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A Better Way to Money
Prenups, Postnups, and the Must-Have Money Talk Most Couples Skip
00:27:31
Want your relationship to go the distance? One of the best things you can do—especially if you’re getting married—is have an honest money conversation. Family law attorney and HelloPrenup founder Julia Rodgers joins host Jennifer Borget to show how...
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- [00:00]
A
What could be more romantic than sitting down and having a conversation about your future? And a prenup is really just a life planning conversation. It's a conversation where you are talking about your future successful marriage.
- [00:20]
B
Welcome back to A Better Way to Money. I'm Jennifer Bourget. The share of US couples signing prenuptial agreements has jumped from about 3.3percent in 2010 to nearly 15% today. And that's not wealthy people protecting family fortunes. It's regular couples with student loans, small businesses, and hard earned savings. They're having the most important money conversation of their lives before marriage. Today I'm joined by Julia Rogers, divorce attorney and founder and CEO of hello Prenup, a platform that's helped hundreds of thousands of couples do exactly that and protected more than $27 billion in assets along the way. By the way, if a prenup sounds like the last thing your partner need to talk about, stay with me because this conversation is really about what happens when couples get honest about money before they have to and why that changes everything. If you're ready to start the conversation with your partner, we have the perfect tool for you. Download our free family finances workbook@northwesternmutual.com podcast. All right, let's dig in. Julia, thank you so much for joining us. I'm so excited to chat.
- [01:24]
A
Thanks so much for having me today. I'm excited to be here.
- [01:27]
B
So prenups are a hot topic, so I'm just ready to, like, pick your brain on all of this. But before you founded hello Prenup, I know you had your own experience. So how was that? Tell us about that process.
- [01:40]
A
Yes, absolutely. I was working as a family law attorney in Massachusetts, and I was talking to all these potential prenup clients, mostly millennials, and they all had the same concerns. They were getting married and in love and wanted to get a prenup for various reasons. But the process was long drawn out, expensive. And so some of main complaints I would hear from fiance was, it's too expensive. Why do I have to spend thousands of dollars and hire a divorce attorney before I'm even married? How uncomfortable is that? So they wanted autonomy over the process, and it took a while to actually draft the document. Right. So most attorneys would require a minimum of three months between the the beginning of the prenup and the wedding. And that was important because attorneys need time to go through the terms with their client and come to something that is mutually satisfactory. And then on top of that, there was just this extreme discomfort with the price. A lot of Customers would say, well, you know, if I'm going to spend $5,000 on a prenup and I have to choose between a prenup and my wedding flowers, I'm just going to get my wedding flowers and worry about the prenup later. And so I saw so many couples forfeit the opportunity to get a prenup. And I thought, as an attorney and a person in the with a lot of friends who are getting married, like, there's gotta be a better way to do this. And that's kind of how hello, prenup came to be.
- [03:03]
B
And you invested your life savings to build this company, and then you got rejected by investors, and then you ended up on Shark Tank in a wedding dress.
- [03:14]
A
In a wedding dress.
- [03:16]
B
I want to know the whole story behind that. I love that show. How did this happen?
- [03:20]
A
Yeah. So Shark Tank actually reached out to us. They were looking for Covid businesses, and at the time, I had just partnered with my former co founder. And so we just kind of jumped into it and we started the audition process and said, let's just go for this. And the Shark Tank experience was a really incredible one. It was, you know, really strange walking onto the Shark Tank set, like something I've watched on television hundreds of times, and being literally in the tank. But the experience with the investors was just wonderful. It's ultimately very real. You know, you're having real conversations with the sharks about your business, about the potential, about the market size, and. And, yeah, it was just a really fun experience to be able to talk to the US Audience about the importance of prenuptial agreements on a national stage that no other legal tech company had done before or has done since.
- [04:15]
B
Yeah, it seems like a very unique kind of business that you have. And also, this is a topic like money is something that really can make or break a lot of couples. Like research published in several scientific journals ranks money among the top reasons that marriages fall apart. What is it about money that makes it so hard for couples to, like, navigate it together?
