Fiancée asking for Prenuptial agreement

[Sistersis]

Posting on here for traffic because I would like a range of viewpoints.

Fiancée is asking for a prenup. When we meet he had zero, both two young people getting started in life. His business ventures have really taken off and he's come to serious money. We previously discussed it before and he previously said he didn't want it.

But now he has changed his mind upon reading some article about some man being forced to hand over 40% of his monthly paycheck. His parents are also divorced. Mine are not.

I earn above average but nowhere near as him. I feel as though he's changed his mind because he's come in to money. He said he wants to make sure 'I'm protected'.

We are getting married abroad where its community split by law over there.

Should I sign? What would you do?

Have I been made a fool out of?

How is you signing a pre nup protecting you ?

He's proposing to give me 20% of his income.

Bahahahaha that would be a massive no from me.
If you want to marry him I’d spend some cash and engage a proper lawyer and hash it out...

There’s an episode of SATC where prissypants Charlotte has to do it with her first husband

I’d also seeking to negotiate across multiple variables and I’d be creative...

• Pension @ equal to his own
• Incremental $ for each child born
• either a tiered % or fixed lump sum “bonuses” for no of years married
• A guarantee of ownership of martial home

I would not agree to this from the information you have disclosed. Time to move on. He is dreadful.

*NFW. He wants you to enable his career at the sacrifice of your earning potential, financial security and pension and yet be left with nothing in the event of a split.

Not fair. Controlling. Bollocks.*

Another vote for this ^^

Thank you for your views here. Really are opening my eyes.

A prenup agreement by definition is a mutually agreed not imposed. It should be a legal statement of conversations any couple would have about their marital finances. It should take account of disparity in wealth and income, joint pension planning, the impact of career breaks, the impact of having and raising children, joint parenting responsibilities, the impact of ill health and what this means if you split up.

These issues are not just matters that should be assumed or brushed under the "trust" carpet. If you can't talk about them or even agree them then you shouldn't make a commitment like marriage and definitely should not have children.

I would not be bothered by a prenup but I would be bothered by an expectation that I should be a SAHP, that I would move abroad and that I would accept a % of something without stating a minimum threshold held in trust.

Neither of you sound ready for marriage or parenthood with each other if these things are not out in the open.

Shh premise aren't a legal document in UK?

How old are you both and how long have you been dating? Why have you not lived together before now?

Pre-nups can be fair to both parties: pay for separate legal advice. It sounds likely, sadly, that he doesn’t want a fair one, he wants one benefiting only him.

“At some point, he does want to move abroad to continue expanding his business. With the move abroad, that would require me to stop working because my profession wouldn't immediately translate”.

I told DH before marriage that I would not be willing to relocate for his job, in the UK or internationally, since I had already relocated to London for him, and an international move with no visa/job would be very bad for my career and earnings. Nor would I be a SAHM, so he would need to share parenting Monday to Friday as well as at weekends.

Tbh, if he had come into the relationship with money I'd appreciate his point, but as he made it while in the relationship I think it's a bit off.

When you get married it's meant to be a life-long, equal partnership. I can just about get prenups in countries where there the done thing or very wealthy people who are being counselled by professional advisors but it doesn't sound like either applies to your fiance. He just wants his cake and to eat it. A good little wife who will go where he says, stay at home, raise his children, do the housework and fuck off quietly with a pittance when she finally realises she's married a wrong un or he takes up with his secretary.

So this is the bit that irks me slightly, he's expecting me to give up work etc and be SAHM.

That's the clincher. I'd sign one of these (only after independent legal advice) only on the strict proviso that I would not be expected to become a stay at home parent and give up my career to facilitate his. It would have to be one or the other (albeit I wouldn't have wanted to give up my career under any pretext). But to proceed with the marriage on this basis for me would be impossible.

If this is the precedent your fiance is wanting to set for your future life, be wary. It sounds, from the brief information provided in your OP, that he wants to have his cake, eat it, and make trifle out of it as well.

