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We talk about prenups, what they are, what they do, how to bring them up, and why they often get a bad wrap. We also discuss postnups and separation agreements.
Show Notes
In this episode:
- What is a prenup and why is it important
- Advantages and disadvantages of prenups
- When should a couple consider getting a prenup
- Common misunderstandings and myths about prenups
- What should couples consider when creating a prenup
- What are the legal requirements of a prenup
- How do you make sure that a prenup is legally binding
- What happens if a prenup is challenged in court
- How can couples protect their assets and interests with a prenup
Help your friends going through a divorce go from victim to victorious and bitter to better.
If you like The Ex-it Strategy, visit our website to subscribe for free, and you'll never miss an episode. And if you like the Ex-it Strategy, We'd appreciate you telling a friend (maybe even two).
If you like The Ex-it Strategy, visit our website to subscribe for free, and you'll never miss an episode. And if you like the Ex-it Strategy, We'd appreciate you telling a friend (maybe even two).
Creators and Guests
Host
Guest
What is Ex-it Strategy?
Your no bullsh$t guide to divorce with experienced attorneys from New Direction Family Law and guests and professionals who have been there. Unfiltered discussions to help you move from victim to victorious and from bitter to better.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson:
Hi everyone, it's Elizabeth Stevenson with New Direction Family.
Sarah J. Hink: And Sarah Hink, Elizabeth, law partner and podcast partner in crime, . We today have a fun topic. We do. It's a very interesting topic, I think. Yeah.
Jen wants us to , think about love Valentine's Day in prenuptial agreements. Yeah.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: And prenuptial agreement. You either love them or you hate 'em. I think there's, that's true. It's, It's hard to be an in-betweener, I think on those things.
Sarah J. Hink: Yes. And I think a lot of people do not proceed with them.
In my experience we are capable of drafting all kinds of prenups for all kinds of people and that doesn't make up a huge book of our business.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: No, it doesn't. And Jen, you get the people call in, they talk to you or they talk to intake person what? It seems to me a lot of times about prenups are, oh, if we need a prenup, then you really don't love me.
Yeah. . It's not unconditional love and people go into marriage with these unrealistic expectations. yeah. I think prenups get a bad rap. I do too. You know, it's kind of like an, umbrella insurance policy covers the, if something happens, exactly. You hope it doesn't, you're not going into it thinking that it will, will correct. Beyond that marriage is a hell of a lot more than love and looking at life through rose colored glasses. So it's very real. And we have another episode to plug along with this. It's called Marriage Advice from Divorce Attorneys. And I think it's some really good things that people should think about and have these open these conversations, I think is what you said in that episode.
Jennifer Bordeaux: That bare minimum, this opens this discussion for you guys to
Sarah J. Hink: talk about these things. At least, at least talk about it in finances and know what you're marrying into. Because once you're married, , there's no agreement saying who's is what? It's all yours together. So if you're marrying someone and you didn't realize they had a bunch of debt, before you're married, it's still their separate debt, but is this person's.
lifestyle gonna change where they stop using credit cards a lot, right? Or is this a major part of their personality, financial personality that is gonna cause problems in the future that you didn't know about?
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: I personally think that before you get married, if you're getting married without asking someone's credits score or looking to see what their debt is or where they are financially, that's a really big
Sarah J. Hink: problem.
Yeah. I wanna know those
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: things absolutely. But I think a lot of times people think. Oh, I'm, you're just in, your endorphins are like overtaking your reasonable part of your brain. So understand that, and then go into talking about a prenup without understanding. It's like Jen said, doesn't mean that something bad's gonna happen.
You get life insurance, clearly you're gonna die and that's gonna be needed. ,
Sarah J. Hink: that's a given. Right. I get, you know, have to make it dark .
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Exactly. . If you do get, let's say you do get divorced, then this can save you so much money, right? And so
Sarah J. Hink: many headaches. And a very small percentage, I'm sure go, people go into marriage contemplating that divorce is gonna happen.
