DEAR JANE: My husband is demanding that I sign a POST-nup agreement so his kids from a previous marriage can take MY money

Dear Jane,

My husband is demanding that I sign a POST prenuptial agreement because he wants his children from another marriage to get some of my money.

We have been married for seven years and share a five-year-old daughter; we also have two children each from previous marriages, all of whom are in our twenties. When we met, I owned my own home like him, and we are both fortunate to work in well-paying jobs, although he makes about ten times what I do.

Yet we have never had to worry about money.

When we started discussing the idea of ​​marriage, I brought up the topic of pre-nup. Since we both came into the relationship with our own assets, but also with our own financial obligations, I thought it would be a wise idea to put everything in writing.

He immediately dismissed the idea and insisted that he loved me and wasn’t concerned about our relationship at all. Because I was so in love, I decided not to press the subject – and just a few months later we were married. Since then we have both sold our homes and moved to a larger house, where we now live with our daughter.

After we made the decision to buy a house together, I suggested we write a shared will that sets out what will happen to our house and finances in the event that one of us dies before the other.

Our current will is from when we were both single parents, and I want to make sure our daughter is protected. But every time I tried to talk about it, he would ignore me or try to find a way to change the subject.

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Unfortunately, our marriage has not turned out as I had hoped – and as we undergo therapy in an attempt to save our relationship, it has become even clearer to me that we need to get all our finances in order.

So I ended up discussing the whole issue head-on, only for him to turn around and tell me that he now wants to discuss a post-nup agreement because he wants to make sure his two children from his previous marriage get a fair chance. part of ‘our’ money.

To be clear, we have always kept our finances completely separate – he does what he wants with his money and I have no control over how he wants to spend it.

So for him to now suggest that his two children should have a share of “our” money is just insane to me, especially since I spent so much time convincing him how important it was that we deal with this before we’re ever married .

I’m so scared that if anything ever happens to him, his kids will come after me – and I’ll have to take care of myself and my daughter.

I need advice on how to proceed. I feel so betrayed. So blinded. It has changed my entire feeling about this marriage, a feeling that wasn’t that great at first.

By,

Husband in conflict

Dear Spouse in Conflict,

Get yourself to a lawyer as soon as possible.

I’m afraid nothing in your letter makes much sense to me, least of all that you are going through marital problems and this is the time your husband decides to make this ridiculous request since you already keep your finances completely separate.

I’m not sure how he considers it “our” money, if you keep everything separate, although many states in the US consider everything within a marriage and marital property and strive for an equitable division.

Please take care of yourself and your future.

You don’t have to start divorce proceedings, but you do need to know exactly where you stand and how you can protect yourself.

A good lawyer will advise you on this, but any advice columnist will tell you that even considering a prenup that would benefit one person more than the other, when your marriage is already in trouble, is a huge and strong no.