Man calls off wedding when fiancée calls prenup 'unfair,' says she deserves more. CONCLUDED
"AITA for suggesting calling off the wedding because she thinks the prenup is unfair?"
prethrowaway9
My girlfriend(26F) and myself(M24) have just found out that she is pregnant. She is adamant about not wanting to have a child out of wedlock, so we have been discussing getting married.
We’ve been together for 3 and a half years. Prior to finding out about the baby, we had only talked about marriage a little bit. I know she wants to get married badly, but I’m kind of on the fence. I’m not 100% against it, but definitely not eager/desperate to get married for multiple reasons.
For one, my brother just recently got taken to the cleaners by his ex-wife (he pays her like 10k a month in addition to losing some of his properties!!) and that whole situation terrifies me and I’ve never really seen what a marriage provides that makes that risk worth it.
To me, it’s just the same thing as being together how we are currently, just giving the state permission to be in our relationship. However, now that she’s pregnant, I’ve been more open to it just because I know how much it means to her.
So, we’ve started this process and I’m slowly realizing that I may have bitten off more than I want to chew. While me and my girlfriend love each other very much and are compatible in pretty much every way. Our ideas about marriage, the wedding, ect seem to be a little different.
For starters, for the wedding I was thinking we each pick some of our closest people (maybe 10 or so each idk the number can be a little flexible) and go get married on an island/beach, stay for a week or 2, or something cool like that, so we can have fun and enjoy it.
She pretty much wants the exact opposite… ect massive wedding in a big venue.
Now I don’t see anything wrong with that type of wedding, it just seems like such a colossal waste of resources to invite every person we know when we could instead have fun for a week or 2 then get married on the beach with our closest people.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be the beach(I’m flexible), but I think you get the idea I’m going for vs the idea she’s going for. They are completely 2 different schools of thought. She basically wants to invite every single person she knows. Like I’ve looked at her list and she’s got friends she hasn’t seen in years, third cousins, literally everyone.
To me, if I’m gonna spend a boatload of money, we should do it for ourselves, not people we barely know.
We’ve been talking about compromises and making slow progress on that end, but we were getting there. She knew prior to getting married I would require a prenup. I make about 4x her salary and own property and plan to acquire more. I had my lawyer draft up a prenup and she has her own lawyer reviewing it. This is where we came to an impasse.
Her lawyer believed the prenup was unfair and we’ve been going back and forth making changes. I’ve made some concessions, but I’m kind of at a point where I don’t want to make any more.
While I admit, the prenup is definitely ironclad, I think it’s fair considering the situation. I’m taking all the risk, why would I continue to concede on things my lawyer and I both believe are fair?
So, recently we got into a minor argument over wedding stuff in general regarding the prenup/wedding and I was just like maybe we should just keep things how they are? Of course, she flipped.
We’ve cooled down since, and she says she still wants to make this happen, but that I need to be more open to compromise. I feel like, given the situation, I’ve compromised more than I already should have.
I talked to my brother about it and he told me I’ve compromised more than enough and to hold firm and worst case, we stay gf/bf, which is realistically probably better anyway. My sister disagrees and says I’m being a jerk for not working with her more.
The way I see it, why would I risk everything I’ve worked for when I’m not even getting the wedding I want nor the financial protection I want? Just so I can say I’m married? There’s just very few tangible benefits I’d be getting in relation to the risk. So, AITA?
Here were the top rated comments after this initial post:
Eve-3
The stupidest thing you can do is get married if you don't want to.
Kissmyfibro
Oh totally agree. *Holds up divorce certificate*
XANDERtheSHEEPDOG
NTA. What exactly does she not like about the prenup? Is it the exact terms or does she not want one period? Either way you are definitely NTA for not wanting to get married before it is settled.
It seems to me that more than just the prenup is in dispute here, though. If you are not 1000 percent sure you want to be married, then it would be foolish to get married.
The OP then returned to provide some clarification.
prethrowaway9
Edit: ok I feel like I made her look bad in the original post.
The price of the wedding isn’t the problem. The cost of the wedding she wants vs what I want are damn near the same amount. It’s just the things we want to use that amount for. I don’t think she’s maliciously going after me and I do see her as the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. We were planning on moving in together regardless.
However like I mentioned, prenup is ironclad. I’m not gonna go into the details of the prenup for obvious reasons, but I will say it probably favors me.