Everyone's ha the other person's happy. You're getting married. It's not like, Having to think about divorce means the other person's going to think that it's gonna happen. Most of our clients would say that they were happy on their wedding day .
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: I would really hope so.
Jennifer Bordeaux: Well, And I think if you're not to the same point, if you're not talking about financials, it may be an uncomfortable conversation, right. To bring up in the context, just depending upon how your mind wraps around it. , you're gonna be having some uncomfortable conversations throughout the course of your marriage, outside of this.
And so if you can't even bring this up and talk about it, that's another red flag of how things are gonna go later on down the road.
Sarah J. Hink: Correct.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Sure. That's a good point. And I will say we're talking about who really does, I think everybody could benefit from a prenup, but like at the top of the pack or I think are older folks who have grown children, who they want to leave their estate to and want to make sure that they are taken care of.
So I get a lot you know, we see a lot of those. Remarriages for sure. Or even you have younger children or whatever. That's a big consideration. That's always a consideration of me, is I wanna make sure my boys taken care of when, right when I'm gone. And then how do you take care of the person that you're marrying?
Yeah. So you can figure
Sarah J. Hink: all that out through a prenup. And I tell people when we go through a bad divorce and we've been in court, we've been fighting, I tell them the next one definitely get a p, a prenup. Oh, I'm not getting married again. When you know they get married again, and they do not get a prenup, I'm like, what in the world are you thinking?
Love is a powerful drug.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: I think we're all just help. Yeah. Romantics at some point in our lives so,
Joe Woolworth: you know. My wife and I were talking yesterday at dinner, and she was like, I don't think I'd get remarried. And I said, I don't think you tried to date either, but I think you would , you
Sarah J. Hink: know?
Yeah. It would just happen. Yeah. Most people do get back in relationships. It do. I mean, I
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: then other thing to think about is you have. , it's a closely held family business that's been in your family forever. And you're working in that business.
If you get divorced, your wife or the other spouse is gonna have a marital interest in that business.
Sarah J. Hink: Correct. And maybe the business doesn't get broken up if you're lucky, but it's gonna be a mess. Yes. It's gonna be a headache, it's gonna be expensive. Exactly. And so then Prenupts to me are a lot about legacies
it can be. And it's obviously very important for people who have a business and other assets and it's their second marriage and there's kids to protect in case you you pass away and your wife, your third wife or whatever wants, wants to come and take all the money from you, like kids, right?
And the, estate process. So that's definitely something to think about. But if you're starting out and you're young and it's your first. Need agreement for you, have a long life ahead of you, hopefully. And a lot of things can change and you might have a business asset come into the future you invest in, you don't know yet.
But you should prepare yourself for the best, that good things are gonna happen to you and that you're gonna build wealth. And that's also just. A relief for when if things do go south, knowing how it, the process is gonna be. Because if you have a prenup and say, it just restates what the law is.
There's no litigating this. Okay. It's like exactly. It's already decided. Exactly. We're not gonna give the other person an option to go be angry, be upset that this person is leaving them. And just with passion of emotion really light a fire and something that shouldn't be done.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Y'all can tell me if I'm on base on this, but if so, we'll say, if somebody comes to me and the prenup is way one-sided, that's one, it's a red flag for me. And two is it, the question becomes, is it enforceable because it's so one-sided kind of, even if you agree to
Sarah J. Hink: it, And the courts will look at that, that they'll look at circumstances surrounding what happened when you signed the right, the prenuptial agreement, and making sure that everyone understood what they were assigning.
in that everyone had some kind of disclosure and waived or waive disclosure, right? Rightfully right. About what the other
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: person, you put that answers are in there for sure. Yeah. in a previous podcast talk about somebody got married on December 31st, right? And so what happens if somebody hands me a prenup on December?
Sarah J. Hink: That's a little too close to the wedding day . And that, and the law talks well about it. What if
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: I say and the person says to me, you gotta sign this so we're not getting married. Yes, there are. There are a lot of people that will go through with that marriage. Yes. Because they don't wanna disappoint everybody.