- [04:37]
A
I think money is very emotional. It's tied to so many things. I always say a prenup is just as much an emotional document as it is a legal one. And again, a lot of what we've learned about money, what we've internalized, is tied to how we are raised, what we believe we deserve, and how safe we feel. And very specifically, in a relationship, two people can be completely in love and have wildly different money mindsets. Maybe, you know, one is more scarcity focused, one is more abundance focused. You have the spender versus saver. And oftentimes a prenup is the very first time anybody's talked about money in a relationship, like, really talked about it. It's oftentimes the first time that they have disclosed how much debt they have or savings or assets or even potential inheritance. I've seen that go wrong where, you know, two people get engaged, they start the prenup process, and then one finds out that the other has this insane trust fund that they receive distributions from every month. And that was actually a very negative thing in that relationship because they felt like their partner had been lying to them all these years. And so money can bring up a lot of emotion. And that's why I think people tend to avoid those conversations, unfortunately.
- [05:57]
B
We spoke with Wendy Delarosa in a previous episode, and she talked about how it was like on our third date, she's like, yes, here. Like, let's lay it all out there, all the money. Let's talk about our finances. Where do you stand? Do you feel like that's a good idea to do that so early in a relationship?
- [06:11]
A
Well, Kevin o' Leary always says, third date, second glass of wine. You should have the prenup conversation. I'm a true believer that you should be watching for signals, right? You should be watching for how someone conducts themselves, how they talk about money, maybe what their goals and aspirations in life are and how that will impact finances. I don't think you need to lay out all your bank statements on the dinner table on the third date. But I do think watching for those signals is really important and indicative of how they probably save or spend.
- [06:44]
B
And I love dating shows. I mean, Shark Tank, real. Maybe I'm just a reality TV person, so I love Shark Tank. Also love the dating shows. And it's, like, so interesting to me how when the prenup conversation comes up, it usually, like, they kind of go dark, and it becomes this, like, oh, you don't trust me? You're already planning for our marriage to fail. Why do you think that's the wrong approach to thinking about a prenup?
- [07:05]
A
I think, first of all, people need to understand that everybody has a prenup whether you get a prenup or not. If you're getting married, you have a prenup because the state controls, right? So do you want some legislator or some judge sitting in a black robe to decide who what's yours versus what is yours to divide in the event of a divorce? I don't. I want to make those rules for myself. So because you Always have a prenup, whether or not you get a prenup at all. It's really smart to just take the time before you get married, sit down, have the hard conversations, and draft something up. Just like when you get in a car, you put on your seatbelt, not because you're planning to get in an accident, but because that's just what you do. I feel the same as about a prenup and a marriage.
- [07:50]
B
And you've said it can actually, like, bring couples closer together when they're having these conversations. Why do you think that is?
- [07:55]
A
Yeah, well, we actually just did a study with the University of Michigan that proved that the majority of couples who had a prenup reported that they had better marital satisfaction. And I think it's because you're having the hard conversations up front. I always like to remind people that, you know, the wedding is kind of this beautiful experience, but there's going to be a lot of life lived in your marriage. After your wedding, you're gonna have to file taxes together. When you have kids, you're going to have to decide, you know, is someone going to stay home to take care of them and sacrifice their career, or are we going to hire nannies, or where are we going to send them to school? And all of these things are ultimately boiled down to financial conversations. Um, and so I think that the couples who sit down and are really intentional about having these uncomfortable conversations up front are the ones who end up happier throughout the course of their marriage because they knew they were on the same page before getting married.
- [08:52]
B
Yeah. So for people who maybe think that a prenup is taking the romance out of a marriage or their relationship, what would you say to that?
- [08:59]
A
What could be more romantic than sitting down and having a conversation about your future, about what your shared goals are? That, to me, is the most romantic thing in the entire world. And I think because a prenup is really just a life planning conversation, it's a conversation where you are talking about your future successful marriage. It's a financial plan for that. That marriage. It's, in my opinion, how two people say, I love you enough to have the hard conversations now so that we can live a long, happy marriage later.
- [09:33]
B
All right. Julia makes the case that a prenup conversation is really a financial planning conversation in disguise, and that couples who have it come out stronger. But here's the thing. That conversation doesn't end on your wedding day. The financial decisions you make together in those early years of a partnership, how you protect your income, how you save and invest how you plan for the unexpected, they have an even bigger impact on everything that follows. And that's where Northwestern Mutual Advisor makes the difference. They help you build a plan that accounts for what you're each bringing in, what you're building together, and where you want to go, Whether you're merging finances for the first time, buying a home together, starting a family, or making sure you're protected. If life takes a turn. Coming up, Julia will break down how to have this conversation. Even when one partner is hesitant, let's bring her back in. So let's, like, actually, like, open this up a little bit. Because I think most people assume that a prenup is things like, you know, okay, who's getting the house, who's getting, you know, this amount of money? But there's a lot more to this than just that. Can you walk us through, like, maybe the main categories of a prenup? What it covers, what it doesn't cover?