The language she wants in the prenup leaves more interpretation to judge. It’s nothing necessarily crazy and from my understanding somewhat common in prenups vs the language I want is very precise with things I have specifically outlined regardless of the circumstance.
She wouldn’t be screwed or anything and would still probably be doing better financially speaking than she is now, (she already does ok for herself) but the prenup is about as strong as it can be while still being reliably enforceable.
And another thing I want to make clear. It’s not that I don’t wanna get married. The idea of marriage and being married to someone you love is cool. I’m not against it like I may have made it sound. If anything I may be the paranoid one.
My parents are divorced, both my brothers got divorced, my cousins ect. I just know how we feel now about each other may not be the case forever, as sad as that may be. In the case, that something I happens I don’t want to give up a large portion of my assets. I would always support the kid and make sure he/she needs. It’s my child.
This isn’t a problem with the relationship. If we don’t get married, we’ll stay together and raise the kid. It’s not totally unexpected. We both acknowledged the risk of getting pregnant and were ok with the possibility. I never promised her marriage if that was the case.
In fact, in the first year of dating I told her I didn’t plan on getting married at all, back when we weren’t that serious. I point all of this out to say this isn’t something that I've been expecting and she had never made this much of a fuss about getting married before now.
Another thing I noticed, a lot of comments are assuming she would be pregnant at the wedding. We would wait till after the birth. When I said she doesn’t want to have a baby out of wedlock, I didn’t mean it that literate. Like if we got married a couple months/year after, it wouldn’t be a big deal to her. My mistake.
We are in the process of moving in together and are going to raise the baby together regardless of the outcome of this dispute. Now I know this is where a bunch of Reddit people call me naive, but this possibility has already been discussed.
We do not have any intention of raising in the baby in a dual household and if we did I would have no problem paying child support.
More details about the prenup. Yes, it’s ironclad but it’s not unfair. To answer some of the questions people are asking, yes it guarantees she will have a place to live if we were to get a divorce and she is guaranteed alimony for a certain period as well.
Here were the top rated comments from readers after this update:
d4nkgr1l
If your objective is to make someone you love sign something ironclad, you may want to examine your motives. You are very worried about this prenup. I’d see that as a red flag — it’s one thing to have a prenup, it’s another to lock your loved one into a trap of an agreement.
It sounds like you love her but you don’t really trust her. Regarding the wedding, destination weddings are usually seen as a way to have a smaller wedding. Maybe you could go with a local wedding with a smaller guest list?
1low67
Dude, run! Do not get married especially without a prenup.
Greyeyedqueen7
YTA. Her lawyer is doing their job. You refusing to compromise further says you can only see yourself and your needs and that your gf exists in your life for you.
Don't marry her, and don't move in together. Pay the lawyers to work up a fair parenting time and child support agreement, and get the judge to sign it. We all know where this is going. You aren't going to be a loving partner, supporting her through the pregnancy and after, and you're not going to be a loving dad, sacrificing sleep and money and more for the child.
If you can't compromise now, you likely never will or, at least, won't until you grow up more. Just end the relationship now, get the legal stuff sorted, and let her find someone who actually loves her and her child.
lordsummerisleswig
There's a whole lot of talk about assets and resources by OP and almost zero about love or commitment or sharing a life together. Sounds like his partner wants a marriage and he just wants to hoard wealth like Smaug.
Wyshunu
This reeks of 'got pregnant to trap my guy into marriage'. If she is not willing to sign what sounds like a very reasonable prenup, she is giving you massive red flags that she cares more about your assets than she does about you. In your shoes, I would also call off the wedding. NTA.
A few weeks later, the OP returned with another update.
'UPDATE: AITA for suggesting calling off the wedding because she thinks the prenup is unfair?'
prethrowaway9
So, my last post ended up getting way more attention than I anticipated and a lot of you guys dm’ed me with advice and asking for an update. Thanks to everyone who reached out with advice.
A couple of you guys stories & pieces of advice are what ended up helping me stand firm on the decision. I tried to respond to some of you, but apologies if i didn’t get to you. Also, not sure about the rules about updates so if this isn’t allowed sorry mods just delete it.
First, I’ll answer some of the common questions I saw throughout the thread. I realized if I don’t specify something everyone will just fill in the blanks themselves, which I guess I can’t be too mad at.
