Depends who. No woman will like it but not every woman has the same leverage. A HCB will have too many options to accept such a deal. The other end of the spectrum is a price taker; she might not like it but she won’t have as much pull, especially if she put in a good amount of years in the relationship and is over 30.
it’s threads like these that remind of all the married guys that I constantly hear say… ‘marriage? don’t do it. stay single. be free’
^ the only guys that I know that seem to actually be happy are the ones that married up, either in income, looks, etc.
^ I was talking to an actuary the other day (he’s a big shot at Intact) and he told me he wouldn’t mind having a few babies with a woman with equivalent assets before splitting up. He told me seeing his kids every second week while keeping an open schedule the other week (freedom) is a good balance. He told me his parents divorced when he was very young and most of his friends experienced the same thing and they all turned out all right.
^ I’m in that situation; I see my boy once every 2-3 weeks. I miss him a bunch and would much rather see him every day.
^ Yeah, I can’t imagine someone who actually has kids would say that they would only want to see them every 2 weeks. On the surface that might sound good, but I couldn’t imagine not seeing my kid every day.
obviously not.
- infinity
^Agreed.
Sometimes I don’t get to see my kids every night, if I’m travelling or something. But I love seeing my kids every day. I couldn’t imagine only getting to see them every other weekend or something.
I simply don’t get how any reasonable person can think he/she can have _ any claim _ on the other person’s assets or income. I just can’t comprehend or relate to that.
I don’t understand pre-nups. I’m not rich enough to need one or will ever likely be though. I’m just really wondering where the line is on this. Why are people marrying at all if they don’t think this person is someone to spend the rest of their days with? To me it’s less about the claim to the money and more about the skeptical perspective one party has on the relationship. I’m just hypothesising but if people weren’t flaunting serious dough then they wouldn’t be attracting people just interested in their money.
I wonder where everyone on here would draw their pre-nup line too in terms of dollar amounts?
I disagree with this. (and I’m a guy with great aspirations)
I think that your choice of spouse has a profound impact on your career, and ultimately, your net worth. My wife and I both work, and we split household chores pretty much down the middle. At this point, it’s hard to tell how much of the money in the tupperware jar is hers and how much is mine.
If I were lucky enough that my wife didn’t have to work, then I still have some obligation to her. After all, she’s (in theory) keeping the house and raising the kids, while I go to work and make money. If she wasn’t doing all that, then I’d be spending far less time at work, and the net worth would be far less.
Obviously, when the man is hiring a butler and a maid and a gardener and a cook and a nanny, and all the wife does is watch “The View” and sip martinis all day at the Country Club on her husband’s dime, that would be a different story.
I agree with this as well. If a guy asks me for a pre-nup, he seriously doesn’t know me enough for us to get married. The exception would (and never will) be if he comes from a multimillionaire family money. I would not expect his family to trust me that much.
^ I attribute a ton of my success at work to my wife. If I didn’t have her support and help with the kid (she works too, professionally), I’d have lost my mind months ago. I simply couldn’t do my job and maintain my outside of work life at the same level without her. Not even close. While we earn comparable amounts, if she was at home full time or something, I can certainly understand a justified claim on my income/assets. She also sacrificed a year of career to stay home post-kid. She takes a day off when the kid is too sick to go to daycare. These are all intangibles that greatly help me financially.
At GM amd Geo.
I was mostly referring to the après-divorce behavior of a person. Whatever the financial/work arrangement during the marriage is up to a couple to decide (and mutually agree on) based on their own unique set of circumstances.
In many ways, a family is a business, where one of the goals is typically raising children and providing mutual support. Both parties are building something and putting in various types of equity, and sacrificing other opportunities to do so. It seems to me that when the partners do not want to be in the business together, some division of assets constructed makes sense. I don’t think making it purely a question of who put in cash equity the way it would be in a traditional business is exactly the way to do it, because we tend to think that a wife (or alternately, a husband) shouldn’t just be hired help for domestic labor and child care services by a spouse that earns a lot more. Though maybe there will be marriage contracts that are more like that in the future.
I think the case for claims on other persons’ assets and income streams are definitely much larger when the marriage has been long lasting. And, in particular, you don’t want people staying in loveless or even abusive relationships simply because divorcing would leave a person in poverty.
That doesn’t have to mean “half” but it does mean “some” for relationships that endure some length of time (such as 8 or 10 years, or where one of the divorcing partners will have child-care responsibilities. However, it’s part of lawyers’ jobs to ask for at least half and try to libel the spouse in order to justify it. My ex had a basically peaceable divorce with her former husband, and lawyers were busy trying to get her to say that he was violent to her (he was not, he was just cold). Often times it’s the lawyers who are busy getting couples angrier at each other.
It’s hard to get billable hours when everything is quick and easy.
Well my wife has made career sacrifices of her own for our family to achieve our goals. She would be undoubtably worse off professionally if she went out on her own today than had she not taking time off for a kid, etc. So I don’t think its reasonable to draw a line where you’re drawing it.
@Krnyc - I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell us.
First, you said that any guy who suggests a pre-nup to you can just F-- off. In other words, “No prenup”.
Then, you said that the couple should decide for themselves how to divide the marital assets. In other words, “Yes, prenup please!”
Or am I misunderstanding something?
How to Ask Your Fiance to Sign a Prenup, presented by George Costanza