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Comment by jstanley | Hacker News Reader

> Daniel wanted to have a prenup, but Susan fought tooth and nail to keep it out of their marriage.

Is this not a huge red flag about Susan's intentions?

Or about Daniel's intentions?

This is an ugly topic that you simply can't extract a solution for by applying cold logic. It involves, emotions, expectations, realities, possibilities, all wrapped up into one document that spells out what will happen if and when your marriage meets it's bitter demise. Read all you want on whether it is right or wrong and postulate as much as you want about it, but when it comes down to it and it's your turn to decide whether you are hedging for or against the success of your marriage, it will be a deeply personal decision that no one will have any right to make calls on.

Assuming that it were a red flag about Daniel's intentions, what would Daniel's intentions be?

edit

> They could, for example, be to leave Susan within a relatively short amount of time in order to marry someone younger.

And should he do that, it's hard to argue with a straight face that she deserves half of everything.

> Or to prevent Susan from having an obvious recourse in the event that Daniel commits adultery.

How often to prenups give the cheating party a free pass?

> How often to prenups give the cheating party a free pass?

In some states, notably including California, infidelity clauses have been held to be unenforceable provisions in prenuptial agreements, as contrary to public policy (specifically, in CA, that policy as expressed in no-fault divorce laws.)

So, if the agreement purports to create penalties for cheating that vary what the distribution of assets would be without it, that provision may not have any legal effect.

To marry and leave without the typical financial penalties. It's no more or less likely than her intentions being bad.

Penalties for what?

Why would those be Daniel's intentions though? What does he have to gain by doing that? Susan obviously has a tremendous to gain by doing that sans prenup, which is precisely why people perceive her reluctance to get one as a red flag, but unless I'm missing something, Daniel wouldn't really gain anything by doing that except a whole bunch of legal fees.

If he wanted to leave her, why marry her?

His intentions to protect his assets from unfair laws? How is that a bad intention?

Nah. It's entirely possible that Susan's intentions are benevolent here.

Being able to trust that both of you are committed is critical to making a marriage work. While it's possible to trust each other's commitment and have a prenup, in practice it's not that simple. Relationship's have a delicate equilibrium of trust that needs to be maintained— a prenup does make this more complex. I'm not saying it's impossible, I just think being hesitant about a prenup is entirely sensible position.

No. In our culture a prenup is a sign of distrust, or that you don't expect a marriage to succeed. Rational or not, people who have no gold-digging intentions can still be extremely opposed to prenups.

But in our culture isn't it also assumed that the marriage will end someday? I once overheard the mother of the groom saying how much she loved her new daughter-in-law and thought that she would make a great first-wife for her son!

No, I don't think that is assumed by most people getting married.

> But in our culture isn't it also assumed that the marriage will end someday?

Not in my culture, I don't know about yours.

> I once overheard the mother of the groom saying how much she loved her new daughter-in-law and thought that she would make a great first-wife for her son!

"I once overheard..." is a fairly thin reed to hang an inference of broad cultural expectation on.

Generally, people assume that a plurality of marriages that aren't theirs will end.

Their marriage, of course, isn't like those.

We humans are really bad at seeing our biases.

> Generally, people assume that a plurality of marriages that aren't theirs will end.

A plurality is the largest individual share where there is no majority. Since marriages have only two outcomes (end by death, end by divorce), there is no room for a plurality, only a majority one way or the other. I don't think people falsely assume other outcomes which reduce the biggest share to a mere plurality.

And there is precious little evidence to support that the biggest share (majority or plurality) is to end in divorce.

I appreciate you taking the time to fix my misuse of one word.

Yup. Why else would she fight it? It's in her best interest for there not to be one if shit hits the fan, plain and simple.

Hopefully people here will be more levelheaded than other online communities when it comes to gender relations and realize how not having a prenup is insane, and additionally, how absolutely fucked family law is not only in California, but pretty much the entire country.

Hopefully people here will be more levelheaded than other online communities

I wouldn't count on it. We're talking about hedging on trust in a relationship whose primary component is trust. That is a blueprint for an emotional response. (And why shouldn't it be?)

The whole point of marriage is to make an unmake-able promise. If you're going to start hedging before you even say the words, then what's the point?

This your (naive and/or totally fucked up) idea of marriage, certainly not what marriage is for the vast majority (i dare say) of the population.

Nah, I think you've got this backwards. You're the oddball with the practical outlook on the institution.

I'm actually less conveying my own feelings on marriage than I am describing how everyone around me seems to regard it.

What is marriage for the vast majority of the population? It's certainly no longer about sex (and less and less about sexual exclusivity). It's not really about children. It's not an economic union. It's certainly not lifelong.

So far as I can tell it's about a big party, and having the rest of society validate one's current relationship. It's not at all clear why we still have a great deal of permanence-presuming civil law covering what's now clearly become a private, temporary matter. What's the point?

It's a partnership that works on multiple levels.

Not some disney fairy tale about unmake-able promises.

Have you been to a wedding recently? Those vows aren't about practical concerns. They're about eternal love, as long as we both shall live, to have and to hold.

You're free to layer whatever you want over top of that promise. But what you explicitly agree to with literal vows is all about the love, man.

You seem to be talking about religious weddings.

Religious weddings are exactly that: words, and intentions. What matters is the judge that declares you married and the contract you sign.

If you started to make religious vows enforceable in courts, which they are not, you'd probably see a lot less people interested into it.

Get favorable tax treatment, share the better health insurance plan.

There are many areas in life where it makes sense to both go all-in... and have some fallback plan in case things go utterly south.

I don't plan to need catastrophic health insurance -- I'll work as hard as I can to avoid it -- but I still carry it.

depends on what's in the prenup and who is making what. Maybe the prenup says they spit everything 50-50 and Susan makes more/has a nicer house. Or maybe she's going in to a more lucrative career field. Or, maybe she's just offended at the notion that her future husband is already planning an exit strategy (that last part is mostly my own feelings about prenups coming through)

its really hard to say without understanding the prenup

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