a crash course in prenups

[Belok]

As someone who will soon be entering the world of parenthood and marriage, i'd like to pitch in my 2c.

In short, I agree with guids on the issue... But I think guids came off as a douche because his posts were arrogant. This should not cloud the issue though.

You also have to completely appreciate the value of the mother in the situation as well.

Lets be honest here - if your wife is an amazing mother, her value while raising your children is WAY more than the cost of daycare or w/e you'd want to compare it to. The fact that she is YOUR CHILDS MOTHER is massive value in itself. If she takes care of the house, is a good mother, and raises your child in a way that he/she will have the best chance at having a good life, you really cannot put a price on that service.

But a lazy spoiled housewife who doesn't do her share of work, and is not good at raising her kids could very well be worth negative $.

You really cannot know what kind of wife yours will be until you've already committed and been with her for years. You may think you know everything about her, but you still don't know how she will preform as a mother. On top of that, love clouds logic, and you could very well convince yourself that she'll be amazing when all of the facts say otherwise.


On a personal note - My Mom was great until her ~18th year of marriage, then she just snapped. Her psychiatrist narrowed the problem down to some deep seeded childhood trauma. After being asked about it too many times, she refused to talk about it and stopped seeing the psych. She royally screwed my dad over and essentially turned his ~2m business into a ~2$ business. This isn't something he could have predicted or had any previous knowledge about.


The point is, if you have a great wife who will raise your kids right and maintain her own interests/career, the prenup really shouldn't matter.

But there is NO WAY you can know if 5, 10, 25 years down the line she doesn't turn out to be much worse than you expected.

I plan on getting a prenup, and would urge anyone else to do so as well.
If she is as great as you think she is, it wont matter. If she isn't, you are saving yourself YEARS of financial stress on top of your emotional misery.