To want a prenup?

[Deedee37]

I have assets (property) which I own together with my parents and siblings, and the flat we live in is mine. He doesn’t have any assets. Our income is similar. I asked him if we can do a prenup but he said that if I don’t trust him, I shouldn’t marry him.

To answer some questions….

I want to get married for love. I know IABU for this, but for me it’s about deciding to make a commitment to each other, and to have this day and the vows you made to look back on when more difficult times come.

He lives in my flat, on my invitation to do so. I’m not asking him to contribute to my mortgage and I don’t want him to pay rent. I also pay for furniture and household items. We share the bills, that’s enough for me. I’m in the lucky position to have some assets from family and inheritance, and I’m more than happy for him to be able to save some money so that he can make his own (or we can make joint) investments further down the line.

Obviously I wouldn’t put him on the street if we separated and I would be happy to support him financially and otherwise to find his own place, but I wouldn’t really feel comfortable with giving him half of this flat because it’s been paid for 100% by me. And for family assets, these were established long before meeting him and I have obligations towards my family so I want to protect these.

He is a great partner and he agrees that he has no claim on any of my assets. This was never the issue, he says he doesn’t feel comfortable with getting a solicitor and negotiating a prenup because it’s thinking about divorce when you’re supposed to be sure that it will be forever (why marry otherwise), and he also feels that it is a lack of trust. I fully understand and respect his opinion.

We are engaged and have already started planning the wedding. I’m gutted by the thought of not going through with it. He has offered to make it a commitment ceremony instead and run the day exactly as we planned, just with a celebrant instead of the registrar.
I know that this should be a really good solution - my assets are being protected, I get the ceremony, special day and commitment I want, and he doesn’t have to do a prenup he’s not comfortable with. Feeling a bit gutted though about not being able to call the love of my life my husband, particularly after our engagement and wedding plans.

If you want to get married, you can't marry him, so if that's what you want, you need to move on.

I think unfortunately your choices are either to accept the marital sharing of assets or stay unmarried.

I get the ceremony, special day and commitment I want

Only you don't, and that's what's bothering you. Like many people, you have a romanticised view of what marriage is - but you're still hard-headed enough not to want to marry a man who won't sign a pre-nup (leaving aside whether they have any legal validity or not).

The only way you can square this circle is by marrying a man who has at least as many assets as you do. Otherwise you're going to keep coming up against this problem.

Marriage means legally sharing absolutely everything. If you want to get married, you can't really say "I want to share absolutely everything with you, except for X, Y, and Z", because a potential spouse won't on the whole want to go down that route.

If you don't want to hand over your legal entitlement to your own money and your own assets, you can't get married.

Don't marry him.

a) Because you stand to lose a lot if you split up. If you've brought the assets to the table and you marry him the starting point in a divorce would be that he could take half of the assets (it's not a given that he would but you'd have to make the case as to why not).

b) Because he's pressuring you to marry him (probably for exactly this reason).

I'm moving in with my long term partner in similar circumstances to you (ie I have far greater assets than he does). For that reason I'm a) not ever going to marry him and b) I'm having legal documents drawn up to make clear what the asset split would be in the event of a separation.

My partner is completely fine with this because he accepts that its fair and equitable that my assets are legally protected. Yours isn't, and is trying to bully you into getting married. This is a huge red flag.

If you're going to stay with him (and I don't think you should) whatever you do don't get married.

I want to get married for love. I know IABU for this, but for me it’s about deciding to make a commitment to each other, and to have this day and the vows you made to look back on when more difficult times come.

But that's not what marriage is about. Marriage is a legal contract that underpins the sharing of financial assets between two people. It's designed essentially to protect the financially weaker partner in the relationship which, traditionally, was usually a woman when she was bearing and raising children.

That model works beautifully in that situation, which is why any woman who is considering being a SAHM or stopping work for any length of time is strongly advised to get married. It doesn't work as well in a scenario like yours, where you have brought all the assets to the table: in this case it's basically a meal ticket for him and you stand to lose everything you've built for yourself.

Being married to someone doesn't guarantee commitment. It simply buttresses the financial security of someone who isn't able to generate money on their own. This is not the case in your situation: you already have financial assets and you would simply be handing them over to them by doing this.

If you want to move him in and believe you have a future with him by all means do that but protect yourself legally: a) by not getting married and b) by making sure that if his name goes on any deeds relating to your house you get a trust deed drawn up to make clear where the asset split is.

@Thepeopleversuswork

How is he trying to pressurise the OP into marrying him? This is what she says:

he said that his decision not so sign a prenup is final, but that he would like to continue our relationship as before as unmarried couple to respect both our interests/opinions

@RachelFuchsalot

How is he trying to pressurise the OP into marrying him? This is what she says:

he said that his decision not so sign a prenup is final, but that he would like to continue our relationship as before as unmarried couple to respect both our interests/opinions

But the OP said originally: he said that if I don’t trust him, I shouldn’t marry him.

