The year is 2012. You’re watching a romantic comedy. But…you could swear you just started to hear something strange on the movie’s soundtrack. What is that? Is that…the Jaws theme song playing in the background?? Is it getting louder?? What is going on??? All of a sudden, the protagonist’s fiance blurts out a horrifying string of words. “I think we should get a prenup!” Oh, now it all makes sense.

Can I ask you a personal question?

👀 Cause when they leave yo’ a**…

A couple of decades ago, it felt like few things could cause as much controversy around and inside seemingly happily engaged couples as the dreaded prenup. Immediately upon hearing the word, your mind was trained to go to gold diggers, to marriages doomed to fail from the start (thanks Kanye). But according to a 2023 survey conducted by Harris Poll, as many as 50% of American adults said that they at least somewhat support the use of prenups, up from 42% the year before, while 1 in 5 married couples, led by Gen Z and Millenials, actually have one. As recently as 2010, only 3% of Americans could say they had such an agreement. So, what’s changed? And what do we actually need to know about prenups? Let’s find out.

So…what exactly is a prenup?

A quick disclaimer: just as we are not doctors when discussing topics of women’s health, we are also not lawyers. So before tying yourself to any legally binding documents, you should definitely get an expert opinion beyond our own. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s dive in. ;) So, what exactly is a prenup? A prenuptial agreement is a written contract made between two people before they’re married that “lists all of the property each person owns and debts they owe, and spells out each person's property rights during the marriage and in the event that they later get divorced.” Prenups can determine how alimony, also known as spousal support, will be handled, as well as cover assets like inheritances, gifts, taxes, joint bank accounts, shared property, pet custody, and more.

To better understand prenups, it can also be very helpful to understand what happens if you don’t get a prenup. If you, like roughly 40% of those in married couples nationally, find yourself dealing with a divorce that you all but certainly didn’t plan on getting, it’s your state’s laws that will decide what happens to your marital property. There are generally two categories here: community property states and equitable distribution states. In the former, “courts begin with an assumption that marital assets and debts will be split 50/50;” in the latter, “courts split marital assets and debts fairly, not necessarily 50/50.” Without a prenup, negotiating the distribution of nearly all assets obtained and debts accrued during marriage can be highly contentious and emotional, not to mention financially distressing and in some cases even disastrous at a time in which you’re likely dealing with a number of big changes in your life. If your former spouse racked up substantial debt during your marriage, perhaps from their education, a business they’ve started, or out-of-control spending, you might be on the hook. Conversely, if you’ve inherited or been given assets with a great deal of value or meaning to you and your family, your ex might have far more sway over such assets than you’d like. (For more real-life examples of what can be covered under a prenup, check out the online platform HelloPrenup’s list here.)

There are a few other logistical things you should know about prenups. It’s critical that both you and your partner have separate legal counsel during the process of obtaining a prenup. While you can draft your own prenup, this is also not advised. Both of these recommendations stem from the fact that judges tend to “scrutinize prenups with a suspicious eye, because they almost always involve a waiver of legal and financial benefits by a less wealthy spouse.” Writing your own prenup can make the language in the prenup less standard and thus harder to enforce, while sharing lawyers raises flags around conflicts of interest.

And because prenups do involve lawyers, they are not necessarily cheap. According to Forbes, “in some simple instances, it could cost as little as $500. In other cases, a prenup can cost between $2,000 and $6,000 per person.” But the cost can also be highly dependent on where you live. “The average cost of a prenup nationally is $650. The average prenuptial agreement in California costs $975.” That said, HelloPrenup seeks to make the process “affordable, approachable, and accessible to all couples,” charging a flat rate of $599 per couple. And after all, incurring the cost of a prenup upfront might save you from much greater costs in the long run. Finally, we should note that prenups are called prenups for a reason: they need to be finalized before your marriage is official to be valid, so it’s important you start thinking about them early on during your engagement. In many states, couples can also obtain postnups during their marriage, though they are far less common.

So…why are prenups on the rise?

In the past and to some extent still today, prenups have undoubtedly had a stigma swirling around them. But it’s also undeniable that they’ve become more and more common in recent years. So, what’s been driving this change? Well, for one, Americans are getting married later than ever before. Since the 1960s, the median age at first marriage in the U.S. has been slowly but surely creeping up to where it now stands today at 28.6 years of age for women and 30.4 for men. By other measures, “the number of women entering their first marriage between the ages of 40 and 59 has jumped 75% since 1990.” This means that partners are, on average, accruing far more financial assets (and potentially debt) by the time of their first marriage than they might have had upon marriage decades ago. In fact, surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center in the last five years found that “about three-in-ten cohabiting adults who are not engaged but say they would like to get married someday say their partner’s (29%) or their own (27%) lack of financial readiness is a major reason why they’re not engaged or married to their current partner.” So in many cases, couples are explicitly delaying marriage until they’re more established financially. And more assets possessed also means more assets to worry about divvying up should the marriage not stand the test of time.

