had going into a relationship.
I actually don't really think that the disney dad thing would be anything helped by a prenup.. unless you are assuming the parent would agree to give their partner some big payday.. when it's a lot more likely a parent would want to make sure that the assets they went into the relationship with stayed with them (to leave to kids.. support their kids0.. if the new relationship failed.
In cases where it's the non parent who may have resources.. well.. they could also protect those in a prenup.. but it's not going to do much to curb disney dadding if the non parent is the one with deeper pockets.
A prenup may not necessarily guarantee any payout.. and more often limits what someone will walk away with if they are the lesser earning/resource spouse. Because otherwise why not use state guidelines to deal with divorce.. it's because the "rich " person wants to pay less out than they might otherwise be ordered.
If two people are starting
If two people are starting out with nothing, a prenup likely wouldn't make sense.
But, if you have two people who have accumulated assets, a prenup always makes sense.
A prenup makes sense if you have two people on equal financial footing.
A prenup makes sense if you have two people NOT on equal financial footing and the one with few assets is being asked to be a stay at home parent, work for the other spouse's business, and or if person with fewer assets is being offered a lifestyle that would be hard to continue if the wealthier person passed before them.
In other words, both parties must protect themselves, but also not set things up in a way that harms their partner.
Example (genders can be swapped):
Man with nice house and 250K income marries a woman with no house, earning 50K per year. She has no kids. He has 3. They marry and live in his home for 20 years. He dies and the house goes to his kids. He leaves her nothing, so she has to move out of her HOME and rearrange her life to live on her income, alone.
If I were the woman in this situation, I would not marry without some interest in the HOME. I would either insist on being given the right to remain in the HOME until I died, remarried or went into a nursing home OR that a new house is purchased in both parties names. I would expect the wealthier partner, once married, to save/invest money for the care and protection of the lower earning spouse. A prenup can be written to protect either party in a future divorce, and can step up the amount settled on the lower earner based on years married. In other words, if the marriage ends before 10 years has passed, maybe the higher wage earner pays 50K to the lower wage earner. After 20 years, maybe it's 100K or some other agreed upon amount.
All income, after marriage, is usually considered marital income. The prenup would protect the assets accumulated before marriage, but provisions should be made to protect the lower earning spouse from marital funds.
But, YES, a prenup can protect and provide for both parties, regardless of whether they are financially equal or unequal.
Yes.. if one or both have
Yes.. if one or both have assets coming in.. understanding what would happen if there is a split.. at least knowing you are on the same page
Also... in your example.. ESP if the woman may have stayed home to keep house and care for her husband's kids.. some reasonable ability to remain in her home.. perhaps dependent on how long they were together is important.
I can see giving someond 3 months if it was a 6 month marriage.. but perhaps lifetime rights if they were married 25 years isn't unreasonable. Assets and real estate can be put into a trust that benefits a spouse.. but can pass to your heirs on your spouse's passing.
If people have a prenup.. it's probably also going to mean separate finances to a certain extent.. they may have joint obligations.. bills.. but they should probably be keeping the majority of their investments separate.
Pre-nups don’t curb abject
Pre-nups don’t curb abject stupidity, which most of these men are. They may be able to work a job but have zero clue how to be in a relationship without a woman doing all the work.
Pre-nups don’t curb abject
I think sometimes we get so
I think sometimes we get so wrapped up into the "ex is toxic" line of thinking that we ignore the fact that there could be some really valid reasons and ways our partner was a full party to the breakdown of the relationship.. he may not have been a good partner to HER either. That doesn't mean that the EX may not have their share of problems and dysfunction.. but sometimes we get so into "defend our spouse" mode that we fail to see that there may have been a lot they had to do with mistakes made. They may have pushed their wife to "do everything" too.. which may be part of why she is so territorial over kids that he just didn't do enough with and for during their marriage.
Just because the ex is a nightmare.. don't discount the possibility your partner is one too.
Very few in a divorce are blame free.
Absolutely. It is extremely rare, unicorn rare, that a partner we are with was not complicit at some level in the demise of their prior relationship. Or even that we were not complicit at some level in the case of our own failed prior marriage(s). I was.
