Lizzy and Lissa break down the hidden costs – financial and otherwise – of prenups. While some people see prenups as a sign of distrust or associate them with divorce and greed, others view them as a practical necessity before getting married. In this episode, Lizzy and Lissa talk with Raymond Hekmat, a California-based family attorney. Together, they unpack common myths and misconceptions about prenups and explore whether they’re worth having.
Lizzy and Lissa break down the hidden costs – financial and otherwise – of prenups. While some people see prenups as a sign of distrust or associate them with divorce and greed, others view them as a practical necessity before getting married. In this episode, Lizzy and Lissa talk with Raymond Hekmat, a California-based family attorney. Together, they unpack common myths and misconceptions about prenups and explore whether they’re worth having.
Main Topics
00:00 Introduction
01:18 Running The Numbers Segment
02:20 Meet Our Guest, Raymond Hekmat
04:03 The Importance of Prenups
08:24 Prenups vs. Postnups
11:58 Navigating Prenup Discussions
19:49 Personal Experiences and Misconceptions
24:54 Financial Growth and Relationship Dynamics
25:19 Infidelity and Legal Protections
30:50 Costs and Timelines of Prenups
35:23 Unique Prenup Provisions
40:02 20 Cents Segment
References for Statistics
https://helloprenup.com/prenup-statistics-2024-comprehensive-insights-into-prenuptial-agreements/
https://investors.legalzoom.com/news-releases/news-release-details/legalzoom-encourages-couples-consider-prenuptial-agreements
https://www.newsweek.com/more-americans-are-signing-prenups-1838768
Check Out Raymond on: Instagram | TikTok
Website: https://hekmatfamilylaw.com/
Lissa: Today we are talking about prenups, and we have a special guest, Raymond Hekmat, who is a prenup attorney and expert. And he's actually the lawyer I utilized for my own marital contract. Welcome, Raymond.
Raymond: Thank you for having me.
Lissa: Are prenups worth it?
Lizzy: Let's talk about it.
Lissa: Welcome to Net Net with Lizzy and Lissa, where we analyze hidden costs and empower you to make your own damn decisions in life. Each episode covers a different facet of life, and at the end of each episode, we each give our takes on whether we think something is net positive or net negative.
Lizzy: I'm Lizzy, a strategist and consultant with almost 20 years of experience in finance and investing.
Lissa: And I'm Lissa, a personal finance expert and a certified financial planner. We're best friends who talk about money.
Lizzy: And everything else.
Lissa: In today's episode, we are discussing prenups, which are legal contracts. However, this episode is for informational and educational purposes and should not be misconstrued as financial or legal advice. We share our experiences and opinions to help educate, but you should consult a professional for guidance as needed. Are prenups worth it?
Lizzy: First up, running the numbers on prenups.
Lissa: According to helloprenup.com, dubbed the TurboTax for prenups by one of their users, 75% of their customers are young adults between the ages of 18 and 39.
Lizzy: And while that's just one platform, it lines up with a stat from LegalZoom. Over 40% of Gen Z and millennial couples reported signing a prenup compared to just 15% of the general population.
Lissa: Skewing younger. That 15% comes from a 2022 Harris Poll. It might seem low, but it's actually a big jump from 2010 when only 3% of adults said that they had signed a prenup.
Lizzy: Wow. And looking ahead, 35% of unmarried people say they'd be likely to sign a prenup in the future.
Lissa: But we all know there's more to life than numbers and statistics, so let's talk about it. Are prenups worth it?
Lizzy: Whew.
Lissa: That's a lot here.
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: Well, first off, let's have you introduce yourself, Raymond. How long have you been an attorney? What field do you work in?
Raymond: Sure. So I've been a family law attorney about 15 years now, and I started my career as a divorce litigation attorney, and I was litigating divorces on my own and I was working for a couple other firms. And about five years ago, I transitioned into mainly prenups, divorce consulting and mediation work.
And I find a lot of value in the prenups, and it has been a really special experience working with people early on in their marriages or within their marriages, really planning for their marriage and helping them and guiding them through what their financial situation will be during marriage and helping them really plan.
Lizzy: Has your experience aligned with those statistics where the interest and number of clients that you have getting prenup has increased over time?
Raymond: Yeah, absolutely. Generally speaking, people are getting married later in life and because of that, they have their own specific assets, they have their own careers and they've experienced financial autonomy. And what happens is that when people get married, everything changes, and they realize that they necessarily don't want the government to decide what happens with their life and their financial life.