They paid all this
Sarah J. Hink: money. Yep. You have to date it. So if that date says it, and we can prove that in court. and that prenup is probably not gonna, most likely. Most likely, very strongly not gonna stand up. And the court contemplates that. Correct? That's one
Jennifer Bordeaux: of the first questions we ask in the, when people are reaching out to us to inquire about working with us for a prenup is, okay, when's the wedding date?
Because some folks bless. We had a prior client that. The ink was barely dry on their divorce judgment and a few months later reaching out to us about a prenup for a wedding that was happening, a week later, and we were like, please just have a seat. Calm down . Yeah. Right, right. I've had cases clients where I've done their, prenup and they like call three months after they sign it and after they get married and they're separated, I'm like, All right. Glad we did that. Yeah, exactly. Don't you feel good, ? You're welcome. it's something I would think everyone should consider, whether or not they have a lot of wealth or not.
Sarah J. Hink: You don't know what the future holds, and just having things decided and agreed upon will save you money on the back end. Money of attorneys and
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: all that. More money. But emotional health, phy, physical health, wellbeing, all of that. A lot of times it's The person who comes to see us is not the moot, the driving force.
It could be my. . His mom. Her mom. Sure. Cuz they wanna protect what the family has. So there are, they can, there are a lot of emotions probably that are involved in some of these also.
Sarah J. Hink: the process, when you come to us you know, we do the initial consultation, we ask you questions about why you win a prenup, what do you, what are you concerned about?
And from there we go on to draft the prenuptial agreement for our client's review. And like I said, it could really, it can merely just restate the law or we can carve. Certain things that are separate property, regardless if you earn this or do that after the marriage. And really make sure that this is something that works for you and your spouse.
You're soon to be spouse. Right. And then we'll send it to them or their attorney to review. And just do something that everyone is in agreement on. And it doesn't have to be nasty, it doesn't have to be ugly. Make sure that everyone understands the financials cuz it is a happy time It.
Right before a wedding you know, so it doesn't have to be anything nasty contemplating what's gonna happen. It's just merely, let's make sure that we understand where we're coming from. Do you guys have any like tips or things you tell couples that are trying to bring up the topic?
Joe Woolworth: Because I imagine if it's your second or third wedding, a conversation about prenup is not as emotional.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Yeah. Cause it makes a lot more sense. Cause you can see that, oh yeah, we did divorce. I don't want this to happen
Sarah J. Hink: again. I always ask them if the other person knows that they're, and they always do. in my cases, they've already talked to them about the possibility of their being a prenup.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: A lot of times yes. But at, but it's the same advice for that I give clients for anything. It's like how you need to have this conversation and not go in. We're gonna do this and this is what's gonna happen, but haven't start with, here's what I'm thinking. I think it's important for us to do this, and this.
What do you think? And get to start getting some feedback because it's like Sarah said, you can come to us and we can draft whatever the hell you want us to draft, but we can't make anybody's do anything or sign anything. And you show up at the prenup to me, 10 days before the wedding or something.
That's not gonna go ever very
Sarah J. Hink: well. We make sure the terms are reciprocal. So applies to you. That's right. It applies to the other. That's right. Spouse or future spouse. So that they know that it's not just one-sided, it shouldn't be it shouldn't be at all. And you can waive alimony Correct.
In a prenuptial agreement. Right. Where you go ahead and say the note, neither party's gonna ask the other first paal support. And that will hold up so long as you don't live them destitute. Correct. So they're like on social
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: assistance.
Sarah J. Hink: Means tested or whatever. So in most cases it's gonna hold
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: up. You can't put custody in there. You can't put child support cuz the court's gonna take, always has the right. Do what's in the best interest of the children, but as far as your property and spousal support, you can address those issues. And a lot of times now people have own homes before they get married.
Do you have proper, you have like real property that you wanna do. A lot of times people say my separate property is mine, unless we buy, when we could have a joint account and we buy a house together, then that would be
Sarah J. Hink: marital property. Yeah. I like the ones where you make the decision. Okay. If.
