"When I was 10, my dad had a midlife crisis, and, without warning the family, he quit his job to "find himself." My parents had three kids plus a baby, and my mom hadn't been in the workforce for years. It was financially devastating. She ended up divorcing him eventually, but it was bad. Now I'm getting married, and this childhood experience, along with something particular in my husband's past, have led me to make a certain request of my fiancé."
"We make about the same now, but we plan on having kids, and I know that could skew my earning power. I want us both to have the ability to get out. To me, that means each having separate personal money outside our pooled shared funds, plus a clear prenup about how to divide assets if we do divorce. He has agreed on the shared funds/personal funds, but refuses to negotiate and sign a prenup."
"You watched your mother get financially destroyed because she had no protection. Your fiancé's ex-wife got "shortchanged" in their divorce-his own family says so. And now he refuses to negotiate a prenup because it shows "distrust"? Let me translate what he's actually saying: "I don't want you to be financially independent. I want you financially vulnerable the way my ex-wife was.""
The writer recalls a childhood in which a parent's sudden job departure and later divorce left the family financially devastated. The writer's fiancé experienced an earlier marriage and divorce, and the ex-wife is perceived by family to have been shortchanged. The writer wants separate personal funds and a clear prenuptial agreement to preserve financial independence, especially with plans for children that could affect future earnings. The fiancé accepts separate versus pooled funds but refuses to sign a prenup, framing it as distrust. That refusal is interpreted as a desire to keep the writer financially vulnerable rather than protected.
Read at Slate Magazine
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