So it's really about them taking control and deciding what is right for them and their relationship. And really, at the end of the day, marriage is a financial arrangement, and people are starting to recognize that and plan accordingly.
Lizzy: I'm glad you framed it that way because I think for a lot of people that don't have more experience, the thing that comes up is a gold digger. Someone has a ton of money and someone doesn't. And I think in reality there's a lot more nuance than that.
Raymond: Of course.
Lizzy: So you want to dig into a little bit of what these agreements might consist of?
Raymond: Yeah. So the bottom line is that everyone has a prenup whether you like it or not. Everyone has a prenup, and it's the laws of your state. We're in California, so California law is your prenup. And when people get married, it's really important to understand what the laws are. What are you signing up for?
Just getting married doesn't mean, oh, we love each other, butterflies, rainbows, let's get married. There's a lot more to it. There are financial considerations and laws that will govern your marriage. And so people recognize that. And really, the idea of a prenup is an opportunity to rewrite the laws of your marriage. That's really all it is.
It's not about what's mine is mine, what's yours is yours and I never want to be responsible for you. It's about planning for that marriage on grounds that really protect both parties, making it mutually beneficial, and setting the ground rules of your marriage, and also, what are the expectations each of you have for each other? And having those really important conversations.
When I was litigating divorces, it just would come up over and over again where people entered a marriage with certain expectations and then they realized, huh, I got it all wrong. I didn't know that she thought this was going to be our marriage, or that he had these expectations. They never spoke to each other. So they never spoke to each other about these things.
And so really, the prenup process is a catalyst to having these really important conversations that I don't think a lot of people have. And because people are getting married later in life, they're more intentional about their marriages, they're more conscious about their marriage. They understand that as you said, 40 to 50% of marriages end in divorce. That is just a fact. It's reality.
So why don't we set ourselves up for success by actually talking about the important aspects that will govern our marriage and the financial side, which is a huge part of why people get divorced? I would say the number one reason why people get divorced is because about money or the lack of discussion about money and their expectations about money coming from the marriage.
So having these really important foundational conversations about your emotions around money, your experiences with money, where your income comes from, what are your assets? What do you expect to share? Why is financial autonomy important to you? How you spend your money. Are you a spender? Are you a saver?
All of these foundational conversations about money improve your chances of having a successful marriage, and all we do with a prenup is incorporate those rules or those understandings in writing to really just overwrite the laws of 50/50 sharing all the time.
Lissa: It was you that I learned the concept of thinking of it as if you don't get your own prenup, you do have one. It's whatever the law is. And I think people understand that when it comes to things like wills. If you don't write a will and you don't have instructions on what you want to happen after you die, whatever the state says happens to your property, whatever.
I think people tend to understand that, but don't really think of that in terms of marriage. And I think it's because, and we talked about this in our marriage episode, it's there's so much more emotion and all these other things tied to marriage beyond the contract part of it. But we have to acknowledge that the contract part is the-
Raymond: It exists whether you like it or not.
Lissa: It's a part of it. So it's really planning, and that's something that I learned from Raymond. So the context is Allan and I, my husband, who we've had as a guest, we actually did not do a prenup. We ended up doing a post-nuptial agreement, which do you want to explain the difference between the two?
Raymond: So a prenup and a post-nup are different in that a prenup is done prior to marriage before anybody gets married. And so you're two strangers no duties with each other. And two people can really come to an agreement as to whatever they want as long as it doesn't violate public policy. And we don't talk about kids in terms of child support or custody reasons.
And in terms of fairness, it can't leave somebody on the side of the road. Otherwise, two adults entering into a contract on what they want their marriage to look like. A post-nup is a little bit different in that in the event of divorce, it's held on a higher scrutiny level. And the reason for that is that once you're married, like business partners, you owe fiduciary duties to one another.
And because of those fiduciary duties, there are laws that are put in place to protect one person over the other. And there are rules that say that if you enter into any kind of contract while you're married, they cannot greatly disadvantage one party over the other.
So with a post-nuptial agreement, when you're entering into any kind of agreement, any kind of waivers of rights that somebody has, because they are already in the marriage, those waivers need to be met with some form of consideration and fairness.
So the post-nuptial agreement does need to be fair on some level. That doesn't mean that nobody can contract to whatever they want to contract to, but at the end of the day, in the event of divorce, it will be seen as something, well, was there consideration? Was it fair? Was each side represented by attorneys? Were they advised of their rights? And what are they giving up?