- [10:41]
A
Yeah, absolutely. So the main categories of a prenup are property and asset division. So what's yours? Mine and ours. It also helps protect against debt. So absorbing your partner's debt, your partner may have really significant student loan debt. So it's important to ensure that debt is indicated in a prenup as belonging to one party versus being split in the event of a divorce, which is possible. A prenup can also address something that's really important people rarely think about is spousal support or alimony. Now, those two terms mean the same thing. They are just named differently, depending on the state that you're in and whether spousal support or alimony is waived or waived in the instance of, you know, whether or not you have kids or if someone stops working to take care of a family member or children. And that is really important because in the vast majority of marriages, women are the ones who step back from their careers when they have kids. They're the ones that, when they have a sick family member, are taking care of that family member and forfeiting their career and earning potential. And so spousal support is important to consider, important to talk about in the event of X, what would that mean for my personal finances? And this, I think, is really how you make sure that you remain on fair financial footing throughout the course of your marriage. You can also do that with something called a lump sum payment. That is a payment from one party to the other that can be tiered out, depending on income disparity, depending on length of marriage. And again, this is really important in the instance where you have one party who becomes a stay at home parent or a caregiver. Business ownership is something we are increasingly seeing in prenuptial agreements. About almost 30% of our customers own some type of business or have stock options in a business. And business ownership protections ensure that entrepreneurs are able to maintain the majority control of their company or their income in the event of a divorce. This is also something that's really important if you're going out and raising capital. You know, it may be a question that you get. So a prenup can really cover everything that you would need to talk about all of these important life conversations and act as a framework for your financial life together. Hmm.
- [13:02]
B
Are there like big surprises that typically come up? Like, I'm, I would think if you haven't had a financial talk by this point, like, whoops, you know, what are some of the big things that comes up in these types of discussions?
- [13:15]
A
Yeah, I think debt is a really big one. People are often really shocked to learn that their partner has significant student loans or credit card balances that they didn't disclose. This is something, again, you should be talking about because debt and finances generally are going to impact how you live your life. If one person has a ton of debt, whether that's credit card debt or student loan debt, you know, it's gonna, it's gonna cause an issue when you wanna go buy your first house. It could potentially require that both of you work in order to pay off that debt. So you have to have those conversations early. Another one that I mentioned earlier is inheritance, right? So either inheritance, meaning one party is receiving distributions from a trust that they have, or inheritance expectations people might assume that they're getting. This may or may not materialize. This is important to have a conversation about with your partner and what that might mean. You know, is one of your parents going to pay for private school for your kids? This is something that boomer parents are often seen giving their millennial or Gen Z kids. You know, it's called the bank of mom and dad, right? So they're contributing to their household and their lifestyles. And having a conversation about how that may impact you as a couple I think is really important. And then I think there's like the spending habits. Right? Again, spending habits can be observed over time, which I think is very important. But if one partner is a saver, one's a spender, you have to have a conversation about what that means and what your shared financial goals are, because without that conversation, it might lead to some tension in the Relationship?
- [14:56]
B
Yeah. I think one perk of when I got married so young was that we didn't have anything. Like, we. Neither of us had debt. Neither of us had much money in our bank accounts. Like, we were just kind of like, oh, whatever, you know, we didn't have money. We weren't even thinking about our prenup. So what about the couples? Like, let's say someone's listening to this and they're like, whoops, we're married already. We didn't think about this. What can they do?
- [15:20]
A
Post nuptial agreement so if you're already married and you can get a prenup, you're not out of options. A post nuptial agreement is essentially the same thing as a prenup. It's just done after marriage. They're not as commonly known, but they're becoming more popular and they are valid around the country. They're less enforceable than prenups, generally speaking. They have stricter requirements because they are made during marriage, but they're still increasing in popularity and incredibly valuable. They allow you to tier out what assets should be, again, yours, mine, and ours. In certain states, they allow you to actually tier out what spousal support might look like in the event of a divorce. They cannot address child related issues, just like prenups can't. You know, you can't indicate child support, you can't indicate child custody in a prenup or a postnup. But a post op really is effective for couples who maybe they had some life changes, right? Maybe they had a prenup and they want to modify the terms of the prenup. In certain states, that's called a postnup. Maybe they didn't have a prenup and they just missed the opportunity and they wish they did. Well, no problem. Postnup is really easy to obtain if you have only been married a couple of years. Or maybe they've been married a significant amount of time, 10, 15 years, and one party started a business, or there was some significant life change, one came into inheritance. And you want to have financial conversations. You want to make sure you're on the same page. You want to set your marriage up for success. A postnup is the best way to do that.
