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)

PresidentHump - not at all regarding every day spend etc. A pre nup situation is in the case of divorce not every day life. If DH and I stay together it doesn’t matter to me but if I end up hating him and we end divorced I will want to protect what I inherited - if for my DC if nothing else.

Calculate your estimated loss of actual earnings and projected life long future earnings and offset that against his piddling £150k

And then I very seriously would be having a long hard think about how this indicates the view he will take as issues come up in the future

I think first of all you need to go back to separate bank accounts.

Have a joint account where you put in money for food and bills.

Then you need to look at where the 7k went and if it went into shared costs then he needs to give you 3.5k back!

Then you need to sit down and plan for an investment buy to let property for yourself. You should not pay into his mortgage or for any house repairs. Your money goes into your investment property. He needs to be happy for you to live 'rent free' in his house as otherwise you will never be able to buy your own property.

When it come to children, he needs to pay you fairly for the childcare/housework that you do. Nursery costs need to be split between you both also.

I think if you plan ahead it will be fine, to be honest it might even work out better for you ultimately as you are actively planning for your own financial security and are not just falling into the sahm/part time working mum roles. But he needs to accept that you need for him to acknowledge the need for you to protect and build your own financial security. If he doesn't want to then I see no option other than to leave him.

Except when kids are in the mix they matter far more than "protecting your assets".

I don't see what that has to do with it. Both of us will share everything with our DC, we are a family and will provide for them. What does that have to do with me not wanting to have my few assets I worked hard for seized to pay my in-laws' debts that my DH is paying off?

In Britain there really is such a rigid attitude because I guess it's the done thing. I'm British but live abroad. In many cultures the default is separate property and it doesn't affect the DC in the slightest - why would it? The man is still responsible for his DC in the case of a divorce.

I'm sure you could list lots of reasons you and your DH are together. But why are you married? Why not just be partners?

Marriage for us is about being able to make important decisions on behalf of our spouse, knowing we are legally "one", feeling more secure, in my DH's case he's Catholic so marriage is important for that reason too. I'm on the spot so can't really describe the feeling of why marriage was important to us. But I can say that we don't equate marriage to suddenly becoming financially non-independent when we were financially independent for 35 odd years before marriage. We earn the same so put money into our joint account and pay for joint things from there. If you would be happy to be liable for your DH's family debts and house payments that he bought with an ex, that's great for you. It's not the reason I got married though! Nor would I ever expect him to be liable for my debts.

A pre nup situation is in the case of divorce not every day life. If DH and I stay together it doesn’t matter to me but if I end up hating him and we end divorced I will want to protect what I inherited - if for my DC if nothing else.

Exactly this. Sounds sensible for all involved.

Btw I'm not saying I agree or disagree with a pre-nup in OP's case but I wanted to put forward that many people these days choose to be sensible and protect their assets in case of divorce or spouse's debt.

That £150k is now only worth £75k, so why should he be entitled to the full amount, and where will it come from? Answer: your pocket.
That's not how it works though, if you are sensible and have a good solicitor. At the point you got together, there was 150k equity. If you broke up, he would get the current equity, surely. Otherwise you're signing away money of your own. Savings are different, as the value doesn't change appreciably, so you make sure you would walk away with whatever savings you went in with. As does he. With earnings, as a pp said, you work out a compensatory 'payment' for loss of earnings which taking time out to care for kids. A good solicitor would make sure you don't lose out in any way, nor would be left in the lurch if either of you decided to leave.

I actually think pre nups are quite sensible when couples start off in an unequal financial position.

However, it sounds as though the first draft of the pre nup is a bit too far reaching. You may find that his solicitor has been over zealous and that in fact there is room to scale it back to reflect his greater input at the start of the relationship, while also protecting you if you restrict your earning potential by having children - scaling back work etc.

I would treat this as an opener. Work on it and make it work for you too. They are sensible!

Don't use your DPs family solicitor or one his family recommends for drawing up your pre-nup.

And they say romance is dead

If you trust each other you don't need pre nup and if you don't trust him and he you then why would you want to marry him? My dh and i both got small inheritance he got his first and we discussed and i thought he should keep it for himself. 7 years later i got inheritance and i kept mine and used to put down deposit on buy to let and bought a new car and then saved the rest. When his parents die he will likely get another inheritance. That will his to do what he wants with. We share all expenses and will share pension even though his is about 3 times what i will get. Do not agree to place yourself in disadvantaged position. If he falls out of love with you he may not be generous.

Hmm. Being older and wiser than I was, I wouldn't go along with the 'if you trust each other' attitude. That doesn't really matter, as you don't know what will happen in the future. I trusted dp implicitly. He cheated. A prenup would have been very useful indeed, but I had never considered needing one.

If your earning capacity is going to be seriously reduced, a prenup may serve you well later down the line. You just never know.

I would not marry anyone who wanted a PreNup, it may be sensible but to be planning the divorce settlement before the wedding seems a big warning sign to me.

I think it’s completely fair to protect assets accrued before marriage - so you need to get your savings and anything else written into that. Being financially independent is really important - I think too many people sleepwalk into marriage expecting it to be forever and make no financial provisions for themselves in case it breaks down, then end up with nothing. But then again, I wouldn’t get married purely because I don’t want to pool finances

Is the plan for you to drop to PT hours after children your idea alone, or is it something the two of you have discussed and agreed?

I wouldn't be leaving or stepping down from a professional career to become SAHM with a prenup that might limit what I can claim from marital assets in the future. All of the risk is on you in that situation, what does he put on the line?