1. Yes, we are both aware of what birth control is and how to use it. For the first 2 years of our relationship, she was on the pill, but told me she wanted to get off of it because it was messing with her hormones. She said I could use condoms if I wanted too, but that didn’t last for too long. We both knew & accepted this could potentially happen.
2. Yes, I said she doesn’t live with me, but I should have provided more context. Yes, she doesn’t technically live with me but she primarily stays at my place. She has her own apartment, but sleeps at my place minimum 4-5 nights a week. Sometimes even more. Most of her clothes are over here, the food she makes is over here ect I think you get my point.
3. For everyone that keeps saying abortion, she’s had the option for that the entire time. We live in California, so it’s not like it’s illegal or anything. When she asked my opinion, I told her I preferred she keep it, but if she wanted an abortion, I would get her one and support her decision regardless. She chose to keep it.
I think those were people's main questions, so onto the update. We ended up having a discussion about the whole marriage thing where we both were able to get our opinions/concerns out there. Just me and her, no lawyers, no anything. It was really helpful because it let both of us get our concerns out there.
We ended up agreeing that the whole marriage / prenup situation was too stressful right now while we were dealing with so many things. Pregnancy, moving in, ect. So, we agreed that for now we would focus on the baby and pend the marriage conversation for now.
I agreed I would be open to discussing it again in a couple years once everything has settled down and she ended up being satisfied with that. That was last week and as of a couple days ago, we finished moving the rest of her stuff to my place. Her lease ends at the end of this month & all that is left in the apartment is some furniture she plans to give to her family.
And since this is my last post about this situation I’ll provide some clarity about why I didn’t want to compromise any further on the prenup. The language that my lawyer and I chose to use was very definitive about what would happen in the event of a divorce.
On the other hand, hers was not. Again, still not going into details but I’ll say what my lawyer told me. He basically said that if I were to concede the language any further, he could no longer give me a guarantee on what I stand to lose.
He said at that point, I would pretty much be at the mercy of the judges interpretation meaning anything could happen especially considering the fact that we live in CA. For me, that would defeat the entire purpose of the prenup, which is why I wasn’t willing to concede on it.
I actually was willing to concede on the actual wedding plans, but I just couldn’t imagine letting a court system that is historically pretty unfair to men have the final say over my assets. I assured my girlfriend that in the event that we separated, I would make sure she was still taken care of which made her feel better about the whole situation as well.
I don’t think my problem was necessarily the commitment to her. It was more the fact that someone else would have the final say over everything in the scenario where things go wrong vs myself having the final say, which as many of you pointed out, means I’m just not ready for marriage.
Here were the top rated comments after this final update:
Tat2dGothic79
A prenup isn't a bad thing, and I'm tired of seeing people think they are. It doesn't matter how sweet or great someone is, when a break up happens they can turn vindictive and in a state like California, they are known to side with the women and its a 50/50 default split in a divorce.
You should definitely have one if you have a kid, too, because that's when things get really ugly. Good luck dude, and don't let her sweet talk you into not getting one.
Ngothaaa
Good for you OP for having a conversation like adults.. I just hope that you’re there for her during post partum phase and are active in taking care of the new born... that’s what matters now.
RwnKayNV
I still think OP is a jerk tbh. If her lawyer advised to go against it since it's unfair towards her, then something was very off.
Zealousideal-Bee7816
I’m extremely happy to hear this is the conclusion, in the future I hope and pray you don’t compromise on the prenup any further I still think you shouldn’t have compromised at all but that’s your decision, I wish the very best for the both of you and I hope you two get married with better understandings of split money and properties.
AdamGreyskul75
A prenup should have harsh penalties for the person that breaks the marriage vows. Whichever one it is. Meaning if he's the rich one and cheats he needs to suffer for it, just like she would.
If someone 'just doesn't love the other anymore', then the prenup should punish the person who initiates. Meaning if he 'falls out of love' after 20 years and wants a younger model he should be punished for that. If she is just marrying him for his money and wants out to take a chunk of it, she should be punished for that.
I personally think she's an idiot for tabling the prenup/marriage discussion while moving in with OP because she's burning years of her life while getting no assurances that he's not just going to dump her when he gets tired of her. Unless there's common law laws in place I can almost guarantee she's going to get burned trusting in his, 'I'll take care of you baby! Don't worry!' BS line.