- [16:53]
B
All right, so there's still options for people who maybe, you know, drop. Drop the ball or didn't know about it, you know, or something like that. Um, so let's say, you know, you're. That someone's dating someone and they're like, hey, this sounds like a great idea. I want to bring this up to my partner, but they're worried about it coming across like it's this accusation. How does starting this conversation look?
- [17:14]
A
I think, first and foremost, framing is everything. Instead of saying, I just want a prenup, you need to start with something like, I'd love to sit down. I'd love to talk about our financial futures together. You need to be really vulnerable and honest about why you want a prenup. Maybe your parents got divorced, right? 24% of millennials are children of divorce. Maybe, you know, you started a business. Maybe you're getting married and you have a lot of assets or a lot of student debt that you want to protect your partner from. But you need to be vulnerable in explaining why a prenup is important to you, because people can have very emotional reactions to it. You could also lead with a question like, have you thought about how we might handle finances once we're married? Do you want to stay home if we have kids? So this type of conversation needs to be handled very delicately. You need to signal collaboration. And I think timing matters. Don't bring it up in the middle of a fight or the night before the wedding. Make sure you know if you're getting engaged. Either talk about it before you even get engaged or immediately upon getting engaged. Do not wait until the last minute, because that is when, you know, people feel a lot of pressure, and it just puts a really bad taste in your mouth before you have this beautiful wedding.
- [18:35]
B
So the rings on, they're celebrating that. Let wait until, like, you know, the celebration settles a tiny bit, and then it's like, all right, now let's talk about next steps. Okay, but what if they don't have the best reaction to that? Like, what if one of the partners is just, like, completely resistant to the idea? Maybe they see it as, you know, a sign, like we were talking about, like, oh, do you think this relationship isn't going to work? How do you navigate that?
- [18:59]
A
Yeah, I think usually resistance is rooted in fear. It's fear of the unknown. Right? Fear that maybe you don't trust them, that you're being pessimistic. And so it's very important to address this directly. You have to say, I'm not doing this because I think we're gonna fail. I'm doing this because I take our future really seriously. I wanna set us up for success and then again, be vulnerable with the why. You know, I saw my parents get divorced, and I saw this is what it did to our family. I want to make sure we are never in that position or. I started a business and I want to be really fair to my business partners, Ensure that, you know, the business is never something that could be a part of the conversation. And I think that it helps to even bring in a third party if you need to. That can be a financial planner, that can be a therapist. Hello. Prenup has a ton of resources on its website about how to bring up a prenup with a partner. And also conversations for the partner around how a prenup can be protective of both parties. And it should be, because a prenup should never be just about protecting one party and not the other. This is a mutual document. This is something that both parties should feel really good about. And I, I worked on a prenup for this couple. So we represented one side. His family was very, very wealthy. They were billionaires. This was one of the instances where I saw inheritance go awry. You know, she didn't even know he was that wealthy until the prenup came up. And what I thought was really sad was she didn't realize how the prenup could protect her. She didn't see how the prenup could actually allocate her more rights than the law would. And in the instance where she was planning to be a stay at home mom, you know, a prenup could actually do more for her than spousal support or child support ever would in that state. And so I saw it really destroy the communication between her and her in laws and even her and her fiance at the time and right before their wedding. And I just think if it were approached differently and he had had conversations with her about how this could protect her, it would have been a very different outcome.
- [21:12]
B
Did they get married?
- [21:13]
A
They did. They did. They got married. They're still happily married. But unfortunately, she doesn't even talk to her in laws anymore. I mean, the prenup destroyed her relationship with her in laws, which is really sad. And again, if it were addressed differently, if it were approached differently, then the result would've been far more favorable.
- [21:34]
B
Yeah. Have you seen people who have gone from a place like that where maybe they're completely in disagreement about it, but then they ended up being on the same page?
