Posted on 03/16/2005 3:28:28 AM PST by MississippiMasterpiece
The high percentage of marriages that end in divorce has created a new trend; many men are planning financially for their divorce before they even get married.
A recent survey conducted by the Indiana Family Institute (IFI) found that 79% of men who are engaged to be married worry that their marriage will end in divorce and they will be ruined financially. As a result, more than half of these men admitted to setting up secret nest eggs in case their fears become reality.
“Some people believe this is the height of pessimism, but to me it makes perfect sense,” says Dr. Phillip Haus, director of the study, “Many of these men are professionals who have worked hard for their success and don’t want to start from scratch if the woman they marry turns out to be a total witch to live with.”
Haus says the most common way engaged men plan for the worst is by setting up a savings account in the name of a relative they trust who has had a long, sound marriage so their funds will be safe. This way once the joint assets are divided after a divorce, they will have a little something extra to fall back on.
“Let’s face it,” added Haus, “The man is the one who almost always get screwed over when a divorce occurs. Even though he usually made more money than the woman in the marriage, he loses the house, and ends up paying child support since the woman will get custody of their offspring. This new trend just provides him with a little insurance so he can enjoy a decent standard of living.”
Some men go to even greater lengths to secure their futures. “We had a few cases where engaged men told us they gave a good portion of their belongings to friends or relatives for safe keeping. One man admitted buying a house in his gay cousin’s name so he would have a place to live if things didn’t work out. This shows the sad state of relationships and the impact of divorce in this country.”
Haus believes the trend of setting up divorce nest eggs will continue. “As long as there is divorce, there will be people trying to beat the system.”
Ditto.
So by your logic, marriage is just a piece of paper?
Trust me, men are terrible at hiding money.
The best satire always has some truth in it.
"Maybes" are no way to manage your life in an adversarial legal environment. "Maybe" if your spouse loves you, he or she will see the wisdom in the idea that even a partnership based on personal feelings needs a set of guidelines - because what's left of the "institution of marriage" in these times transcends those feelings and gets government involved in your lives in a big way.
Here's an even BETTER idea: take your time before getting married, and get counseling before you walk down the isle. There are plenty of services out there - church-based ones are probably best - to get your head straight before taking the plunge.
A prenup or postnup is insurance - both partners are aware of it and have consented to its terms. Keeping a secret bank account is just being dishonest. I would not look kindly on my husband's actions if he suddenly announced after 20 or 30 years of marriage that he'd been keeping a nest egg from me "just in case."
I have bank accounts that only I have access to, and so does my fiance. We each know about the other's individual accounts. It's his money, and heaven forbid we ever dissolved our marriage, he can keep what is his. Joint assets would be split 50/50, as is fair.
Then again, divorce is not an option for us except in the case of abuse or infidelity. Simply feeling "dissatisfied" or "unfulfilled" is not good enough to dissolve a lifetime committment and a family.
We discussed a prenup, but neither of us has signficiant assets to protect. We're young and fairly poor. ;-)
Unfortunately many times one spouse really does want to work things out and really does try to make happieness. But the other - "needs to find themself" or some crazy nonsense like that. Why should the straight laced person suffer financially for some dunce with rocks for brains?
"And I bet that if your future husband knew you wanted to be able to screw him royally in the event of a divorce, he'd be livid too."
How is a 50/50 split of assets in the event of divorce screwing anyone over? Keeping a secret bank account from one's spouse is sumply not appropriate.
I just asked him about this via Instant Messenger. He would consider it a betrayal of my trust as his wife to keep secret money from me. So there's your answer.
I don't know of any state that doesn't recognize that what you acquired prior to your wedding vows is yours and not marital property. What is subject to division is what was acquired after the wedding.
It is more dangerous to put property in someone else's name entirely in order to hide it. One would have to trust that person completely.
I liked the comment above about opening an account and funding it, then stop the funding the day you're married and open a new account. The other spouse could not touch the first account in a divorce action, only the funds in the second account.
