Has anyone ever done a postnuptial agreement? At the time of marriage, my spouse and I were relatively equal in terms of finances. I recently came into a large inheritance, and have also had more rapid career success. I’m not trying to be cynical, just trying to be smart. Nobody thinks they will get divorced. This would make me feel much more comfortable. Any guidance?

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Good luck with that, can’t imagine why someone would sign that

likefunny

You did not receive a large inheritance. Your spouse AND you received a large inheritance. If this were pre-marriage, sure, but the way you phrased it sounds post marriage.

It seems like you are penalizing your spouse for not having a wealthy family and not moving up as quickly as you.

I make 3x more than my wife. My savings became our savings; my salary became our salary. I cannot imagine it any other way. We have different goals in life. Mine is to make as much possible. Hers is to help the world. I don’t penalize her for that.

Sure, nobody plans for divorce. But this certainly a good way to cause one.

likesmarthelpfulfunny

My understanding is that inheritances are treated as separate property from spouses/joint accounts (except when commingling) - especially so if in a trust - BUT in most cases, judges would factor in that money when determining divorce agreements. Meaning, you may get a lesser share of marital property because the judge knows you do have assets.

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You are literally planning for divorce. Your spouse will not see it differently.

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I am the wife in this situation. My fear is that it will be emasculating for him, but my bigger fear is that something unforeseen happens in the future, and I have to pay up, especially with money hard earned by my family.

I can’t imagine him ever going after my inheritance in the event of a divorce. It just isn’t who he is. But I also know it can bring out the worst in people, and I just want to be smart.

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I would talk to a trust and estates lawyer. Agree you do not want to inherit directly or commingle any money into joint accounts. Hopefully not needed but breakups change people if things ever head that way.

If you were my wife we would fight over this.

likefunny

I don’t understand the condemnation from some of the people on this thread. Maybe *your* approach is different, but OP clearly has her *own* priorities, views on finance, and views on ownership.

I wouldn’t sweat the weird, morally righteous critiques. My s/o and I are both very open with our goals and our ideas of proprietorship. We’re getting married in the fall and have detailed prenup arrangement. Our general approach is that any *salaries* earned during our marriage = *our* collective assets and available for fair & equitable distribution in the event of a divorce.

HOWEVER, we both have familial trusts. Hers is significantly larger in size and her distributions are larger (her fam has a dynasty trust or something and she’s one of 3 heirs/beneficiaries, none of whom currently have children). We have amicably agreed that every dollar we receive individually from our families is our INDIVIDUAL property, not up for debate or contest in the event of a divorce.

In my *emotional opinion, that’s her *family’s* money. When her great grandparents and her grandparents and her uncles/aunts/parents contributed to their trust & estate, they intended the assets to be passed down to their FAMILY members, not their progeny’s spouses. That’s how I view it.

Same thing on my end. Any assets inherited from my family or distributions made to me are *my property. If we—individually—want to transfer them to our joint accounts, that’s our prerogative. I think it makes *logical sense, too.

We’re both ridiculously lucky and fortunate to have these problems. And we’re both mid-20’s, healthy, not-ever-planning-on-children, professional young adults so there aren’t many complicating factors. We had SUPER transparent conversations about this before I even proposed and we’re both super forward, rational, logical people (or at least we try to be):

If your husband, for obvious reason, is emotionally reactive to this and feels betrayed or excluded or attacked, I’m not sure how I would navigate that situation. Unfortunately you waited until ~after~ marriage, and now your assets are in jeopardy. I would approach it super delicately and emphasize that it’s not your PLAN to ever separate and that you don’t want to deprive him of anything, but rather you’re trying to adhere to your relatives’ intentions and... honor their memory? Idk how to sell that, but whatever you do, DON’T let the people here guilt you for having different emotions and priorities than them

likehelpful

There’s a lot of bias in your response. Maybe put yourself in both people’s shoes before commenting.

The financial power imbalance this will cause, even if just in one of your heads, will make divorce much more likely. Or at least unhappiness.

I'll put it this way. I have a friend at Facebook. She hates working there, but due to all the compensation and the options, she's paid far too much to leave. Even though she's miserable, and her work output definitely struggles for it, she'd be giving up hundreds of thousands if she left. So she stays, but stays miserably.

You don't want to give your wife golden handcuffs, and you don't want her constantly feeling that you're holding your wealth over her head (even if you don't think you are )

likesmart

Either way.

Can I ask why people are so adamant that all financial assets are shared? I kind of see where OP is coming from - her whole perspective is "I don't want to get divorced, but in case I do I don't want to get fucked" and everyone's response seems to have been "If you don't split 50/50 then you ARE fucked."

Idk, I view money differently and I think money coming from my side of the family is mine, and mine to share as I wish with my children / spouse. To me, an inheritance from a family member (e.g. money that my parents earned) is categorically different from money that I earn and share.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't pay my fair share into building a life together, and I disagree with the comment above that OP is penalizing her husband. If my husband was rich too I'd see why he'd want to protect some of that too?