And maybe it's not fair, but everyone understands that this is what they want to do kind of thing. So they're treated a little differently. And really, both prenups and post-nups can be tailored to whatever you want it to be and address whatever issues you want. It doesn't have to be a full-scale, every category that we put in a prenup. Some people may just say, "Look, I'm going to buy this house, but I want it to be my house." And it could just be that.
Lissa: Okay. And for clarity, we tried to do a prenup. And so what happens when you get a prenup is both sides have to get their own attorney. And so Raymond was my attorney. Allan had an attorney, I don't even remember his name, but he disappeared for weeks on end. We were trying to get him to review the content.
Lizzy: This was one of the costs.
Lissa: Yeah. Because we're like, "Look, our courthouse marriage date is coming up. We need this." Because we also had to do it ahead of time so we're not signing it like the day before, which also, you could speak on that, how that looks sketchy, to sign your prenup right before like you're being coerced into it.
So we couldn't do it based on the timeline, and Allan and I wanted to keep our courthouse marriage date. Raymond explained to us what the difference was. We're like, "That's fine." For us, it's just about planning assets and we don't intend on getting divorced, but we wanted to go into the marriage responsibly and with more peace of mind for both of us on what asset ownership looked like.
Lizzy: So talk a little bit more about that. How did this decision come to be? What went into it? Was it challenging? Because I imagine for you professionally, some of these sessions might be more like financial therapy sessions as you're navigating it.
Raymond: Absolutely. I tell people, "About 70% of my job is being a therapist. 30% is actually legal."
Lizzy: I bet.
Raymond: And a lot of the conversations are guiding people through those important conversations and really helping them plan for that marriage. And sometimes it's bad news. Sometimes you realize that maybe you guys aren't on the same page. And that happens a lot.
Lizzy: I realize that now.
Raymond: But you'd rather do that before you get married anyway.
Lizzy: For sure.
Raymond: And again, the thing is this, that a lot of people enter into or talk about prenups is planning for divorce, but you're not. You're planning for your marriage. You're planning for, what is it going to look like being married? And what is our life going to look like?
Lizzy: I think that's a big shift in perspective that even until you said it, I never really thought about it that way, of you're being on the same page. You never know what's going to happen in life. So how are we going to navigate these different scenarios for our future together?
Raymond: Absolutely.
Lizzy: So how did you guys approach this, you and Allan?
Lissa: How we decided to get one?
Lizzy: Mm-hmm.
Lissa: I don't know. You know me, I'm very open with things like that, so I'm pretty sure I was just like, "Hey, what are your thoughts on prenups?" And he's a very practical guy, so I don't think there was an issue at all. It was a perfect situation because I came to the marriage with more assets, but zero income because I had left my 9:00 to 5:00 to pursue my own business, whereas he had assets but way less than me, but also way higher income.
So we were coming to the relationship with these different pieces that we were contributing. So either way it felt even, it felt very even. And we already, we had combined our finances. So in the talks with our attorneys where you're supposed to disclose everything, all your assets, all your debts, which causes a lot of issues for people, there was no stress, I think, for us around it, which is we're blessed and privileged for that.
But I do see with my financial clients, there's a lot of that where it's like, but I don't want him to know how much debt I have. Maybe he won't marry me, maybe he'll want to leave me.
Lizzy: Gosh, it's a loaded statement.
Lissa: So anyway, for us, we were lucky. I felt like it was a very easy conversation. We are very open and transparent about money and things like this, and we decided it was important enough to spend the money on to do it.
Lizzy: So I think that's important to highlight when we talk about the costs. So there's of course financial costs, which we can get into, but I think for a lot of people, they think this conversation, even the request for one, is a threat to my relationship because we are socially conditioned to not talk about money.
Most relationships have a hard time with these conversations anyway, so the emotional cost and the existential cost, potentially one could argue, well, maybe that's probably not the healthiest situation to be in in the first place.
Raymond: Well, the way I see it is that when you get married, you're going to have these conversations whether you like it or not. You're going to end up having these conversations at one point or another. And this process, as I said, is a catalyst and a brain exercise in openly talking about money so that when things come up later on, you've already talked about some stuff.
You understand where your partner is coming from, you understand what's important to your partner. And so that when conflict arises during marriage, you've already set up ground rules, but also an understanding of how to address them. And I think this process of talking about money before getting married, it is romantic, it is intimate.
Lizzy: Agreed. Yes.