My dh and I met as students when we had nothing. We supported each other through starting a business (his) and a postgrad degree (mine). We now are both high earners. My dh’s business has exploded. We were surviving on very little when we met, living with parents and flat mates. He now runs a very successful business with celebrity clients. I am an academic at a top university. No way would either of us have signed a prenup. We made our money and built a life together. There have been times we both sacrificed and put things we wanted to do on the back burner for the other’s career. If you aren’t a team, unless one of you came in with inherited wealth from some Russian czar four generations back, what’s the point of getting married? Do not give up work you love for a man.

So he wants you to give away all of your earning potential while protecting his assets so you have nothing if you divorce?
If he cheats or is abusive and you need to leave with your children you won't have a job or rights to the house you live in. You'll be stuck. You won't be able to get a job easily if you've been out of work for a while and possibly no savings.
The fact that he apparently loves you enough to marry you but not enough to protect you if you divorce should say a lot.

he's expecting me to give up work etc and be SAHM

Do you want to do this?

Living with him isn't the issue. I never lived with DH and we've been married over 20 years.

If you stop working, what happens to your NI and pension contributions?

I personally think it's a chauvanistic view to expect a woman to give up work and become a SAHM.

So your career ends as soon as kids come along...and gus business thrives...

Don't you have any desire to continue developing professionally?

Have you discussed how many kids you'll have?

What access to money will you have when you give up work?

You should walk away.

He does NOT have your best interest at heart at all. Nor that of future children

He wants you to give up your job to be a SAHM, he wants you to move for his business to a place you can’t work, he wants you to sign a prenup when he had nothing when you got together....

How much more clear could he be about how little he thinks of you?

You’d be MAD to stay with him, let alone sign a pre nup.

I have NO problem with people having pre nups that ring fence assets they come into a relationship with, or even ring fencing an inheritance, but no bloody way their income and no to ANY of it if the OTHER person becomes a SAHP. No bloody way.

He’s pretty much signing you up to be a brood mare. Ffs.

if you don't think it's right, don't marry him.

Just a point in relation to the legality or otherwise of prenups. Traditionally, these haven't been legally binding in the UK, but apparently courts are increasingly taking note of them in more recent days.

There are so many things in the UK - grandparents' rights for one - that appear not to be enshrined in UK law, but when it comes down to it, they are, and present some very nasty shocks some way down the line for quite a number of people. I've learned this to my cost. It pays never to be complacent and to ensure you receive specialist, individual advice based on your own unique set of circumstances. Google won't answer these questions unfortunately, as there are all manner of unexpected loopholes.

The law is an ass - and it's a slippery little sucker as well.

He's really worked it all out, hasn't he? And every single step of the way he's only thinking of himself. That is incredibly worrying and I'd never recommend anyone married someone like this. Don't forget if you marry him and live abroad with him and a baby, if it goes tits up (which, given his selfishness, is very, very likely) then you can't leave that country.

You can do better than this, OP.

Definitely don’t move to a country where upon divorce you wouldn’t be able to return to the UK with the DC.

Draw up your own contract stipulating that your career is given equal value to his, that childcare will be split exactly fifty fifty,both the cost and the practicalities, that housework will be fifty :fifty and that you be allowed to save so that you aren't forced to live a drastically reduced lifestyle in the event of a divorce and that you won't be persuaded in to spending more of your savings than you can afford to, just to live his lifestyle.

@sandy2k, that is it, I lived with a financially abusive man in the uk, and when I returned to Ireland, i was too old to ever have 35 years' worth of stamps in my own country. I'll be entitled to something here but it won't be the full state social welfare pension, and the 100% amount is hardly enough to live on.

Run Forest. Run.

Lots of red flags as described by PPs.

You haven't yet lived together & he has decided you will give up your career.

Whilst you live in the U.K. our courts determine divorce proceedings and whilst they do recognise prenups they are not absolute and can be overturned if the court believes it's unfair. If you do move overseas and give up work then you have far less protection but that's the case without one too. I would question whether he really wants to marry, or who is suggesting this - whilst with couples marrying later in life with children already from previous relationships a prenup makes a lot of sense, for a younger couple without kids even with a successful business it makes me wonder why