Plus, if you use funds from the pre-marriage accounts for major purchases, it is easy to show that the property was acquired with non-marital funds, and the property itself is non-marital nor subject to equitable division in a divorce.
I can. Not on my own account, since I've been happily married for a long time, and didn't go the prenup route (we were both in love and poor, which made it pointless). However, I've seen several male friends pretty much ruined by hotly contested divorces. The courts have become much more feminist-dominated and anti-male in their views and actions over the past 25 years.
If husband and wife are pretty much on the same level economically, they should share. However, where there's great disparity on one side, excluding some portion of that wealth from the common pot makes sense. Its even better if its discussed and disclosed. For example, if I were to leave some funds to one of my kids, I would hope they weren't available for easy looting by an unscrupulous daughter-in-law.
Once there's kids, it gets much harder. Sometimes the Dad is abused, other times he tries to escape his responsibilities. The nest egg shouldn't be used for the latter purpose.
"If you are thinking about divorce before you get married, then you probably shouldn't get married."
A principle that should be in the handbook of every practicing adult.
I couldn't agree more
When my first marriage broke up, all I asked for was my share of equity in the house (since I helped him buy it, and we didn't have kids.) Very modest as we hadn't been in the house that long. Since I had been working in his business, I used this as a nest egg to get restarted. I was young and healthy, I knew I'd find another job and go on.
I was shocked at how many of my female friends thought I was an idiot not to have tried to hose him. "you should get even (how would hosing him make things even?)" "you worked in the business, you deserve half of it (even though he had started it before we were married and it was his whole life)" "you deserve that house" "make him sell the house" -- I lost friends because I didn't want to be vindictive, and got tired of some of these gals harping on me instead of being supportive. The failure of my marriage was sad, they acted like I'd feel so much better if a made myself bitter besides!
And the final touch, my ex hired the lawyer, since we agreed on everything we just wanted a lawyer to file and finalize the documents, no need for two lawyers if you agree on everything, right? I read the paperwork myself, it was exactly as we had agreed. The lawyer kept bugging me about "you should hire a lawyer, I don't represent you, your husband hired me, someone should look out for your interests, are you sure this is what you want?" I finally figured out the lawyer wanted to rack up legal fees by getting me to fight, even though the ex and I agreed on everything. My first marriage broke my heart, I still don't understand why so many people thought fighting over money would have helped me in any way.
Your husband's lawyer had an ethical obligation to advise you as he did. If you were a different type of person, you could claim you got taken advantage of etc etc. He did it to protect his but with the ethics board.
Part of the courtship ritual is to provide the APPEARANCE of being trustworthy. You can't know, beforehand, how the spouse is going to behave 20 years up the line, there is absolutely no way to be so prescient.
Speaking from experience - I stayed until the youngest child was graduated from high school. I found myself at age 52, with everything I had left loaded in the back of an old blue Ford station wagon (essentially clothes and a TV set) traveling 900 miles to take a job offered on spec. The final divorce papers were sent to my address in Canada, and I got those only because I called the courthouse.
Had I stayed on, my heart would have exploded about 1993.
I have kept the station wagon, even though it has stopped running.
Usually true.
A different scenerio however can occur. Try this one;
A man and woman meet young, marry, have a wonderful life together, and raise a few nice children. They are financially sucessful as well. One dies. A few years pass, and the person meets and contemplates marriage again to a new person.
Some people are so good at hiding their real intentions that it makes perfect sense to figure out a way to start fresh, segregating all their assets so they can be left to the children instead of someone else who had nothing whatsoever to do with earning the assets.
If there was a 1% chance of anything going wrong, and there always is, it would be stupid to not make sound logical plans.
I would not contemplate being wed again if the terrible scenerio took place, but I have no ill feelings for those who do.
Basically good advice. I know a lot of young men who have taken your advice, and don't ever intend on marrying.
But I bet you make bath-time lots of fun!!
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