Raymond: It's very intimate because you're really talking about sensitive subjects and opening yourself up to somebody. And there's a lot of people that are like, "Well, I'm scared to have that conversation." It's like, you're getting married. Put your big boy pants on and talk about this stuff. You're never going to be able to avoid this. This is not something you can avoid. And just because you avoid it doesn't mean it's going to go away.
And by avoiding it, you're just going to make it worse because once you're married, things are going to come up and they're going to go, "Well, I didn't know that. I didn't know that the house you're living in is actually owned by your parents and I will never get this house."
People should know these things because you're entering into this financial world, and that knowledge brings you either closer together or makes you realize that you're not right for each other.
Lissa: I also have this common misconception that I see with clients where they somehow think that signing a prenup and figuring out who owns what is going to affect their money management system. And I have to clarify to them that, "No, you can have your own accounts, your partner can have their own accounts, you can have joint accounts."
But like you said, these are the conversations that are going to come up regardless, how are you splitting expenses? How are you tackling debts that you have or that your partner has? These are the conversations you want to have before the marriage. But it's a misconception that I see that they think it's going to impact like, oh, well, the spouse is going to have access to my cash, my funds.
Lizzy: I'm going to have no privacy.
Raymond: Well, the thing as you say about that, actually without the prenup, that's what it's going to cause, because if everything is going into one pot or your money you earned during marriage is going into separate pots, you're not going to have any kind of transparency of what's going on or you may have too much transparency.
I always tell my clients, "What if you guys have just one account and all of my money and my wife's money goes into this account, and now I want to buy my wife a birthday present, and I put it on our joint credit card and I want it to be a secret, or I don't want her to know how much I spent on it, or maybe that month she made more money than me and now I'm spending my wife's money buying her a birthday gift?"
The fact is that the prenup can provide for that differentiation between my money, your money, our money, and that I have now the financial autonomy to spend my money the way I want for myself and my partner and not have to have those conversations.
In those premarital counseling sessions, because my money is your money, your money is my money, a big conversation is, well, if I'm going to spend anything during our marriage, how much am I allowed to spend without having to ask your permission? And that can cause huge problems in a marriage.
There are certain things that might be important to me to spend money on that my wife thinks is ridiculous or vice versa. But if I'm able to spend my money the way I want to spend it, I think that makes for a healthier marriage.
Lizzy: I agree. I think that financial autonomy is a huge theme, and I think that's one of the things that people, to your point, think they will lose in this process. That feeling of someone's going to be looking over my shoulder and there's so many emotions tied to money and spending anyway.
Am I going to feel ashamed every time I whip out my credit card because they're going to be judging me? And the reality is actually, let's nip that in the bud really early so we can have an environment where everyone feels comfortable.
Raymond: Right. Right.
Lissa: So Liz, curious for your take, because you've been married and divorced, and to my understanding, you didn't have a prenup.
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: So I know you were younger, but can you walk us through why?
Lizzy: Yeah. And I want to come back to this because I think one of the perceptions, and maybe misconceptions, I'm not sure, is that if you don't have assets, you don't need a prenup. And so that was my point of view. It honestly never crossed my mind. I don't think I really had the awareness, I was only 23.
Probably even more important in the circumstances. It was a little bit of a green card marriage, similar situation to Lissa and at the time, my ex was international student, he couldn't get a green card. He wasn't legally allowed to work. So I was supporting us. And when we divorced, again, I was the primary breadwinner, and he never contested anything. He didn't even ask for alimony, which I would've had to pay him.
I said, "Well, it was your fault we got divorced." And it was. So I wasn't feeling particularly generous. I didn't let him on the street, but it just never crossed my mind. And I think even until recently, I had some of those same misconceptions. So I was in another long-term relationship, but not a marriage, where we were super transparent about our finances and we had assets together.
But if we were to have gotten married, I wouldn't have considered one. I think my thought was, if I am growing substantial assets while we're together, I feel perfectly comfortable sharing them. And that was my point of view without recognizing that there's a lot of nuance, that's a pretty broad brush. And to your point, there's also a lot of conversations and education that come through this process that's really important.
Raymond: So two things you brought up that I think are really important. One is that at the beginning of your marriage, if you don't have assets, the misperception is that you don't need the prenup. But the fact is that that's I think even more reason why you need to get a prenup.