Purchase property or open a bank account and joint names. Joint names, then we're gonna agreement that's gonna be treated as marital. If I go out and I open my own bank account with my own name and we're married, most cases, and without a prenup, that's just marital. So if I have $20,000 in my separate account or my name then it's marital.
Marital. But if you have a prenuptial agreement that says If it's just in my name, then it's mine and we separate, that's my separate property. I'm taking it with me. Correct. We're not fighting over that. So then you go through your marriage. Still discussing finances with each other.
Correct. Still deciding whether you're gonna do this together or if this is gonna be a separate debt that I'm gonna take on myself. And I think that's healthy. I do. Oh, absolutely. Because you're constantly having conversations, conversations about that. Yep. Making sure you're on the same page and if you're going to take a risky move with finances and open bunch of credit cards, and you love this person, then maybe it's gonna be healthy for that other person to know that they're not gonna get stuck with that credit card debt.
Yeah. Like you go on and be a loser, but there's still some repercussions. We won't go down that road, but . Yeah. What about,
Jennifer Bordeaux: student loans, Like, how does that work? If you come into a marriage with student loans and then during the marriage, obviously the loan still exists, exist you're paying on and stuff like that.
But then let's say you disor divorce. How does, that's your
Sarah J. Hink: separate debt. Yeah, it's separate. Even if you get a, let's say you get a student loan while you're married and you get separated. A year later or six months later that student loan has not benefited the marriage. So there's some debts you can have during the marriage that still is going to be on you, so you can take care of those sorts of things.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Yeah. Within a pre-up and student
Sarah J. Hink: loans, in most cases, there are gonna be separate debts. And unless there's other circumstances involved, like Elizabeth said, benefited the marriage and you show that and Right. We don't need to go
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: down that road, but, and then you just spent. $50,000 answering that question in court when it could have been taken care of.
In a pre-up. In a pre-up.
Sarah J. Hink: Much cheaper .
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Yeah. Correct. it's not a court order, it's still just a contract. And let's say, and people can still challenge them. So that doesn't mean that there's not gonna be litigation. Yeah. But it will certainly minimize what you were, what's out
Sarah J. Hink: there for sure.
Yeah. And you can get creative and you can compromise with your future spouse and thinking, okay, well I'm concerned about spousal support. I wanna waive it. The other person's what if something happens, what if I decide to stay home with the kid? Right. And we make that decision, decision. I've done agreements where you build into it the length of the marriage, right? Determines how much alimony they can get. Or you waive alimony unless the other person does stay home and you have a child. So it doesn't have to be black and white wave alimony or not. There's all these.
Interesting and Oh great. Compromises.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: You be really creative. Mm-hmm. . I've always wondered though, it's if you put that you're married five years, you get X, you married 10, you get twice that. It's okay, I'm gonna wait it out till 10 years. . I'm get
Sarah J. Hink: the hell outta here . Well, good for you. I mean,
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: like, What's the bargain that you made?
Yeah, I don't have
Sarah J. Hink: a problem with that. I have done those elevator clauses. I know it's fine if. Stick it out. It depends on, absolutely on how rich they are. Right?
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Like, gotta figure out what the cost analysis is there on
Sarah J. Hink: how Yeah, exactly. How old are they? Like, you know, what's the age difference?
Right? Who benefits in that one? If you're both miserable, like if you, but you gotta stay. I don't
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: know, man, if you gotta stay. Some people, maybe
Sarah J. Hink: there's sex for one person, people stay now
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: maybe not for both. I don't know. So there's some incentive to do something. Exactly.
Jennifer Bordeaux: and I would say to your question earlier, Joe, like if somebody is wanting to bring the topic up with their fiance, or maybe they're even, they haven't even proposed yet, but it's something that's on their radar, I think it'd still be a great idea if you haven't had the conversation yet to come in and meet Oh, absolutely.
With one of the attorneys to find out what can go on a prenup. What, why it's important, how it can benefit somebody. Mm-hmm. , Maybe that's not bringing a bunch of people that aren't bringing tons of wealth in J'S situation and that may help you explain why. It's important. to your spouse, like why you think this is a good idea, how it can benefit both of you, as opposed to, cause I think a lot of times a person that maybe brings it.
