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Breaking: Single 40 year old man spends Friday night posting about prenups and cheating women online.
If the lawyer is good enough even the best prenups won't mean shit for anything that can be argued to the court to be marital assets, regardless of what you and your spouse agreed to contractually. Have had 2 friends learn this the hard way because the laws are so fickle state-by-state. That said, IMO the best way to protect pre-marital assets is an irrevocable living trust. Because at that point they're no longer "your" assets.
I do a lot of trolling on this site but I'm going to answer this one seriously
If you even slightly believe there is a remote possibility of her cheating, either (a) she's for the streets, (b) you are inadequate [physically, financially, or any combination thereof], or (c) both.
There is literally no benefit of getting married because there is nothing you can do as a married couple that you cannot do jointly.
When I think back to all the cases I did during my MBA at a top target school (HBS) I can't make sense of this decision from a case-study perspective.
Hey did you go to a top target MBA by any chance?
Yes, I went IB -> PE -> HBS MBA -> Founder -> Exit
If you’re approaching marriage from “a case-study perspective,” I doubt you’re going to have to make that decision any time soon, champ.
Removing the romanticism that we are Mr. & Mrs. Smith (yay), the most important perspective on marriage is that it's an economic arrangement. Everything else is secondary. If you would go into a 10 year business venture with just a 2 page agreement, then you'll probably get fucked, and rightly so. However, if you use trusts, a prenup, extremely good counsel, separate accounts, etc. then you drastically increase your chances of protecting your assets.
My perspective is that she should be entitled to part of your assets in a divorce only if you had children, because certain sacrifices are assumed to have taken place.
But women who divorce and never gave you a kid are entitled to Z-E-R-O (...cooked some eggs a few days a week? BIG SHIT YOU WHORE!! As a matter of fact, I do eat worse when I live with women...)
Would have to disagree with your general assessment of what marriage "is", but perhaps my thought process is just splitting hairs and could be disregarded entirely for the simple fact that I'm not married.
IMO there's 2 kinds of marriage:
There's religious marriage - Isaiah is Catholic so he probably looks at it more through this perspective - that's about the relationship, love, having kids, and forming a contract about your commitment to one another through god.
Then there's the economic arrangement - that's an extension of the state, being it's a contract recognized by the government for tax purposes and provides a basis for legal disputes over co-owned assets.
I do partly agree with your last statement though re if you're getting divorced and you don't have any kids. In that scenario she shouldn't be entitled to any of "your" assets, only things she had a part in purchasing/investing in and only an amount relative to her contribution. Leave with what you came with and what you contributed, nothing more nothing less.
marriage is a legal institution because it alters the rights and obligations of those involved which are predominantly economic given that lots of the reason on why marriage was invented are obsolete, so anything beyond that is subjective and therefore open to judgment
idea is that you can love, have affection, etc. but always see marriage for what it is: a contract that changes your economic relationship... the rest, the "decor" surrounding it (e.g. until death sets us apart, etc.), indulge yourself as much as you want... because it will only change your incentive to marry, not what the marriage actually changes or accomplishes...
ps. to not be so nihilistic, I do believe that beyond the economic aspect marriage also has a strong psychological element to it in that it creates a strong social ritual (the wedding) that creates some social costs to walk away from the marriage as you're breaking a social expectation / feel some peers guilt if not justified as you're breaking a social committment that your parents, friends, family, etc. is expecting you to live up to
For the record, I am pro marriage and believe in the family life / romantic reasoning behind it, but I'm also raising some awareness on the significance of the paper you sign ...
The right policy move I think is to make them opt-out rather than opt-in. I can only see them being objectively a sensible thing to have (as in, pre-nup being ring-fenced for a defined sub-set of divorce reasons, such as infidelity). But having one party actively raise that topic at the most romantic and emotionally-charged point of a relationship is an ugly and unpleasant conversation. Other than enforcability (which is an issue, e.g. proving that someone cheated), I would be genuinely curious to hear the counter-argument
The counter-argument is that you do not need marriage to experience emotions, love, intimacy, or commitment. Among all the reasons behind the creation of marriage as an institution, the only one that meaningfully remains today is the economic unity between the parties. The paternity presumption, hereditary functions, and many of the original structural purposes have become largely obsolete.
Which is to say that, for many women, marriage is perceived primarily as a romantic event because that is how it is marketed and socially framed: the ring, the ceremony, the dress, the celebration, the life milestone, etc. meanwhile, the only legal status it actually changes is the economic relationship between both partners (leaving aside for now the decision-making on your dead bed, which can wait).
I am more than sure that lots of women that push and pressure for marriage fall into the same bucket as the statistics showing that the more expensive the wedding was the higher the divorce rate.
So marriage is to a make a woman feel special and give her something to brag. Someone that loves you could stay 10 years with you without not caring as much if you haven't proposed yet.
She wants to marry you to form a family, and such? Perfect, sign the pren-up and other arrangments that I laid above, and let's have a family. "Nooo, why would you ask for this, etc." "Well, the pren-up is only applicable if we divorce, do you want a family or not" "Yes" "So?" and then she shifts the argument to ad hominem... do you marry because of ad hominem arguments, or because it is logical? think about it...
besides, the best argument is to tell her "that I trust you, but I can't trust you in an adversarial situation in an ex post divorce event", so hope we never get there and we don't need to use it because it's not an attack on you as of now, it's an attack on a potential version of you, in a future far away, that will not resemble who you are now... very good metaphysical argument... strong... (she might tell you to fuck off, so it's now a matter to decide if this woman is worth risking your future net worth or if you can find another one)
P.S. the bolt part goes both ways, "babe, wouldn't you trust me to be the one in a divorce to decide how much to allocate you? don't you trust me to the point you need a court to interfere in our matters? u don't trust my reason?" and then you act like the victim ... uno reverse, very good... check mate, darling...
It is a bad question, because in many places the answer is that it doesn't matter.
Besides, any competent lawyer is going to tear that sort of thing apart, no matter where the jurisdiction is. Which makes sense. Yes, she cheated... but he beat her, or he cheated first, or anything else under the sun.
Prenups are not some "Get Out of Jail Free" card. They are useful in that they're a way to reasonably equitably divide up a marital estate before things get acrimonious. If you're trying to use them as a tool to punish bad behavior, you're going to be extremely disappointed and bitter when you fail.
You can call it cliche, but the saying that resonates most when I hear questions like this is, "when you find the right one, you worry about her dying, not her cheating"
Additionally, marry a woman who A. understands the value of a dollar and B. knows how to earn one and these prenup topics may be far less relevant. She doesnt need to earn the same as you, but there is a big difference between a wife who makes 60k vs. 160k, and a career path that has limited upside vs. meaningful promotion opportunities and a path toward an annual salary of $300-500k.
A prenup is probably recommended if one of you has BPD.
Any business partnership should have an operating agreement, but especially if someone is high conflict. Personality can be predictive of future behavior.
That said, marrying your college gf when you both didn’t have more than $5,000 to your name, is probably the simplest. No prenup.
There’s a great author named Bill Eddy who has books and podcasts such as “It’s All Your Fault: Working with High Conflict Personalities.” I highly recommend, since if you want to do great things in your life, you will encounter these people and should know how to identify/avoid/manage/defeat them.
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