Because if I don't have assets I want to protect, that just means that I'm at the beginning of my career, I'm starting to do things, and I'm going to earn money and I'm going to create assets. And so we have to plan for that, and we have to know what we're going to do with that growth. So that's even more reason to have those conversations to decide what our future is going to look like.
Because in a prenup, we deal with two periods of time. One is everything I have before marriage. And a lot of people are like, "Okay, let's keep those separate." That's the easy part. That's the easy part. And California law, in most cases, provides for that already. Obviously there's things that you need the prenup to protect those premarital assets. But I tell people, "The bigger part is what happens during marriage." And that's where that conversation really lies.
And then the second thing you brought up is that I tell people that not everyone needs a prenup, but everyone should talk about one. And the fact is, again, there are laws in place and you got to educate yourself on those laws and know what you're getting yourself into and whether or not certain things, the California law is right for you or not.
And you brought up the fact that you're okay sharing 50% of your growth during marriage, right?
Lizzy: Yeah.
Raymond: Great. But some people A, don't know that that's the law or aren't okay with that.
Lizzy: Well, so my perspective on that has having been in two relationships that ended with cheating. And so that's like, okay, so I can make us all this money and you go cheat and you take half my money. And to me, so having gone through that in multiple experiences and having to divide a life in half twice with what felt like out of my control, that's really shifted my perspective to I have no idea what can happen.
I can trust someone, I can love someone. This is out of my control. So I now have more of a mind of, how do I protect myself? And with the very realistic acknowledgement that things don't last forever sometimes.
Raymond: Absolutely.
Lissa: I didn't even think of it. I always used to think also that it's for people who have assets, but this makes sense to me now because can you imagine? Both of y'all broke, you get into a marriage, one of y'all becomes multimillionaire, you start an investment fund, you make big money, the other one's a bum, and then you guys stay together for a couple years and then cheating or something happens out of your control and you'd be pissed.
Lizzy: Yeah. That's exactly what I'm contemplating now.
Lissa: Can you imagine?
Lizzy: My objective in my life right now and my path is I'm trying to make some very life-changing wealth, and if I enter into a relationship in the future, I think I have to be very mindful of that. And that doesn't mean you're not helping me on my journey or that I'm going to be stingy with it, but just acknowledge that reality.
Raymond: And you brought up infidelity. I just want to make it clear. So with prenups, so California, we're a no-fault state. So no one can be actually penalized for infidelity, and that's not something we can override in a prenup either. But the way we account for that is that certain level of protection of most of the time, and what a lot of people do is they create those buckets of mine, yours, ours.
So whatever is ours that we automatically or intentionally create, sure, that'll get divided. But you're on your own side of things, I'm on mine. And we know that we never have to divide those things if the infidelity may occur or not, whatever. But I just want to make clear. That's one thing that people ask for or bring up, "What if he cheats on me?" Well, sorry.
Lizzy: but that's important to know. The other thing I want to discuss, which I think, Lissa, you alluded to, is it's not just protecting against assets, it's protecting against liabilities. And I think that's something people don't always account for, especially when they're not having any of these conversations, is maybe neither of you have substantial assets, but maybe one of you has a lot of debt that you're not aware of and that can become your debt.
Raymond: So that's our big conversation we have, and there's different elements of what we have to address. So the one thing that people want to talk about is, okay, you have these significant debts. How are they going to get paid off? Am I going to be responsible for paying your debt? Is it student loan debt? Is it credit card debt? Who's going to pay off this debt and how is it going to happen?
But more importantly, one misconception that people have about prenups is the protection of liability of only being one party's liability. And the fact is that, yeah, so a prenup can designate a certain debt as somebody's separate property debt or that debt incurred during marriage is going to be someone's separate debt.
All the prenup does is provide for indemnification so that if a third party creditor comes after either party for that debt, the only thing the prenup does is say that, okay, "If somebody comes after my wife for my debt, I have to make my wife whole." But the prenup cannot be used as a shield or a sword against a third party creditor and say, "Hey, hey, hey, wait a minute, You can't go after my debt from my wife because we have a prenup."
So it can't be used as a shield in that way. And people think like, oh, let's get a prenup to protect you from this debt. It doesn't. Those are the things that just getting married exposes you to certain laws that you can't avoid. So if you get married and somebody enters a lawsuit and the debtors go after your home or your wife's home and it's mine, too bad.
They're going to go after whatever they want to go after. The only thing that the prenup can do is allow one party to recover whatever they lost from the other person.
Lizzy: Assuming that the other person even-
Lissa: Has-
Lizzy: ... has it.
