Fiancé asking for a prenup

[Aquea]

Fiancé and I have had a relatively short relationship. We’ve only been together for two years. I basically had to make it very clear that I would not be having children without being married. Just for legal protection. Got a bit of push back on that in the early days but I did say that marriage was a non negotiable for me and if that wasn’t for fiance then he and I should part ways.

Anyway, now we are engaged. Fiancé has asked I sign a prenup. Fiancé has his own successful business. We’re not talking a champagne lifestyle but he is comfortable enough and owns several assets. His business is fairly large - employs 35 people. But the margins are small and the overheads are massive.

I don’t have an issue in some regards as I’m certainly not marrying for the sake of money alone. I plan to carry on working FT.

But the actual concept is extremely cynical and unromantic. It’s really made me feel shit. Like I can’t be trusted. I’m kind of sick of indirectly having to convince fiancé that I am good person to marry.

We plan to have children.

it just feels like it’s one thing after another. Ie having to explain my reasoning for wanting to get married and now a prenup. The path to being engaged just seems already so negotiated.

@Aquea i don’t think you are compatible and id reconsider staying with him .
You will be left holding the kids and struggling financially.

He doesn’t actually want to get married. There is absolutely nothing in the information provided by the OP to suggest that he is going to behave in the way you describe. Nothing. She’s the one who wants to get married - to protect her financial interests. He wants to protect the business he’s built up, employing 35 people, so that in the event of divorce he doesn’t lose half of it (and put employees’ jobs at risk). That’s protecting his business’s (and his) financial interests. There is no difference whatsoever between their respective desires to protect their interests.

He is protecting the 35 people he employs. Their lives and mortgages depend on them having a job. I understand its not the most romantic thing but if you were to divorce and he had to pay you half the business's worth the business would probably fold. That impacts lots of people who it really shouldn't.

I have nothing against pre-nups in principle, as long as each party has truly independent legal advice and there is'nt a huge power imbalance. I don't believe that they have legal validity in the UK, but courts can take them into account. This is something you should discuss with a solicitor.

However, from the tone of your posts @Aquea , I would not be marrying or having children with this person. Children can turn even the best marriage upside down, and parents need to be on the same page to successfully raise kids. You sound like you feel insufficiently cherished. If this is the case two years in before you even have kids, bear in mind that it's not likely to get better. Sorry to be a downer, but it's better to be realistic. If you still want to marry him and have children with him, make sure that childcare (even split, payment, pension top ups for a SAHP etc) and potential solutions for catastrophic cases (disability due to birth trsuma etc) are included in the pre-nup. It won't be enforceable, but it'll make him consider your concerns, and what's good for the goose is good for the gander!

Make sure you see a solicitor of your choice (pref one with experience of representing women/potential mothers, experienced in divorce, family law), and see him/her alone. Your fiancé should not accompany you - he can give you his draft pre-nup ahead. Then you can give him your counter offer having seen your solicitor.

Personally, I would not want to marry a man who was keen for me to have children at my risk only (before marriage) but now wants a prenup to protect his business and pre-marriage assets. This type of man might also find it easy not to pay himself enough salary (due to "business difficulties") to pay CMS should that become necessary down the line. Think ahead, because he is.

If you want to be a Father, your instincts and priorities should be about protecting them not your business and money!

There is nothing about a prenup which doesn’t protect children’s interests. Please refer to my earlier posts.

True but op is asking opinions from her perspective. It’s not a punishment op has to endure because she insisted on being married before having kids for practical reasons.

It sounds like OP’s partner has reluctantly proposed marriage which should be highlighted to op as she is the one thinking enough about this relationship to ask on an anonymous forum, not her busy with important matters fiancée. Fiancée seems passive about everything other than his business, financial aspect of his life.

I would leave him. A close friend of mine's sister signed a prenup in similar circumstances. The guy had a million and it was the 90s so worth more then than now. They had 3 kids and despite being employed and fulfilled, this woman tried to kill herself as she was so miserable in her marriage.

It's just never a good starting point. Its a starting point of dis-trust rather than trust and that's never going to go well.

This poster is 100% right though. I am involved in the legal profession (well legal education now but many years experience of practice) and I would have said exactly the same. I hope YOU aren’t involved in the legal profession (or family law at least) with your comments that she should sign and not worry because it will not be worth the paper it’s written on in a few years.

If it seems.s like an uphill battle now, marriage might be "downhill, fast".
It's not easy. You have to really want to be together. There are bound to be other guys out there who would jump at the chance of marrying you?

Prenups are 100% taken into account- especially in a short marriage. If you’ve been married 25 years there’s a good argument to disregard them. If you’re divorcing after 5 years the court would 100% take them into account.

I think you should walk away, OP. He is going into marriage with the mindset that it's his business, and in the event of divorce he should keep all the assets and proceeds of this business. So you have kids, your career is impacted, he devotes himself to his business while you keep the family fed and dressed. And at the end he gets to walk away with the business your labour has allowed to thrive.

