DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Growing up, I had a front row seat to my parents’ divorce. Calling it ugly would be an understatement. Everything, literally everything about the process was the start of a screaming match between them, from custody arrangements to dividing up the record collection. I watched what had been a loving and sweet relationship devolve into two strangers who apparently hated each other more than life itself and it left me terrified that I was going to have a similar fate if I ever got married.
Now it’s many years later, I’m 28, I’m engaged to an incredible woman and we’re just at the start of planning our future wedding. But I would be lying if I didn’t say that the specter of my parents’ divorce wasn’t always hovering in the back of my mind. That’s why I’m writing to you today. I want to ask my fiancée for a prenup before we get married and I don’t know how to bring it up.
I’m not looking to protect my non-existent assets, I’m not expecting her to cheat on me (or that I would cheat on her) or something and I’m not afraid of her taking everything in the divorce and I’m obviously not expecting us to ever actually need it. What I really want is to make sure that we know how things are going to proceed so that if we do get divorced, it doesn’t become the nightmare that I lived through as a child.
How do I tell my fiancée without making her think I don’t trust her or that I don’t have faith in us or our marriage? Is there a way to bring up a prenup that isn’t insulting or makes her feel bad?
Here Come The Lawyers
DEAR HERE COME THE LAWYERS: This is a tricky needle to thread, HCTL. Pop culture and celebrity gossip have taught us as a society that prenups are the domain of the uber-rich and famous, contracts to either penalize philanderers with various clauses and codicils or protection against gold-diggers who are looking to get rich the “old fashioned” way: marrying someone wealthy and then divorcing them. The constant drum beat of “this is for couples who know this won’t last” has functionally taught us that if you ask for a prenup, then there’s something about the relationship that doesn’t smell right to you but you’re going through with it anyway.
In reality… well, yes, there’re folks who use them this way. But to ordinary people living every day lives, it’s really more accurate to think of them as insurance. Nobody buys home owners insurance or car insurance because they expect their house to burn down or because they are sure that they’re going to drive their car into a tree someday. They do it, hoping that day will never come but knowing that if it does, preparing now will save pain, hardship and inconvenience down the line.
So it is with a prenup and divorce. Divorce laws vary from state to state and they can cause all kinds of headaches if you are going in blind and unexpectedly. A prenup smooths out the process by saying precisely how things will go – Person A gets X, Person B gets Y, you agree in advance how you’ll handle Z. Even if the divorce is reasonably amicable, just the process of trying to divide assets or handle any number of unexpected details can bog things down. I watched a couple go through a very friendly divorce reach the point hair pulling frustration as they tried to navigate issues like dealing with the health insurance paperwork, differences in income and selling their house. Having arrangements laid out in advance may not make things more pleasant, but at least it can make things proceed more smoothly and leave everyone with more spoons to handle the unexpected.
But there is still going to be the initial gut-punch of “don’t you trust me?” or “are you having questions about going through with the wedding?” that are going to be hard to avoid. It’s so deeply ingrained in society that it’s almost reflexive.
So here’s what I’d suggest: use a modified version of the Awkward Conversation to talk about things before you have a lawyer draw one up. Schedule a time with your fiancée to talk about the future together. Lead with what you told me about your parents and their divorce – how ugly it was, how the process made everyone even angrier at each other and how it affected you. Then you make it clear that you don’t expect to get divorced and you are absolutely committed to this marriage, but neither of you can see the future and you want to be prepared if anything does happen.
You might want to frame it as insurance or preparing for disaster: not something you want or expect to happen, but because the world is unpredictable and being prepared minimizes pain in an already painful situation. Tell her that you’re bringing it up now, because planning things out when you’re both in a good headspace and able to discuss it rationally will be far less stressful and acrimonious – a way of being kind to your future selves.
Let her know how during your parents’ divorce, you watched the love your parents still had curdle into anger and bitterness and how you never want that to happen between the two of you. Emphasize that, in the event that you do decide to end the marriage, what you want is a road map and checklist of what is going to happen and how. You want things to be as smooth and pre-planned as possible so that it will be as conflict free as you can manage it.
Make it clear that you’re not worried that she’s going to try to take your stuff or that you’re trying to penalize her, just that you believe that by planning things out in advance, you will minimize the likelihood that the process of getting a divorce will make things worse and having this in place will make it easier for the two of you to have as positive a relationship as possible afterwards.
Then, when you’re done, you give her space to react. She may well have a whole host of very large, very loud emotions in the moment. Let her have them. She may have a metric f--kton of questions; let her ask them and answer them as best you can, and as calmly as you can. If she starts throwing accusations, do your best to take a deep breath and let them wash over you, recognizing that it’s more the shock of the moment than what she actually feels. Then, when she’s ready, let her say her piece.
And who knows? Your worries are understandable, but she very well may be on the same page as you. Considering the age we live in, she may not see getting a prenup as a sign of distrust, but as sensible planning. Depending on whether her parents are still married, or if either of them had gone through a divorce previously, she may have similar experiences or stories to yours. So while it’s good to be ready for her being upset, she very well may surprise you.
One more thing that will help: emphasize that you want her to have her own lawyer go over whatever gets drawn up. Making sure that she has her own advocate, independent of you, to look out for her best interests, may help her see that you’re coming to this in good faith, rather than out of suspicion.
It’s a tricky conversation and I don’t envy you having to have it. But if you get through it together, it will be one more moment where something that could have pulled you apart has only brought you even more firmly together as members of the same team.
Good luck.
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com