Lissa: Yeah, has it.
Lizzy: That's very good to know.
Lissa: But again, prenup or not, those are the conversations you want to talk about beforehand. And something that I've seen with clients too is the clients who are less likely to talk about money in general or debts before a marriage, thinking, for example, I'm going to go into the marriage, I have debt, they don't, but it's okay because I'm going to handle my own debt.
But if the other person doesn't know about it, it's like maybe you don't contribute as much to vacations and other shared experiences together. And if that partner finds out later that you're not contributing as much because you're busy paying off all this debt and they didn't know about it, it feels more like a lack of control thing. The lack of transparency can lead to so many more other issues in our relationship besides financial.
Raymond: Absolutely. Not being able to even have those conversations, I think is a huge red flag.
Lissa: Yeah.
Lizzy: Agreed.
Raymond: ... before you're getting married. Somebody that isn't able or willing to have these necessary conversations that, again, you're going to have anyway whether you like it or not, it's a huge red flag and you need to pay attention to those files.
Lizzy: Well, I think the other thing, I love that you said this is very romantic because I truly feel that way. And I think for some people, there's that instinct of, I'm going to protect my partner from this, so that's why I'm not going to talk about it. And people don't recognize that actually steals their agency from them.
That's actually fairly manipulative, even if you don't intend it to be that way, even if the intent isn't malicious. And the truly romantic thing is to be able to be fully honest and hopefully accept each other or work out a resolution, but that protection mechanism is actually doing a disservice to your relationship, and people don't realize that.
Lissa: Absolutely. This is a little bit of a tangent, but when you said that, one of my biggest pet peeves in TV shows and movies is when part of the plot line is, "I didn't tell you to protect you." It's like, dude, get over it. Just tell them because you're not protecting anybody. You're making it worse.
Lizzy: And then fiasco ensues.
Lissa: Yeah. And it's a whole movie that I just wasted my time watching.
Lizzy: Yep, exactly. Completely agree. All right, let's talk about the financial costs and the time. What are the very straightforward, practical costs of a prenup?
Raymond: In terms of costs, there's a huge range in costs throughout Los Angeles and the nation. Most of the time prenups will cost, for drafting a prenup, anywhere between, I don't know, five and $20,000. And it really depends on the complexity of the agreement and the size of the estate and what exactly are we doing here?
And then on the review side, there's another attorney that would review most of the time, and the review costs are generally lower because they're not drafting something. And you mentioned HelloPrenup in the facts.
Lissa: Yeah.
Raymond: There are online companies like HelloPrenup that provide for services, and I think it's about $700. And it's an online service where two people can go on, they answer some questions and a prenup is generated for them. But those prenups are very different than having a really custom prenup with the legal advice and having a draft and tailored to your exact needs.
Lizzy: And the therapy.
Raymond: And the therapy. There's only so much that those templates can do, but they do provide for a service for people that can't afford-
Lizzy: Right. And maybe better than none.
Raymond: Exactly.
Lizzy: But it's going to be more boilerplate for sure.
Raymond: Exactly. Exactly. And then in terms of timeline, really, I always tell people, "You need to start the discussion at least three to four months out." And I would give everybody about two to three months to really go through the process without rush, with understanding of what you're doing and really taking the time and care necessary.
The only rules, and you're talking about signing the day before the wedding kind of thing, so laws were put in place a while ago now that there's a seven-day rule in California now in that the final version of the agreement has to sit for seven days before it's signed.
So technically, yes, we can still sign the day before the wedding, but the point is that the agreement has to sit untouched for seven days before it's signed. So people have that breathing period of seven days of deciding really whether or not they want to sign this and go forward with it.
Lizzy: That made me think, and we discussed this in our episode on marriage, a lot of people have this resistance to the government being involved in their relationships. And I understand that and also use that, use it as a tool. Take advantage of the laws or the existence of prenups as a thing or whatever it may be. And don't let yourself be victim to whatever is going to happen in your life. Take control and have some ownership over it.
Raymond: Sure. And look, the prenup can still apply California law in certain ways. It doesn't mean you have to throw California law out the window. A prenup, again, whatever you want it to be. If you want to adopt certain California law and certain things that make sense for you and your relationship, those can be put in the prenup.
The ones that are modified, you can modify them. It's just about that education of really knowing what the law is first and understanding what you're signing up for.
Lissa: So something that I thought of when you said two to three months... Wait, three to four months?
Raymond: Yeah.