The other person gets very defensive like, why are you trying to do this to me? Kind
Joe Woolworth: of thing. You can try the sandwich technique. Listen, I'm thinking about proposing one day good news, .
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Yeah, that's a good idea. But I'm curious what
Joe Woolworth: your thoughts around prenup, because I'm seriously thinking about marrying you.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Yeah well, at my age, that would be a question I would ask sooner rather than later if I would ever go, Jamie and I talked
Sarah J. Hink: about that. I'm sure Well, you're,
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: you're about attorneys though, but that's, that's . That's a little different.
Yeah.
Jennifer Bordeaux: What about these, because I think a lot of times people think about prenups, obviously they think about super wealthy folks and celebrities and stuff. So when you hear these crazy prenups. generally the males involved that there's stipulations in the prenup, but if they gain X amount of pounds over some kind of weight, then.
I don't know, whatever happens, is that valid?
Sarah J. Hink: Is that, do you think that's gonna hold up in court? No, . It's against public's bargain that you may, it's against public policy to fact. Can't shame people.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: I don't think so. Sarah .
Sarah J. Hink: Ooh, we got a battle in court right now. You can't contract anything illegal and that's not illegal.
No, but I think there's, there, you could fight it.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: I have seen some crazy stuff in prenups. why would that Val invalidate the contract?
Sarah J. Hink: Tele it's shitty .
Jennifer Bordeaux: I would not kinda woke
Sarah J. Hink: my wokeness. Yeah. a lot of those stories you hear, I don't know that are necessarily true cause I haven't seen it.
Like actual legal documents and note it to be true. About gaining weight. They also talk about like sexual favors and that's certainly not well, I would say that's
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: a little different. But
Sarah J. Hink: what, how's fat shaming and sexual favored ? It's, you're not fat
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: shaming anyone. .
Sarah J. Hink: bring those.
Prenups to us so we can look at them and we can determine whether we think the court will hold 'em up. We'll
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: follow, we'll have another follow up to this and we'll have those
Sarah J. Hink: questions. And you know the interesting, like Gisele in Tom Brady, like she had more money than he going into. I'd like to look at that.
Know not yourself. The other thing is like
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Doc Petty, unless you are gonna try to fight it in court, these are confidential documents. Nobody's gonna see it. It's not filed in a courthouse. You don't anywhere
Sarah J. Hink: them, correct? There are memorandums that you can register that says, Hey, by the way there's a prenup.
So if I die or someone murders me you can come find it outta my attorney. Find that damn office. Yeah. . That's something to consider. That
Jennifer Bordeaux: brings up a good point we were talking about before we, we hit record. Do
Sarah J. Hink: prenups, outlived death. Yeah. It's contract.
There's contract, there's language of regarding possible estate stuff in prenuptial agreements. Or you can waive it but you're not gonna get, even if you're entitled to something through my estate. Yeah, then you're waiving that cuz you're BU wife or whatever,
which Elizabeth mentioned before.
Is it important to do if you have children and you're remarrying or something like that? And
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: again, the prenup, even though you have prenup, you don't need a will. Yeah. You take care of your repairs in that respect, I would say. I
Joe Woolworth: googled some of the craziest things found in
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: prenups.
If it's well, then they all must be true.
Joe Woolworth: They're certainly not true. I wonder if you guys think these could hold up. So one is you can't negatively speak about your spouse in public.
Jennifer Bordeaux: That goes in
Sarah J. Hink: separation
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: agreements. Doesn't I have that in separation.
Sarah J. Hink: Yeah. Well, Okay, so if you do, what happens?
That there has to be some that if you're in there has to be a
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: consequence for it. Yeah, yeah. Requiring the spouse to contribute to charity
Sarah J. Hink: from what their element. I'm there's a lot of information missing here. Gerald .
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: It depends. Googles not a lawyer.
Jennifer Bordeaux: sounds like a
Sarah J. Hink: marriage contract, not a divorce.