That's him trying to guilt her out of a prenup.

At any rate it doesn't really matter: the bottom line is that on no account should the OP marry him. A prenup might help a bit but it's not a silver bullet. The only way to guarantee the assets is to stay unmarried.

Definitely don't have a fake commitment ceremony. You'd have to explain to everyone it wasn't real and why it wasn't real and that would be super awkward for guests.

It is annoying that you can't get married "for love" if you have assets whereas anyone asset free can do it with zero risk.

The only way to guarantee the assets is to stay unmarried

Absolutely! @Thepeopleversuswork

That's ridiculous.

In no way is him saying he does not want to sign a PN indicate he's pressuring her. He's entitled to not want to sign a PN and doing so shouldn't have an automatic negative interpretation applied

I agree. If he was trying to bully her into marriage without a prenup he'd be saying we get married without a prenup or we split up. He wanted a marriage too, but he views it in a certain way which is incompatible with what OP wants, so remaining unmarried and OP having her assets protected is a compromise for both. Someone not wanting to sign a prenup doesn't make them a gold digger.

Sorry but that's absolutely ridiculous. Any spouse who cares an ounce about their other half would be rational enough to understand why a prenup is fair and reasonable to protect pre marital assets to which they have no right to. Why should I be entitled to half of what my husband earned before we got married- if he worked hard to buy a house of his own before marriage for example and then sold it after we got married and then we got divorced 5 years later why TF should I be entitled to 50% of that money. If you're not willing to accept a prenup you're showing your true colours and confirming you don't think logically and are probably an entitled greedy person.

To protect your assets.

I do think you will split over this

He doesn't think you love him enough to marry without a pre nup. He may always think that. So sensibly he's probably one day want to marry someone and therefore to leave.
It will always be there at the back of his mind. And yours.

Someone not wanting to sign a prenup doesn't make them a gold digger.

I agree but I do think it makes them naive. "The divorce rate in the United Kingdom is estimated at 42 per cent"

He's already living there rent free. He's in a win-win situation . The OP ... not so much.

@EliflurtleAndTheInfiniteMadness

I agree. If he was trying to bully her into marriage without a prenup he'd be saying we get married without a prenup or we split up. He wanted a marriage too, but he views it in a certain way which is incompatible with what OP wants, so remaining unmarried and OP having her assets protected is a compromise for both. Someone not wanting to sign a prenup doesn't make them a gold digger.

I don't know... Call me cynical but I think if an able bodied man marries a woman with far more assets than he does he'd have to have been living under a rock to not realise his luck was in big time. If he had any real respect and love for the OP he would understand that she was putting herself in a precarious position and support her desire to protect herself. Frankly if he really loved her he wouldn't be supporting the marriage plan at all: it's a suicidally bad idea for the OP to get married. My partner totally understands that marriage would be an insanely bad idea for me.

Marriage is not designed as a meal ticket for men who want to coast off women: its designed to protect women raising children. It has no relevance in this situation.

At any rate this is all somewhat irrelevant: it's clearly the OP who is driving the desire to get married and not him and its the OP who needs talking out of it, pronto.

Could you put your property into a limited company then you won't own it because a limited company is an entity in its own right. You would own shares or you could put them I to your Mum's name.

Such very different answers to past threads when it’s been a man wanting one.

You should have discussed this before getting engaged and starting to plan the wedding.

Have a commitment ceremony if you want to but don’t pretend it’s a legal wedding, don’t pretend he’s your husband. You don’t want to fully commit by joining your assets because he won’t agree to the half commitment your now offering so you don’t get to be married to him.

I wouldn’t marry you either.

Is this a viable option? Do you know anyone that has done this? interesting idea.

You sound like someone who is either naive, greedy or both

People always bring this up, though, but it's not a comparable situation.

It's entirely legitimate for a woman who is planning to be raising children and scaling back her career to want to marry a man and share half his assets: she knows her earning power is going to be significantly limited by the need to care for children and that marriage is legal protection.

A man marrying a wealthier woman has no such limiting factors in his way. He will never be expected to stop work or downgrade work in order to bear and raise children. In that situation the marriage is pure financial upside with no requirement to meet the same threshold of contribution.

Marriage is not about love and commitment. It's about money and financial protection. Failing to understand that leaves so many woman up shit creek financially: we need to stop pretending that its the same situation on both sides of the coin. It's not.

Nah, toss this fishy back into the sea. Thieve issues are absolutely fundamental to the basis of a relationship.

If you want the "living together" relationship to be equal you should rent out your property and rent or buy something different together, each paying 50%. Let's see how interested he'll be when living together suddenly becomes far more expensive for him?

Not true.

This is sensible and probably more effective than a prenup truth be told.

i was advised prenups become “less valid” post children.