Lissa: I would tack on a little more. One, because we didn't expect that one attorney to go dark and disappear, which is why we couldn't get it done in time. But also, as someone who just planned their wedding, it's another task. It's not a lot, but meetings and reading contracts, it's just another thing to have to do. I would bake in a couple more months.
Raymond: Look, hopefully people are having these money conversations before even getting engaged.
Lissa: Engaged, right? Yeah.
Raymond: That's because that is why you're getting married in a lot of ways, and you need to have those conversations before even deciding to get married. But then once you are going through it, yes, the earlier, the better. If I have people calling me now for their October weddings, great. There are some people that are calling me for their June and July weddings.
Lizzy: Trickier.
Raymond: A little trickier.
Lizzy: Okay, I have a random question. To any extent you can share, what are some of the more unique or interesting provisions you've seen in some of these documents?
Raymond: The thing is with these prenups, you have to be really, really careful. And those lifestyle clauses, I try to stay clear from those because that impacts the enforceability of the agreement. There have been situations in the past where I have actually seen provisions of, you're not allowed to gain a certain amount of weight, or you have to do this or that during the marriage and things like that. But those are unenforceable. You can't go to court and penalize-
Lissa: Across different states, that's pretty much-
Raymond: I can't speak to other states. Other states allow for infidelity clauses, but in California you can't get into those things because they violate public policy. So really, the basis of the agreement is providing for that mutual benefit of receiving a financial benefit for entering a marriage if somebody is waiving certain disclosures. I'm sorry, I don't have very interesting [inaudible 00:36:33]
Lizzy: No, it's okay. I was just curious.
Lissa: That's an interesting one already.
Raymond: Because again, you want to stay away from that stuff as much as possible in order to have an enforceable agreement.
Lizzy: But you hear about those things in the media or whatever.
Lissa: Especially with celebrities and stuff.
Lizzy: Yeah.
Raymond: You hear about that stuff with celebrities, and I'll tell you, 99% of the time, it's just not true.
Lizzy: Good to know.
Lissa: They have actual real good lawyers drafting solid agreements?
Raymond: Yeah. No one's going to take their chances for doing those sorts of things.
Lizzy: Yeah, makes sense.
Raymond: So they're pretty straightforward. We include things about dogs and cats and pets and social media accounts and not posting certain stuff in the event of divorce and things like that.
Lizzy: Interesting.
Lissa: Oh, like bad-mouthing the other person?
Raymond: Yeah.
Lizzy: Oh, that wouldn't have occurred to me. It's good to know.
Raymond: Yeah.
Lizzy: Good to know.
Lissa: I would not give up that right. I want the right to bad mouth. Shit, something happened.
Lizzy: Yeah, I would give up that right. You know I don't deal with that.
Lissa: So are there any costs we haven't covered? I feel like, actually, this is an interesting one because I think in the past I would think that a main reason someone wouldn't do a prenup is the financial cost because it does cost money to have attorneys. But for this particular one, I'm leaning towards that the emotional cost is the highest cost of all, is opening up that conversation with your partner, as uncomfortable as it may be.
Lizzy: I think that's what I perceive as the biggest resistance to it, other than just being naive and not understanding the real purpose, thinking it doesn't apply to you. But I think a lot of people are afraid to have those conversations.
Raymond: But that emotional cost of having those conversations is going to pay off extensively.
Lizzy: Exactly. Exactly.
Raymond: That's investment.
Lizzy: You're going to pay that cost anyway.
Raymond: It's an investment into your marriage. It's an investment in not only planning for your marriage, but an investment in having those conversations to be able to have them later on when you will have to have them.
Lissa: I know. Because that will suck if you don't have them. And then in the marriage, that's when it first comes up, and y'all fighting about it, and then you end up divorcing because of it. And the irony is that you didn't get-
Lizzy: Exactly.
Raymond: And here's the thing. Again, when you're having these conversations, so Esther Perel talks about money and how that plays a role in people's marriages. And the idea is that fights about money are not about the dollars and cents, it's about the emotion behind the money.
And so if you have those conversations before marriage, and you talk about your emotions and your relationship with money, when the conflict arises during marriage, you now have those conversations from a place of understanding of where your partner is coming from, rather than being defensive, not listening, trying to justify yourself, trying to convince your partner of why you're right, why they're wrong.
You can have a more productive conversation from a place of understanding, knowing, oh, this is why this is important for my partner. How can we find a resolution? And it makes for a much more productive conversation, a productive marriage, and at the end of the day, a happier marriage.
