You are here

Pre-nup advice needed

CBCharlotte's picture

My SO and I plan to marry next year (we should be engaged in a month or two). I've mentioned it once or twice in passing, but once we are engaged I want to start working on a pre-nup. I feel very strongly that this will protect us both. His last divorce from BM2 was long and drawn out and messy as she was so greedy and wanted all of his money. She even raided her step daughters college fund (who she loves sooooo much bla bla bla). Disgusting woman. I obviously want to go into my marriage in love and trust and good faith. I love him very much. If we ever, god forbid, get to a point where we divorce, I don't want to turn into us hating each other and fighting over money. I'd rather lay things out in advance so we can have peace.

Background is that SO is 20 years older than me. He makes high 6 figures and I just hit 6 figures, so we are financially well off. People assume that he is my sugar daddy due to our age gap, but I am completely financially independent. I have a large 401k and Roth IRA in addition to my own savings. I have never taken a single dollar from him and we take turns paying for most dates. He wouldn't have been able to keep the house post divorce (when he was paying her off) if I didn't move in and help with the bills. I have no children and he has 4 (2 with BM1 and 2 with BM1)

I will also be having my lawyer prepare wills, living wills, health power of attorney,etc. He is the beneficiary on my life insurance and 401K and Roth IRA, and I am the beneficiary on his.

Do you have any advice as to what should be included in the pre-nup? Any step-related things that you wouldn't necessarily include in a "regular" pre-nup?

Some things I was thinking:
1) Any debts incurred before the marriage, including future payments such as child support and court ordered college funding, is the responsibility of the party whose debt it is. I want to make sure he doesn't come after me for money towards his future child support or college funding for HIS kids. I don't think he ever would, but god forbid he lost his job and I was still earning, I don't want to take on that debt

2) If we divorce, if SO decides to keep the house he must pay me back what I have put into it. If he sells it I receive my portion back. SO owns the house and it is in his name, but I pay about $1300 towards mortgage, bills etc. each month.

3)I would like to put in some sort of infidelity clause....like if our marriage dissolves due to infidelity then the offending party owes the other X%. I know I will be faithful and I know SO will, but he has wavered in a past relationship

4) His last wife cleaned out his retirement savings, which is disgusting considering they were only married for less than 3 years. I want to make a clause like your SO is entitled to Y% of your retirement for each year they are married. This would apply to me as well, of course. In addition to working an important job of my own, I support SO so he can be a high level exec. There are plenty of times I pick up his kids, dry cleaning, switch out cars etc etc so he can continue working and earning. He wouldn't be where he was without me, his supporting partner. Do you think this sounds fair or greedy? Obviously he would be entitled to Y% of my earnings as well

5)Should I put in some clause about if we have a child together?

I literally have no idea what I'm doing. Who out there has a pre-nup, and what does it say?

Comments

CBCharlotte's picture

On #5, his ex2, BM2, wanted way above and beyond the state max on child support. Fought tooth and nail and gets a ridiculous sum. I obviously would want to avoid that. I don't know, I just don't want to fight

BethAnne's picture

1 - sounds reasonable
2 - I would seriously look at getting your name on the house if you are paying the mortgage. Not sure if you can get it stated that you own x% of the house and he owns y% rather than a usual 50/50.
3 - scrap this. I would stick to financial issues in the pre-nup personally. Either you trust that he will be faithful or you don't. If you don't and infidelity is a deal breaker to you then you need to seriously rethink marrying him. If you choose to go ahead you do it knowing that you risk him being unfaithful and you will have to live with the consequences of that.
4 - I'm unsure on how this works. A lawyer would tell you what is standard
5 - If you plan on having kids then I suppose this should be taken into account here, though not sure what sort of clause you want to put in.

As above, consult a lawyer. Make sure each of you has your own legal representation so that you know your best interests are being taken into account.

CBCharlotte's picture

Good advice on the separate counsel. I have a "legal aid" plan where I pay a certain amount of $ each paycheck and it goes towards legal counsel in certain situations should I need it. It also covers my spouse. Maybe they can assign him someone, or he can find his own? I'm going to have my lawyer draft it.

CBCharlotte's picture

This is a good point. I didn't even think of that....I always thought that pre-nup was for divorce and will was for death. What would you put in a pre-nup that you wouldn't in a will?

spackle's picture

I think you can run into an issue where, if your spouse dies, they can leave joint property to someone in their will.

So if your house is jointly owned, and he dies and leaves his half of the house to his kid - you have to buy out the skid, even if that means selling your house to get the money.

BethAnne's picture

Reading some of these reminded me of a woman I know who made an unofficial pre-nup prior to marring her husband that set out household chores etc so that each of them knew what their responsibilities where at it was tailored to each of their skills/priorities rather than expecting each would do 50% of everything. It isn't something I would want to do as I think you need the flexibility in a marriage for change but it worked really well for them.

amber3902's picture

Notthemomma, I thought pre-nups were just to cover money issues. I didn't think you could cover things like who does the cooking and laundry, or that you could dictate behavior for family vacations.

And what happens when he doesn't follow the rules in the pre-nup, like this one -

"All decisions that affect me are to be presented to me with reasonable advance notice. It is my discretion to determine what is reasonable and if it doesn't meet with my satisfaction, I will have final say in the decision."

What happens when he doesn't give you "reasonable advance notice"?