In the past several decades, American women’s workforce participation rate has also risen to nearly match that of our male counterparts, and we are continuing to make professional strides in the workplace. So while prenups may have stereotypically been known to serve wealthier husbands and protect them from losing half of their assets in a divorce, Millennial and Gen Z women are now driving up the usage of prenups. Some experts also argue that those of younger generations are more likely to pursue prenups; as children of older generations with even higher divorce rates, they’ve seen the conflict and stress caused by the messy, contentious demise of their parents’ marriages firsthand. Others point to rising debt stemming from credit cards and student loans incurred by millennials in particular and the accompanying need to protect oneself from a partner’s debt as a considerable driver of prenups. The convergence of all these factors – and likely many others not mentioned here – have only made prenups more common in the past couple of decades.

So…what would a prenup say about my relationship?

One of society’s biggest critiques – and misconceptions – about prenups is that they would inevitably lead to higher divorce rates amongst those obtaining such agreements. It’s not so hard to understand where these fears might come from. After all, if you’re thinking about the end of your marriage before it’s even begun, that must be a bad sign, right? It must signal that some part of you expects the relationship to eventually run its course, no? As it turns out, that’s not the case. There has been no substantial evidence found that prenups have any influence on the risk of divorce.

And to many relationship and financial experts alike, this actually makes perfect sense. While negotiating prenups prior to one’s marriage may initially seem pessimistic, distasteful, or even offensive to some, there’s also a very strong argument to be made that couples who are able to communicate clearly and effectively about their finances before entering into a legally recognized partnership in fact have stronger relationships as a result. Study after study after study has shown that finances can be a major source of conflict in modern relationships, can be very difficult to talk about as a couple, and can have a significant impact on trust between romantic partners. So the very act of discussing the terms of a prenup with your partner, assuming it’s done in an open, collaborative, and thoughtful manner, can in fact be a sign that you’re able to communicate about difficult topics as a couple. And if you’re about to communicate about difficult topics as a couple, you just might be able to withstand the challenges of marriage in the long run, too. We’ll take this W against judgmental prenup stigmas any day. ;)

Let us know what you think by voting in our poll and leaving an anonymous comment.

💭 Our two cents

My perspective on prenups has most definitely changed as I’ve gotten older. Growing up, I generally accepted the idea that entering marriage with a prenup = bad, entering a marriage “knowing” that nothing will go wrong = good. But over time and after a few relationships, I’ve had a another thought really take hold when it comes to this topic: if I can’t talk about money – and all of the messy, unsexy, complicated, stressful things that come with it – in a truly open way with my life partner, then I really need to have an honest conversation with myself about whether they could be my life partner at all. For me, it even seems that the process of working through the details of a prenup might be as insightful and useful as the prenup itself.

After all, there’s a very decent chance that you never need the prenup in the end – hopefully not! But there’s also a decent chance that you never need any form of insurance you pay for – again, hopefully not. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth paying for. And it certainly doesn’t mean it’s not worth even considering. After all, planning for an outcome that may never happen is effectively harmless; not having planned for an outcome that ultimately happens, even if unlikely, might not be so forgiving. As we say with nearly all things, having the ability to choose – and the information you need to do so – is what truly matters.

👂 Take it from the real experts…

Want to hear from actual lawyers about all of the ins-and-outs of prenups? Us too. The following podcasts not only break down all of your prenup questions in an understandable, digestible way, but they just might make it fun, too.

🍔 Girls Gotta Eat: The Truth About Marriage Laws, Divorce, and Prenups with Attorney Laura Wasser

👰 Betches Brides: Why Everyone Should Have A Prenup

💸 Money with Katie: To Prenup or Not to Prenup? With the Fiscal Feminist, Kim Davis

💃 The girls have spoken

Last week we learned alllll about cycle syncing: what it is, how it’s become so trendy, and whether we should all be doing it. Perhaps what made this particular NTP different from all the others we’ve done to date is the percentage of us who were curious about the topic, but didn’t feel like we knew enough of the important details to have a strong take on it. In fact, in our poll that asked “Do you cycle sync?” nearly half of you answered “No, but I’m intrigued” while only 7% said “Hell yeah”, 7% said “No, it’s not my jam”, and the remaining 40% said “WTF is cycle syncing?” :D So we’re all definitely learning when it comes to this topic – which we love! One of you remarked how interesting it is that so much of the discourse around cycle syncing originates from the work of one researcher, Alisa Vitti, and her Cycle Syncing Method®. For others, this topic was another reminder of just how much additional research is needed when it comes to women’s (hormonal) health. Hard agree. 💯

💌 Up Next

That’s all for today! If you liked this edition of Not That Personal, we think one of your friends probably will too – refer one (or two or three) below. ;)

Have something to say? We’d love to hear it – reply to this email or leave an anonymous comment here. :) 

Up next: So…why don’t more of us invest?

💖 S & J