To be fair I'm also 23 and unmarried lol - this is such an interesting thread!

likesmarthelpfulfunny

I think ZS is making a really good point here. If you knew you were getting an inheritance, you probably should have dealt with this up front.

My husband and I merged all our money when we got married. I brought a bit more in (maybe like on the order of 100k?) and I do make quite a bit more which will probably continue to accelerate but I can’t imagine going back now to try to change things. It just seems so counter to what we agreed.

likesmart

Do it if you feel strongly about it. Don't listen to these people. Most don't know what it's like to inherit a large sum of money.

I don’t have one, and I won't be receiving any inheritance... but imo, if this is in your system, best to do it and come what may from it.

If you were my wife, I would sign it if it makes you comfortable.

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Oh D1.

I don’t see that going well for you

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And friends, this is why prenups are important whether you have money “today” or not.

likesmarthelpful

An idea I’m not sure others have mentioned: talk about it with your husband. Everyone has different approaches to finances, and what works for other couples might not work for you. But if you can’t talk about it with your husband, that (for me) would be a bigger problem.

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This. My husband and I have an excellent marriage, and it’s because we prioritize telling each other everything, even stuff that’s hard to say because we know it may be difficult for the other to hear. But it’s critical to know what each other is thinking so we can be on the same page together. Tell your husband about your worries and concerns, try to understand why you’re worried about divorce. Hopefully it’s because divorce is difficult and prevalent in our society, not because you have concerns about your marriage. For me, I don’t worry about divorce because I just know that it’s not on the table for either of us. We cannot see any scenario where we won’t be together, so we make decisions to make that “together” as easy and happy for both of us.

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I 100% think this is a responsible thing to do and not an issue whatsoever so long as the arrangement is fair. In ours, we agreed my wife gets our primary home in the case of a divorce, then basically an earn out: 80/20, 70/30, 60/40 that gets bigger the longer we’re together. And extra if we have kids. All $ I brought in to the marriage is mine (so we bailed out our net worth a the beginning) and all my businesses are mine.

If we divorce after 5 years or more or have kids she gets 100k/year support for 5 years or until kids are 18.

In our case this was *incredibly* fair. She came to the relationship with no $ but lots of love and trust and I came with lots of $ but no real trust. Our agreement helped us find a middle ground and it was actually a really constructive experience.

likeuplifting

Ours was a prenup initially, but we had to redraft it post due to a business sale & a couple other things (property owned outside the US) so went back to the drawing board. She was incredibly supportive & asked for far less than she ended up with. It also opened up some healthy dialogue for us, generally, about the value of $, kids, retirement, etc.

Would do it again.

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I’m working on a post nup. Not because I put earn here in salary and will forever, I think that’s shallow and wrong personally. But because I personally invest and work very hard to build businesses that she doesn’t support at all, and I want those assets protected. Many years of hard work are being put into my hustles that I asked for her to pitch in with and she hasn’t lifted a finger. I don’t think it’s fair she gets a piece of that if we seperate. People may sneer at this, but I can promise, they probably never truly been through the stresses of building a business from scratch. I’m happy to split the house, she can have the dogs, she can have a portion of my w2 salary, but don’t touch my portfolio and businesses

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She doesn’t take care of anything to enable you to expend all that time and effort on your side hustle, D3?

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D1, you are marriage material 👍🏻.

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Are inheritances marital property? It might depend on what state you live in but based on what I’ve read inheritance and inherited property is treated as assets owned before marriage

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It depends on the jurisdiction. If it’s kept 100% separate and not used for anything marital (utilities, home improvement, buying a car both partners use, etc.) then it may remain as such. Otherwise, if it is commingled it becomes marital property.

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Wow, if the roles were reversed, you would likely be livid. Marriage is a union. Your gain is y’all’s gain. Frankly, you should just be honest with yourself, and file for divorce.

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Why would she be “livid”? Why do you assume that? Perhaps her self worth and security in her relationship is not predicated on a literal dowry payment or a transactional exchange for love?

Why do some people find it so hard to separate love and money? The two are not synonymous, and it’s perfectly fine (and HEALTHY) to have independence from your partner/spouse. Financial independence, emotional independence, mental independence.

Why would her husband be entitled to her ancestors’ assets? That sounds crazy

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Talk to a lawyer in your state. As some others have noted, inherited property isn’t marital property in all states so even if you inherit the money after you are married you are not required to split it upon divorce. An attorney can advise you on how to protect the assets going forward.

Talk to your spouse about the growing income gap between you two. There is a thread on the Women in Accounting bowl on this topic now with a lot of experiences and stories. There are some successes but also a lot of divorces. It’s good to stay ahead of this.

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Look up the laws in your state. In Texas inheritances are NOT marital property. It's separate property. Unless you've converted your inheritance into community property it's not divided in divorce.

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may aswell put that money aside for the divorce lawyers

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