Jennifer Bordeaux: There's one
Joe Woolworth: that requires them to remain at a certain level of physical fitness as we talked about there before.
Sarah J. Hink: If a Jamie brings that up, I will die. . You will
Jennifer Bordeaux: not
Sarah J. Hink: marry him.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: I'll say, if that's in your prenup, you probably should not get buried. . That would be a big red flag. This prenup had
Joe Woolworth: a clause to require a spouse to take a course on communication.
no, that's not a terrible
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: idea.
Sarah J. Hink: And you can. Put things about dogs and cats in there. It's property. Oh yeah. ING property,
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: that kind of thing. What about giving
Joe Woolworth: up property there says a claw in there. Someone who was required to give up an asset or a business or a house. Absolutely.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Yeah.
Sarah J. Hink: Yeah. If you cheat, I get whatever.
Absolutely. I get the beach house. Yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah. My gosh. I think
Jennifer Bordeaux: that would be such a great idea to address pets in a prenup, because let me ask this question. How are pets treated in the event of a divorce?
Sarah J. Hink: It's personal property.
Jennifer Bordeaux: So not children. There's not custody of animals.
Oh no, but
Sarah J. Hink: I mean there are
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: visit I put visitation schedules in there for them. Yeah. They go back and forth or they go with the kids or whatever. Are you split the costs. The
Sarah J. Hink: court's not gonna do that, but the court can't file
Jennifer Bordeaux: custody claim for the dog. But
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: the court can say you get the dog. Yeah, for
Jennifer Bordeaux: sure.
Yeah. , but to address it in the prenup, let's not, we had a, I think we did a petition. It's not a very long
Sarah J. Hink: marriage. . Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. It's seven years. I love you mean It's like a turtle. What's dog
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: gonna live like fishes in the prenup.
Joe Woolworth: This ain't lasting?
Sarah J. Hink: No. Okay. So let's
Jennifer Bordeaux: say you get married, but you didn't get a prenup.
Is there anything you can do after the marriage to have the similar effect or the goal of having a.
Sarah J. Hink: Yes, you can have a postnup, postnup, .
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Yes. Married folks can contract with each other. Yes, they can. You can get a prenup before you get married. You can do a postnup. So well, while you're married, you get a separation agreement after you're separated.
Correct. So you can always contract those things so that you do not have to go to court.
Joe Woolworth: again, it's another really smart idea. Now you've got assets and things you didn't have before, but it's still a hard conversation to start. Hey,
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: yeah, like I've been here at home, try the same thing again.
Make you dinner every night and now you don't want me to have your
Sarah J. Hink: business. And I'm I think it's something, if you were gonna move across country for your spouse's job, that'd be a really good idea, really good time idea to do that. Because if you're leaving your career or that's something to, it just came up to me.
But we do a lot of post ups. Sometimes we do them when there. Then his spouse left and they came back. And then the only reason they're gonna stay together with the marriage is if they agree to this post not
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: correct. I, And I do it sometimes. Yeah, when people cannot agree on everything in a separation agreement.
but they wanna get the house sold so they can get separated. you can just do a postnup about how the house is gonna get sold and what, how that's gonna be divided and that kind of thing. So there are all sorts of really creative and good things you can do at postnup.
Joe Woolworth: Right. I have a philosophical type question.
It seems like a lot of the stuff about PREMs and post NUS would serve very well as deterrence for people. What you what? Depending on how it's worded. Like we're not getting back together unless you say if you cheat again, I get the beach house kind of thing. Do you guys think that works?
Sarah J. Hink: I don't know.
It depends on the person. Maybe he doesn't care about the beach house.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Oh, you mean that's the only reason you're getting back together? Yeah. I can't imagine that in the long run, that's going to that's not a healthy power move. Yeah. I mean, I can think
Jennifer Bordeaux: of a, a case, where they came to us on a, the domestic violence protective order that was filed.
