DP wants a prenup!

[HappyHattie]

I’ve taken legal advice so fully understand how they do/don’t work- not looking for technical advice just opinions on whether IABU??

I am 27 DP is 32 - he earns 3x my salary. (mine is respectable and I’ve just completed a masters so will increase).

DP owned his home with about £150k of equity before we met. (He paid top end of the asking price so has not gained value and may lose a bit post Brexit)

Anyway we’re financially merged- joint accounts- I’ve never held anything back from him- including my £7k of savings when I moved in. (I know I still don’t match his income but still)

He did mention getting something in writing to protect his £150k much earlier in the relationship - fine, I was happy with that- my sibling has one as he had a large inheritance- I’ve always been independent!

But now we’re actually getting married - my £7k of savings has been swallowed up, I’m not yet named on the mortgage and we’re both wanting to start a family post wedding (2-3 kids).

The plan is I’ll drop down to PT - only today whilst talking it through with a solicitor did I realise how vulnerable I’ll be leaving myself!

I don’t want to have small children and work FT (my career is demanding and DP whilst eager to help is very much consumed by his career and often works away for short periods) I work with so many women who try to juggle this and their lives look miserable! I’d rather not have children than live like that!

So this evening I’ve been really deflated- feeling like I’m getting the shit end of the stick really - I’m not after his money (not at all) but equally I don’t really want to be drafting up a 14 page prenup which even the solicitor said ‘is likely to get quite complicated’

It also seems like it’s going to escalate from ‘protecting the £150k’ to also including inheritance, pensions, earnings...etc.

I didn’t sign up for not being a ‘team’ if I wanted to build a financial future alone - I wouldn’t be getting married.

I’m probably ABU 😞 but would appreciate some opinions!

(DP is a wonderful guy - honestly 10/10 on everything else but he had a really bad experience as a teen when he lost his parent and their very recent new spouse tried to take everything- think this has made him overly cautious)

It doesn’t sound like you’re happy with a lot of this....... just my opinion but there’s no way I’d go along with it.

My dad has an agreeement drawn up but he lived a life with my mum and accumulated a lot of assets in those 40+ years so after she died and he met someone else it was important that he is protected. I can see why the situation when he was younger really affected your partner but it’s a completely different situation to starting out your life with someone, planning a life as a team.

He sounds like a control freak tbh and wants to be in charge, maybe that’s understandable after his experience but it wouldn’t be for me. Good luck x

I would ask for some of the £7K back and I'd be on the train to London immediately.

This.

Sounds like he wants a live in slave not a partner. I know that’s a bit dramatic but you are either e team or you aren’t. No way I would give up my life to raise kids with a man who didn’t value me financially

I think the idea of a prenup is awful in your situation, but the idea of talking through financial vulnerabilities prior to getting married is excellent. Keep having the conversation. Someone needs to point out how you need to be protected if you are considering going part time. The law as it stands does that. You should definitely not be giving up all claim to half of the house you live in. If it were seperate investments that do not affect you, it would be different.
Is there anyone a bit cheaper than a lawyer you could talk to in the first instance?

feel awful saying it as he’s so optimistic and I’m just cynical

It is most definitely the other way around Hattie. I wonder how that has happened...

Beware the projection/reversal tactic where (typically) the woman often ends up feeling and owning what the man is actually feeling but denying. Its subtle but can be devastating.

You need and deserve more of a commitment to sharing and building a joint future than this. He doesn't seem to have any idea of what could happen from your perspective. He should think and care about that. The 150k is the least of it.

Personally, I think cancel the wedding until this is sorted so you have no deadline putting you under pressure to agree terms. I could all work out great in the end, but he has some serious work to do first. And start building up your savings again

To be honest, I think prenups make most sense if one party has millions prior to marriage and want to protect that, but that being said the prenup should also state in the event of the divorce, the partner would get X amount of money, which means they would be taken care of etc...not just dumped to the side. Money earned after marriage should be split. If the mother sacrifices her salary to stay home and take care of the kids, the partner should take that into account...being a mother can be a thankless job! Yes, some men opt to stay home and the woman works, in that case the same should apply. The person who stays home should not be punished in doing so!

My DP asked me for a prenup before we got married. I said NO WAY and that was the end of that....Plus it is not like he had a ton of money before we got married (a bit of savings, but so did I).