Put it this way. If this guy decided he wanted kids, but with no wife involved, how much would he have to pay to a surrogate, then to nannies and housekeepers so he could carry on running his business? Kids are really, really expensive in terms of time and money, but it sounds like he wants to have them entirely at your expense.

OP, you are being wise thinking of negative scenarios in getting married. He is being wise thinking of the same. It really is the same.

i can’t judge whether this is a good man or the relationship is right for you. You haven’t given enough info. But I don’t think the prenup is proof that it’s not right.

the terms of the prenup matter a lot. It’s a very sensible and pragmatic thing to do before a marriage in which assets are unequal. Especially so when he has employees in his company. In fact, I’d say it was irresponsible of him not to if he didn’t. Companies can get split up and torn apart in a divorce, jeopardising the livelihood of 35 People. If he has a proper board, I would think they would even insist on a prenup.

I would not think of this as a lack of trust- marriages can fail for numerous reasons- they simply do statistically. Doesn’t mean he thinks you are after his money. I’m sure if he thought that, he wouldn’t be marrying you. It just means you need a plan that you both agree on in the case that this doesn’t work out. I went through divorce without a prenup and in many ways I wished I had one (even though he had more family assets), because the pain, trauma and legal expense of wrangling over what happens financially is huge, on top of th pain of the split up.

I am remarried and I have one now. This time, I have more assets. And it was simply a way of clarifying that big part of our lives and how we both saw it. It’s not legally binding in the uk, but it helped us have the right conversations before and it’s reasonable so is highly likely to stand if it is ever needed.

However, the conditions are vital to look at properly- and yes you need your own solicitor. There are some prenups that basically just suggest the person doesn’t get anything. You mustn’t sign that.. If you are planning to have children, you can assume you will be sacrificing your career and earning power and massively contributing to his ongoing success professionally. So it should instead lay out very fair provision for yourself and the children, which I would think would overemphasize your share of disposable assets, while protecting his company from being split up or having you have an ongoing controlling role in it.

I know it’s not nice to think about. And I’d advise do it early, so you can then relax into plenty of romantic time before the wedding. Then you are free to feel and decide if this is the right thing for you. But I would t make the prenup the deal breaker.

I agree with you in that I also would not have children outside of wedlock (in fact I chose to forego children full stop rather than that) but it seems like his objection to marriage is financial risk, hence the pre-nup. Marriage is a contract and while I would not be opposed you really need to make sure you are on the same page financially. Definitely you should be doing pre-marital counselling and also consult your own legal advice for the pre-nup. Also consider what happens with kids, if you have to adjust the way you do paid work and if the pre-nup recognises that. But things can change dramatically once kids arrive and is he ready for you to be viewed as “one unit” or does he see you both retaining your independence within marriage.

I'm sorry, I really don't get this. You're protecting your future and he's protecting his. As much as we all want romance and lifetime relationships, we all know they don't always work out. Bitterness seeps in and I hear of horror stories all the time.
Mumsnetters always say to ensure that us women don't leave ourselves unprotected when having children/moving in with someone, which is rightly so but why does it feel cold and transactional when it is the man doing it?

Narrowly viewed, I'd have to agree with you. However, since it is the mother who takes ALL of the physical risk of child bearing, as well as the lion's share of the psychological risk (PPD, PPM etc), it's in most children's interests that the mother be well protected. This is probably one of the reasons that UK courts do not take pre-nups into consideration unless they choose to.

He is being responsible, he also has to make sure his employees are safe in their jobs.

My issue with this is, how enforceable is a pre-nup... not very would be the answer following a cursory glance. I can understand you wishing to avail yourself of the primary protections that marriage bestows, but currently his insistence to do this has red-flags and it feels as though he is setting it up to fail. So my advice is to walk away.

it just feels like it’s one thing after another. Ie having to explain my reasoning for wanting to get married and now a prenup. The path to being engaged just seems already so negotiated.

So why are you with him? I would not want to marry anybody who did not share my views on marriage.

The children's emotional interests aren't covered in a pre nup though are they? Their parents' marriage based on a starting position of mistrust not authentic love and protection of one another. More, if it goes belly up, how can I screw your Mother over in the future!

Because men aren't usually the ones who lose out in terms of career when children arrive. Men don't generally need protection, because they can work unhindered by fatherhood. This one is more concerned about the cost to himself of marriage and kids, rather than the cost to his wife.

Nonsense. Companies aren't just liquidated on divorce, they're sold. And in most sales, the new owners are keen to retain good workers.

English courts do not have an unqualified “choice” as to whether to enforce the terms of a prenup which has been validly entered into in compliance with the criteria set out in my earlier post. They will only not enforce a prenup if those criteria are not present.