I certainly contributed to the demise of my first marriage in a number of ways but on the balance sheet, any damage I caused was not materially significant in comparison to her serial adultery and the core structure of criminal dishonesty that her family lived and she was hip deep involved in.
Self delusion? Maybe.
DW was purely the victim of a serial statutory rapist POS regarding that relationship. The one thing my ILs did right in all of that, IMHO, was not allowing her to marry him while she was 16, and advising DW not to marry him when she reached the age of marital consent. Not that she would have. He had failed the smell test long before she could have consented and she was done with him before she turned 18 and before SS turned 1yo. He was hooking up with yet another 16yo by then. He was 24. If only even one parent of his statutory rape victims had pressed charges, so may girls would have been spared his bullshit and 3 of his 4 children would not have been born to underage girls. #1 was born to DW when she was 16, #2 was born to an of age woman though she had a substance abuse problem resulting in birth deffects for SS's younger sister, and #3 and #4 were both born to the same woman who was 16 when both of her kids were born. She was barely 16 when #3 was born, and nearly 17when #4 was born.
Your point is a critical point of clarity that everyone should invest in developing but few do. Even if it us who have a prior marriage, we have to be realistic on our own culpability in the demise of that marriage/prior family.
While I blame my XW, I had some ownhership in what we experienced. I have mentioned before that I had a daliance of my own during that marriage. Mine was about 8mos after the wedding. A young woman I had known while growing up overseas came back into my life. She had made it very clear when we were younger that she was very interested. I had decline her overtures. At that time I was 20 and she was 15. She was my younger brother's classmate.
4 years later and 9mos after the wedding ,for several days I noticed a young woman sitting outside of my flagship restaurant where the company offices were. I even
tually approached her to ask if there was something we could help her with. She laughed and told me that we had unfinished business. She invited me to a party at her parents house for that weekend. My XW had some prescheduled thing, her diary indicated that she had a weekend date. One of countless cheat fests she had that the diaries she left when she moved out revealed.
I took a friend of mine to the party. I intended to set them up. As it turned out, the party was just the three of us. My friend left after a few hours. I spent the weekend and part of the next week with her.
That young woman saved my life. My XW and I had been married for 9mos and it had been 8mos since the last time we were intimate, which was the first time we were intimate and that was on the last day of our 2wk honeymoon. One of two 8mos period of zero intimacy in our blessedly short marriage. There were several shorter periods of zero intimacy during the 27mos we lived together before she ran off with grandpa sugar baby daddy who she was knocked up by. I was in a very bad place emotionally and mentally. I had married a woman I loved who made nearly zero effort to be intimate. I had adopted an initiate daily model to try to keep the message clear that her frigidity was not acceptable to me, including very regular attempted discussions as to what the problem was. The only answer I ever received was "I don't know". I forced her to reject sex every single day. That went on for the majority of the days we were married. She had stated she wanted to be abstinant during our engagement. I honored that. I did not expect marital abstinance after we married. Not that she was abstinant. She was hitting ever swinging Johnson she could get any orifice of body around the whole time. As her diaries later demonstrated, that had been going on the entire time we were dating, were engaged, and were married. I had my one daliance. I make no excuses. I was wrong. Though I do not regret it.
A notable event was the night of the last day I spent with that young woman was one of only two times in the marriage that my XW initiated. I had skipped classes that AM and the young woman and I were together. I took her to the airport in the afternoon. I went to work that evening, and got home after work. Oddly, I had zero qualms about accepting my XW's overture of intimacy that night. The young woman flew out that afternoon to go back to school. We never saw each other or spoke again.
You are absolutely wise in pointing out that odds are far better than not that a prior married mate is at least somewhat culpable in the end of their prior marriage. I certainly was.
I don't think a prenup would
I don't think a prenup would alter parenting (or non-parenting) styles and decisions. If Disney parents could see beyond the moment they wouldn't BE Disney parents.
But I do think prenups are important if there is an imbalance of assets, debts, family inheritance.
If you are coming into a new marriage
With the sizable resources. You would want to protect them. That said. I don't think this will have anything to do with the whole dusnnny dadddy thing. This is a mental condition, trying to buy the happy family , one way or another. Do everything to have fun with your kids at everybody else expense. Unless the Dinnny. Daddy understands what he doing ,you lose. Because it's normal to him. He enjoys it until he doesn't.