I'm unmarried and I've never been asked if my children were planned or unplanned. I'm not a particularly old or young mother, had them between 27-32 years.

But she doesn't have to give up work / go PT if she has children.

She might not "have to" but there is no certainty. It can be extremely difficult to continue to work full time in some careers if you are doing all the dropping off and picking up from childcare, taking time off when the child is ill and doing all the "mental load" and many women feel that they have to go part time or not work for the sake of their children.

That's a lifestyle choice that has huge benefits (not working, spending more time with your children, not "being miserable" as OP puts it because she finds work hard/ stressful).

It's not really a "lifstyle choice" if it is impossible to work full time in a high flying career without it having a negative impact on the children.

If it was such an awful "sacrifice" no one would do it!

You obviously don't have children if you think people only make "sacrifices" with regard to their career and earning potential for themselves!!! Parents make sacrifices for their children all the time for their children's benefit and not necessarily their own and when it comes to careers it is too often the woman making all the sacrifices rather than men. OP's DH may not be that kind of person and she may be able to choose to work full time if she wants to but there is no way of knowing until they have children in my experience.

I haven’t read the full thread, but this appears to me to be a red flag for coercive control.

If someone is trying to push you into doing something you don’t want to do, and which seems to you unfair, listen to your conscience and say no.

If you sign this thing, against your better judgment (your strong sense of uneasiness regarding this is quite valid - he is genuinely beautiful no unreasonable, however good he normally seems) then it will hang over your entire future together.

Not only that, but if he pushes you into this, then he will know he can push you into other things. If you have children with him, he will have even more leverage.

Either he agrees that you will be equal partners, and respects you even when you work less (raising children is much easier as a team, but some men never recognise that) or you leave him and look for someone who will enter into a proper partnership with you.

Basically you don't want to be worse off than if you went to court, otherwise that's where you end up if you split. My parents had died, I owned a flat and I had a pension when I met. Unlikely to get anything more. He had none of those but likely to get better pension and inheritance than me later. We bought a house, I put deposit in and he pays mortgage on his share. Obviously I need to protect what i had and expect him to protect his. Our incomes are similar so we share what comes in and goes out, help each other in short periods of hardship, redundancy or illness. Inheritances usually don't count as joint money.
Get independent legal advice and wait awhile to find his true character

But she doesn't have to give up work / go PT if she has children.

She might not "have to" but there is no certainty. It can be extremely difficult to continue to work full time in some careers if you are doing all the dropping off and picking up from childcare, taking time off when the child is ill and doing all the "mental load" and many women feel that they have to go part time or not work for the sake of their children.

That's a lifestyle choice that has huge benefits (not working, spending more time with your children, not "being miserable" as OP puts it because she finds work hard/ stressful).

It's not really a "lifstyle choice" if it is impossible to work full time in a high flying career without it having a negative impact on the children.

If it was such an awful "sacrifice" no one would do it!

You obviously don't have children if you think people only make "sacrifices" with regard to their career and earning potential for themselves!!! Parents make sacrifices for their children all the time for their children's benefit and not necessarily their own and when it comes to careers it is too often the woman making all the sacrifices rather than men. OP's DH may not be that kind of person and she may be able to choose to work full time if she wants to but there is no way of knowing until they have children in my experience.

Oh and why does it make you cynical to talk about not being protected when he runs off with the secretary but it’s fine for him to protect his assets in the event? I don’t understand? 💐

I think that you have to propose a pre-nup back at him, so he can see it from your point of view. He is worried about historic, countable things eg £150k equity in the house. You are worried about future, uncountable things eg your lack of earnings when babies come along. In fact your sacrifices have already started because you have compromised on location to suit his career.
Can he not see this?
You are either a team or forget it.

If someone is trying to push you into doing something you don’t want to do, and which seems to you unfair, listen to your conscience and say no.

Why would this advice apply to the OP anymore than it would apply to the OPs partner. 🤷🏻‍♀️.

The OPs partner said earlier in the relationship that he would like to protect his house. He isn't suddenly springing this on the OP. I think it would be unfair on the OP to try and guilt trip her partner into doing something he doesn't want to.

I agree all money/capital growth etc from now onwards could be split evenly.

It sounds a bit like he's still thinking you have come to live in his house. What is he like when he's drunk? Does he ever make remarks to you then about his house or money?