Lizzy: Right. And over time, as you build this muscle of having these conversations, you're also building that financial trust and rapport-
Raymond: Absolutely.
Lizzy: ... that most people don't even think of as being a critical part of the biggest contract of your life.
Lissa: Right. Exactly.
Lizzy: It's huge.
Lissa: All right. 20 cents?
Lizzy: 20 cents. Let's do this.
Lissa: 20 cents is the segment of the show where both Lizzy and myself, Lissa, each get 60 seconds to give our two cents on today's topic, whether it's a net positive or a net negative. Where does 20 cents come from?
Lizzy: Because you get the opinion of two dimes.
Lissa: Two dimes and a special guest. You actually get three dimes today. All right, Liz, you are on the clock first. 60 seconds, what do you think? For your own life, are prenups worth it?
Lizzy: For my life, right now or in the near future, if I'm in that situation, I am going to be net positive. I think certainly even after this conversation, I was leaning that way, but getting more insight, I think I am very pro have the conversations, get it out in the open, almost approach this as a business relationship in addition to a romantic relationship.
And because I'm on this journey of my own, of building my net worth and imagining what that will look like in the future, it gives me even more reason to come to agreements and have a clear plan for that. So net positive.
Lissa: Net positive. Nice.
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: I like it.
Lizzy: All right, Raymond.
Raymond: So obviously net positive everything we talked about, but I will touch on some people that think that it's a net negative. Because we're scared of having those conversations. What if we have the conversation and we have to break off our engagement? All the embarrassment that will occur from breaking everything off and not moving forward the marriage.
But I think at the end of the day, that's a positive too. And I tell people, "Look, you either have these conversations and you grow closer together and you enter into your marriage knowingly and with love and intimacy and understanding of what each of you are getting yourselves into or you don't. And if you have these conversations and you end up breaking up, that's a win-win situation."
Lizzy: Right.
Raymond: "That's probably a marriage you shouldn't have entered into in the first place. And yes, there might be embarrassment of breaking off an engagement, there might be costs associated with breaking off that engagement, but I promise you, getting divorced is much more expensive and it's a much longer process and it's a much more complicated process."
Lissa: And uglier.
Raymond: "An uglier process that you're avoiding. So at the end of the day, it's only a win-win conversation. And again, you don't need to get a prenup, but you should at least talk about one."
Lissa: Yep. Nice. Net positive. All right, two net positives.
Lizzy: Lissa P.
Lissa: Isn't it obvious? All right. Obviously net positive. I have one. I will hopefully never have to get another one because I'm never going to get married, me and Allan forever, but I will touch on that it does cost money. And something I didn't learn until I had assets was how much I would lean into lawyers for various things like my business for different civil cases and things like that.
And the thing I'll say is that if you can afford a wedding or a marriage in general, you can afford getting attorneys to get a prenup for all the reasons that we described. It just gives you peace of mind and it does actually bring you closer before you embark on marriage.
Raymond: Or at least meet with a family law attorney before you're getting married to know what you're signing up for. Get educated. And that's why I do premarital financial consulting sessions-
Lizzy: Oh, that's awesome.
Raymond: ... where before you get married, we go through your finances and we really talk about how are your current finances going to be affected by marriage and what's going to happen during marriage? And then you decide whether you want to stick to the law or not. But it's about getting educated and knowing what you're signing up for.
Lizzy: I love that, because I was going to ask, many people don't even know what questions to ask, what different things this affects, so that's a really powerful option for people just to get started.
Raymond: Absolutely.
Lissa: Cool. Well, we got three net positives, but remember, this is what we think at this moment in time. No one can make that decision, but you. What do you think? Are prenups worth it?
Lizzy: Hit us up, let us know what you think. DM us on Instagram @netnetpodcast or email us at hi@netnetpodcast.com. And if you want to follow us individually, here's where you can find us.
Lissa: I'm @wealthforwomenofcolor on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.
Lizzy: I'm @live_well_lizzy on Instagram and TikTok.
Lissa: And Raymond?
Raymond: My TikTok is theprenupguy. And you can find me there as well as on Instagram as hekmatfamilylaw, and my website, www.theprenupguy.com
Lizzy: Nice.
Lissa: All references, statistics and resources mentioned can be found in our show notes. This podcast is for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, and should not be constituted as financial or legal advice. Remember to always do your own research, consult a professional as needed, and feel empowered to make your own damn decisions.