- [21:44]
A
I have, I have. And I think that the disagreement is usually. It's a process. Right. It's several conversations, and it's not just one conversation. And done. The first conversation might be really uncomfortable. And that's okay. And I've. I've seen a lot of that. But I think what matters Is couples are able to work together, they're able to come back to it. Once you actually start talking about the specifics, meaning, like, what's fair, what feels right, Are we going to have kids? Is one party going to stay home type of thing? What are our life goals? I think that's when couples feel a lot more aligned. And so it's getting. You know, sometimes the document itself can be really stressful, like just the idea of it. But once you start to get into the details, I think it really is a reflection of the trust that they've built and. And not just this transaction.
- [22:38]
B
Yeah, yeah, that's really important. And I think maybe once you get past the misconceptions, too, because, I mean, it does kind of sound like a scary thing, but you're talking about all these protections that you can, like, hopefully that will continue to shift as people, you know, learn more about these.
- [22:52]
A
I think so. I think so. And like, hello, Prenup has all these great resources for couples who are considering a prenup. And again, one of the reasons we offer the most free information on this topic possible is because we want to make sure that people have access, democratized access to legal information about how a prenup could be helpful to them individually and as a couple.
- [23:18]
B
Yeah, that's so important. Okay, so two part question. For someone who's engaged or the relationship's getting serious and they haven't had a real money conversation, what's one thing that they should do this week?
- [23:31]
A
This week? If you do one thing, sit down together and share three numbers, what you earn, so salary or take home, what you owe, any debt, student debt, credit card debt, and then what you're saving. Make sure that when you're having this conversation, it's not a conversation that is built on judgment. There's no agenda. You're just sharing. You're just being as transparent as possible. This single conversation will tell you more about your financial compatibility, I think, than anything else. Just based off of how you're able to work together and approach the conversation, the numbers are less important than how you handle talking about the numbers. And if this feels really hard, that's actually a sign that you need to have this conversation. There's no reason to avoid it.
- [24:20]
B
Right. And then what about the couples maybe who've been married a while, but they've been avoiding these conversations? What. What's their move?
- [24:27]
A
I think the same thing. If you've been married a while, you've probably been paying bills together, you might have a shared bank account. If you have kids. You know, you've certainly dealt with child related expenses, but what you should do is sit down and have the same conversation, right? Know your numbers. You'd be surpr how many married couples have no idea what their household income is? Um, so sit down, know the numbers, have the conversation, and then plan to continuously have the conversation. Maybe it's a money date every single month, maybe it's, you know, every quarter. But make sure you have a working cadence that you both feel comfortable with and make it fun. You know, maybe have a glass of wine, maybe go to dinner first. And then when you come home, make sure you sit down and have allocated 45 minutes to an hour. But ensuring that you're having consistent conversations is a really good first place to start.
- [25:21]
B
Hey, we do love talking about money dates here. I love money dates, so I love that you brought it up again too. Thank you so much for your wisdom sharing your thoughts on this that hopefully people listening are going to just feel so much more confident bringing up these conversations. So thank you so much.
- [25:39]
A
Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.
- [25:41]
B
That's Julia Rogers, Founder and CEO of hello Princess. So what did you think? Did that change how you look at prenups? My biggest takeaway Whether you're considering signing one or not, the most important thing is that you have the open, honest conversation with your partner. And it's a lot easier to do that if you're not looking at a blank page. So for a step by step guide to get you started, download Northwestern Mutual's Family Finances Workbook. It'll walk you through everything you'd want to cover with your partner from budgeting, saving for big milestones, retirement and more. You can grab it for free@northwesternmutual.com podcast podcast next time on A Better Way to Money. I think that advocating for someone that you love, whether related by blood or not, is like one of the greatest blessings in life. You're raising kids, supporting aging parents, and somehow trying to build your own financial future at the same time. Estate planning attorney Candice Delacona knows that squeeze and she has a plan for tap. Follow in your podcast app to tune in. Northwestern Mutual is the marketing name for Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. NM and its subsidiaries, including Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. NMWMC Investment Advisory Services and Federal Savings Bank. NM and its subsidiaries are in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Not all Northwestern Mutual representatives are advisors. Only those representatives with advisor in the title or who otherwise disclose their status as an advisor of Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company ME NMWMC are credentialed as NMWMC representatives to provide advisory services. Julia Rogers in hello. Prenup is not affiliated with Northwestern Mutual, and the views expressed by Julia Rogers do not necessarily represent those of Northwestern Mutual or its subsidiaries.