I was in a similar situation to you 20 years ago and my career/earning potential took a massive hit while DH’s went strospheric, because I was around for the children which meant he didn’t need to be. I initiated a prenup and did feel a bit sad about it.

Ours protected the assets we entered the relationship with (maybe simplest to calculate against the house - put it in joint names with percentage ownership split).

All future earnings/pension etc however would have to be “family pot” for me to marry/have children. Do not underestimate the cost to you of supporting his career while enabling him to have a family. We didn’t agree childcare upfront and sick days etc fell to me because financially it made more sense for our family to lose my pay than dh’s. Over the years though, that chips away at your earning potential. I can only live with it because my DH is fair financially and wholeheartedly recognises my supporting role in enabling his life/career/family situation. He couldn’t have built our life alone and he knows the career sacrifices I’ve made.

If we weren’t building a joint family pot of savings etc, I would have remained in FT serious career mode and sadly outsourced childcare. None of us would have been as happy as we are, but I would have felt too vulnerable to do anything else.

Also, what 150k is he protecting if there is currently no equity in his house. Did he ask you to put your savings in?
I think a fairer way to do things is to have a household joint account where you both syphon money in (a percentage of earnings) for household bills, taxes, car etc.
Then each keep your own accounts with your own spending money.
Was is his idea to pool absolutely everything so he had visibility on all the finances?

DP is a wonderful guy - honestly 10/10 on everything else but he had a really bad experience as a teen when he lost his parent and their very recent new spouse tried to take everything- think this has made him overly cautious

My previous (controlling) partner also had a convincing sob story.

Your reply needs to be along the lines of...

“Your past may have led you to be wary, but I’m not that person from your past. I can’t marry someone who doesn’t have faith in me and can’t see us working as a team. You have to accept me as I am. I won’t do that. And I’m afraid if you can’t accept that, we don’t have a future together.”

Some people may be happy with what he’s offering, but you are not. Listen to your conscience. It’s really hard to understand at the start, but life with someone who doesn’t trust you and will push you into doing things you don’t want to do is miserable.

When I was young, I wanted a relationship and children and was willing to push aside that little uneasy voice in my head. But twenty years of it, and the damage it does to children (if he pushes you, he won’t respect them either) is worse than the pain of stopping this now.

Good luck OP.

Just incase it helps, @HappyHattie, me and DP are talking about marriage and have been together for a similar amount of time. My DP also owns a house (I don't, for similar reasons to you), and his has a lot of equity now.

He hasn't asked for a prenup. We aren't going into this with the intention of splitting up, but things equal themselves out. I earn more than him right now but that will change, and I'll have to give up some of my earning potential to have his children, so it's not like it will ever be completely fair. I do contribute to the home - I've paid for decorating, a new boiler, we're having the kitchen redone this year, for example.

I'd be concerned about why he wants a pre-nup and why there is 14 pages of it.

I think that this is one of those problems that are so common on MN that once you look at it, it's no longer about the £150K. For me it's more to do with the fact the OP is expected to make sacrifices in every aspect of her life and her partner does not intend to protect her at all.

When you are a SAHM with no/little income and no personal savings account, you then find yourself having to fund everything from the family pot.
Your own haircuts, clothes, any separate holiday or nights out on your own with friends and there, etc then are having to come from the family 'savings'.

I would tell him that I feel worried as I feel vunerable due to giving up work to have children. If he met someone else (it does happen) myself and the children would be kicked to the kerb without a penny! There has to be some security for the children's sake.

Op, he’s not a millionaire with significant assets - loads of people go into marriage with houses. I think given his circumstances this request is outside what is usual or reasonable. I would say you have taken legal advice and you will not be signing a pre-nup. Put the ball back in his court and see if he loves you enough to marry you without one.

I understand his concern, esp. as he had a bad experience before. However, I also understand you.

Tell him that while his looking to protect himself is understandable, you will also need to protect yourself and your future. So, when you have kids, ask him if, as part of his prenup, he is prepared to take equal time off to care for any future offspring while you also devote the time to your career. If not, then you really are better off without him, without kids or maybe without both.

By the way, this would also give you some food for thought

www.bbc-law.co.uk/legal-news/prenuptial-agreements-enforceable-uk-courts/