Those always go well. They decided to reconcile. They did a postnup, and lo and behold, one of the parties is back to us now for the separation. Or another D V P O was filed and in the separation situation. Yeah. But was it helpful for them in the sense of things that would've been messy and argumentative were pre solved by
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: I guess somewhat
Sarah J. Hink: depend. Yeah, I
Jennifer Bordeaux: was gonna say it depends upon how the postnup was drafted, but knowing it was done by us, it was fantastic.
Sarah J. Hink: So , Yeah, people don't change, so you should probably leave 'em the first time, in my opinion. That's my personal opinion, not my professional opinion maybe, but , you might
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: wanna qualify that.
I think what I like
Joe Woolworth: about the conversation, I think if you're thinking about it positively, is have the conversation when you're not mad at each other, when you're in a good head. And talk about things that might happen and don't be scared about it. That's the really positive way to
Sarah J. Hink: look at it, right?
And speak up. If you think that your spouse's new business adventure is gonna tank 'em, then yeah. I'll support you honey, but let's sign this first. Yeah.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Right? I mean, You use it to negotiate. That's what negotiation is all about. That's be a benefit to both people.
Within that
Sarah J. Hink: agreement, just, I don't think a lot of people know this option exists for them and that this is something Oh, no, I agree with that. Utilize in their lives cuz financials take a big toll on people's marriages.
Joe Woolworth: Absolutely. Yeah. At a bare minimum, you're probably finding out something that you didn't realize was as important as you thought it would be.
To your significant other. Yeah.
that's a big issue for you. Yeah.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: But a lot of times people don't wanna hear that. They don't want anything to mess. What this beautiful event that we've have done don't ask, don't speak, don't tell kind of thing. Head in the sand. Yeah,
Joe Woolworth: exactly. I've met couples like that, that don't say the word divorce, like it's beetlejuice. . If you say it three times,
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: never seen Beetlejuice. What? I just watched y'all Shank Redemption the other night.
I'm so far behind that. First of all,
Joe Woolworth: it doesn't really hold up. . .
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Yeah.
Joe Woolworth: But the joke was, if you say Beetlejuice three times Michael Keaton comes as a creepy. You got scary
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: guy. I haven't, there are so many movies that I haven't seen. What's a Tom Hanks movie that just got Came back out.
The Rema, it's not a remake of it, but it's, it, I, no, that was flying Jet Pirate Pilot. Oh, the Castaway. Oh, that's very strange. Su who knows? No not Tom Hanks. Tom Cruise. Sorry. Tom Cruise to
Jennifer Bordeaux: Maverick. Maverick. Yeah. It's not remade, it's a Oh, it
Sarah J. Hink: said So you never watched a top
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: gun? I never watched a Top Gun.
I haven't
Sarah J. Hink: seen it either. Goodness.
Jennifer Bordeaux: Okay, moving on. I'm completely judging you guys. . Anyways, if you think you're in love and you wanna get married, maybe have a conversation. Prenups in financials and know what you're marrying into.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Absolutely.
there's no shame in that. There's nothing wrong with that. And in fact, I think if you have the ability to do that, your marriage has a good option. . Yeah. A blasting. Because you hard do have the ability to communicate.
Sarah J. Hink: look into it. One of my best friends.
Sent me her prenup to look at and she lives in different states, right? So I I looked at, it looks like comparable to their state, but talked to an attorney in that state, right? And I thought that for sure they have signed it. And then like years later, I asked her about it.
She's no, I didn't sign that shit. . Whatever. But Elise, look into it. Know your rights. Know what would happen if you don't have one, is the most important thing. I think that's a really good advice show. And to think about what could happen in your marriage. In financials and how that would change things.
Jennifer Bordeaux: we've talked a lot about if you're the one pursuing the prenup, but good Lord, if you get presented with a pre-nup, please have an attorney. Please, please, please approve before you sign it. Yes, for sure. Yes. Doesn't mean that it does nothing wrong with it, but if you got questions, make sure you get those answered before you sign on that dotted
Sarah J. Hink: line.
Correct? I agree. Yes. And if it's sketchy, don't marry that person. Don't listen. That person ain't.
Elizabeth A. Stephenson: That's some shit.