Take the blinders off and run like hell.

That sounds like a ridiculous situation OP, your a shared partnership, he really should not be protecting pensions, earnings etc from yourself. You would be down the shit creek without a paddle if he fucked off with the OW and you were a SAHM.

I received a large inheritance a few months into my relationship with DH, 75% of that was paid on our mortgage. We got an agreement that DH could not receive the 75% if we divorced, the rest of the equity, savings etc would be split equally.

The other 25% we spent on our wedding, holidays, furniture etc (in hindsight probably should not have spent it all but oh well). Whilst DH had about 15k to his name and thats gone into our savings account.

I have also got about 10k sitting in a savings account in my home country but thats my safety net.

If I had money, I'd want a prenup.

1. Where has all the content come from? 14 pages seems a lot unless he's Richard Branson or he has spent a lot of time itemising every little thing.

1. Who is protecting you? Surely this is a document to separate you both fairly in the event of a marriage breakdown but it seems like even in this loved up phase he's only thinking of protecting himself. That would worry me. It should cover what will happen in regards of your loss of earnings if you go part time, plus details of child maintenance and housing for you and the children in the event of a marriage breakdown. If he baulks at that or says how fair you know he'd be to you then I'd be getting pretty pissed off.

So you are happy for your sibling to have a prenup as that is protecting your family money but not for your husband to do the same as it protects his money. Sounds hypocritical to me.

If you had 175000 in a house would you be like your brother and protect it?

Why get married?

I can see both sides. I've known enough people who married when they were so in love and of course it was going to be forever, thry would never be those people who end up hating each other to become exactly that 5-10 years on with one getting chested on and losing half or more of everything they had accumulated before.

At the same time, if you're going to have children together, you really need to be both happy with how you envisioned family finances. You say you don't want to work FT because of how demanding it is. Indeed, it is, but that doesn't give you a right to decide on your own that you should be entitled to work pt and be supported by your OH. You need to both be happy with the decision, or come up with another compromise.

This really needs to be discussed now, before you start discussing the details of what your wedding will look like. These matters are much more important than your wedding dress or where to go on your honeymoon.

No I absolutely wouldn’t go along with this. Just look at my life. Dh and I met. We were hail and hearty. I was doing my degree. He’d graduated. We both then found jobs etc. When I had my dd a decade and a half later (we had trouble ttc) I ended up disabled and unable to work.

Before that we moved around a lot with his work and I became an overseas trailing spouse. We were happy to follow this life and scupper my chances of a long term career. I did work in some places but as we moved several times over the decade it wasn’t always possible and my earning potential was seriously diminished. These days it’s zero and dh has a very good salary.

With your prenup I would be left in poverty in the event of a divorce and as I’ve inherited a small property during the marriage perhaps he could try to take me for half of that.

I agree with a pp, who said use an independent solicitor, not one connected to his family. I would also only agree to secure max his £150k.

As for the £7k. Has he spent this money elsewhere? Please don’t let him think on the engagement ring would be ok. And as you’ve spent some of that money on the house, I think the £150k should be reduced down or him reimburse you the full amount you spent on the house to be saved as a deposit for a buy to let property for if he truly cared for you and your future children he would be wanting to buy you a property preferably before you are married to avoid the 3% additional stamp duty to protect you and any future children. (Although with Brexit house prices may go down but at least you’d have a property and feel less like a second class citizen).

He doesn’t sound like a good man if he won’t do those things. I’d be walking away. I understand you love him but you cannot let yourself be stitched up like this. Financial poverty is a real thing. He’s already telling you that in event of divorce he is so bent on not letting you take him for everything (which now is no longer possible) that he would possibly get very nasty and may even leave you in poverty in the belief that he is more than paying his way.

There are threads upon threads on this site, where men give their ex’s next to nothing, some resorting to hiding money and fraud. He may not think he’d act like this. But he’s so conditioned to think that a soon to be ex wife will try to fleece him that he may act as though he were in the event of divorce.

Don’t waste all of your fertile years on a man, who has decided all women are the same because of his experience of one woman. This is misogyny at its worst.

If you’re going to go down the pre-nip road (and I don’t think the assets currently involved really make sense for one), you need to add your £7k which went on home improvements to ‘his’ house, which must contribute to increasing its value?

I’d also not take a pay hit and go part or had dc with him as his career will got stellar whilst yours goes into reverse gear as you give up work to take of the dc as per ‘agreement’.

The last point especially is incredibly self destructive as this prenup is saying he gets the house, and anything else moving forward that he earns is his own but you get no financial recompense for the material loss to you to it your life on the back burner (financially) whilst you have and rear your mutual children.

That sounds like a terrible contract for you.

I’d quite like a wife if the above is how it works out financially.

I’d remain for now unmarried and get your savings back off him, I would spend my savings on a wedding either, it’s the only investment you have. I’d look to buying ‘my’ own house with ‘my’ money.

Because under current arrangements you’re looking at being made homeless with kids in tow and no earning power or savings whilst he gets everything.
Don’t think so.

I woldnt put my savings into a wedding.

I never saw the point in prenups. If someone feels that strongly about it then they just shouldn't get married IMO. You can live with someone your whole life, have a mortgage and raise kids, you don't need to get married to do any of this so why do it if you don't think you'll be a team for the rest of your lives?

Just my two cents there, not sure if I can offer much good advice OP, I'm just sorry you're going through this because it sounds miserable xx