
SF engineer came to money and now wants wife to sign a post-nuptial agreement - waytogo
https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/7m7i5x/my_31f_husband_36m_of_3_years_came_into_a_lot_of/
======
dasil003
I don't know what their relationship is like, and I don't know what prompted
this, but I can't help but feel like this guy is making a huge mistake.

I understand prenups for rich people because you never know why someone is
really with you, but if you are with someone _before_ getting rich, that is
one of the few things you can never have again. If the relationship is good I
don't know why you suddenly make it all about money and drive a possibly
irreparable wedge between you. And for what? Because if things go sideways you
might lose half? Half of rich is still rich and it's a small risk to take for
the chance at a lifelong loving partner. Some things are worth more than
money.

~~~
Nadya
_> And for what? Because if things go sideways you might lose half? Half of
rich is still rich and it's a small risk to take for the chance at a lifelong
loving partner. Some things are worth more than money._

And if they have no plans of leaving then refusing taking half when they go
shouldn't be a problem - right?

Perspective matters.

~~~
crusso
No, asking for the postnup is a first-strike. Before that point, there was no
reason to assume that there was a problem in the relationship. Asking for the
postnup introduces distrust into the dynamic.

If I were the spouse being asked to sign the document, I'd say, "Nope, let's
get divorced right now and split the money in half. After that, if you want me
in your life, feel free to court me again."

~~~
wolfgke
> Asking for the postnup introduces distrust into the dynamic.

What he is doing is just good business practice: He wants to keep the business
as free as possible of liabilities. Her not willing to sign is what introduces
distrust: It implies that she at least want to leave her the optinion open to
run away with money from his business.

~~~
cjensen
If one's adherence to business practices are more important than one's
marriage, then one's priorities are broken.

~~~
wolfgke
> If one's adherence to business practices are more important than one's
> marriage, then one's priorities are broken.

If the wife is not supportive of the business ventures of the husband, I see
no future in the marriage.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Your answers seem to be coming from the perspective that the business is more
important than the marriage. That's not a perspective that many people here
share; your one-line replies that assume your perspective aren't going to go
very far to persuade people.

------
scarface74
When I first saw the title, I thought this guy was a jerk. My success is my
wife's success.

But if it is a business and she would get half of his interest in the
business, couldn't that cause hardships on the other partners and allow her to
make decisions that are detrimental to the business?

Could he have her sign a fair postnup saying she would get half of any
financial interests in the business but no voting rights or that the partners
would have automatic rights to buy her out?

I could see all sorts of ways that this could be fair to her but still protect
his partners.

~~~
t0mas88
I'm not sure you need a prenup for that. You can agree in a shareholders
agreement that there is a requirement to offer the shares up for sale (at fair
market value) to the other shareholders in the event of the shareholder
passing away. Not sure about Delaware law, but this works in most of Europe.

Alternatively there could be a provision of swapping "Shares B" for "Shares A"
or similar with different voting or veto rights. I think this is also possible
in the US, since something similar was done for Facebook? Mark has special
voting rights but his inheritors will not?

~~~
anigbrowl
I'm not sure, but I think a forced sale requirement would be problematic in
the US since it would impose a unilateral obligation on the survivor/divorcee
that had not been bargained for by them.

I question the probity of such arrangements as well as special voting or non-
voting stock. This is exactly the sort of thing that leads people to conclude
that capitalism is rigged.

~~~
scarface74
Why does that make the system "rigged"? If you start a tech firm with four
developers and one of the lawyers get a divorce, do you want his ex to have
any voting rights when it comes to strategy?

~~~
anigbrowl
It seems like your comment has several unspoken assumptions that I'm unclear
on, but yeah, I do. Insofar as financial instruments are
fungible/transferable, they ought to be transparently so. Once you start
creating different classes of financial interest, some with decision-making
power and some without, you're creating a tiered system and those with the
decision power are both incentivized and empowered to put their own interests
over others'.

The basic notion of capitalism is that property rights + free markets =
optimal economic growth. As soon as you start creating different classes of
ownership you're signalling that that's a actually a fiction.

~~~
scarface74
_Insofar as financial instruments are fungible /transferable, they ought to be
transparently so. On_

It's not about the financial instruments. I'm making the assumption that a
"side project" that the spouse did with a few of his friends wasn't capital
intensive, and it was knowledge based. As a software developer, if I were to
start a business, it wouldn't be capital intensive at all. I would need
partners that brought a set of skills to the table - maybe a few developers
and a person with a marketing background or industry connections. The only
costs besides time would be a bunch of AWS resources. The "investments" in my
company wouldn't be financial, they would be expertise. Why would one assume
that the person's spouse would have the expertise to make intelligent
strategic decisions on the direction of the company? What if it were a law
firm?

Do you think that Carl Icahn or Baine Capital have the same set of incentives
as the employees or the founders of a company? They want to make their money
and get out, their time horizon is a lot shorter.

The same could be said of the spouse of a founder. As founders, we would be
more likely to care about the long term vision of the company. The spouse may
just want to make any money she can right now.

If Mark Zuckerburg hadn't kept a controlling interest in Facebook, would it be
where it is today? What if he had sold a controlling interest to Yahoo under
pressure from the VCs?

------
pipio21
Terrible.

One of the hardest things in life is making a side project successful. The
people that is with you at the hard times is part of your team and should be
with you in the good times.

This man probably has already a mistress. When you have a couple tens of
millions in the bank and people know you have it you start attracting
dangerous women, I would say professionals, gorgeous women that have
experience manipulating men with sex, the PUA(Pick up artist of their sex).

If you were not very good with women before marrying, and even if you are you
are extremely vulnerable to them. The same will happen with men like bankers
that will stalk you all day the moment you enter a couple million in a bank
for doing an operation, they will even cry for you doing with your money what
they say is much better for you(which is what is better for them).

IMHO the best strategy is most people not knowing what you are worth. Drive a
normal car, wear normal clothing, have a normal house, if you can. I wear
normal clothing but drive a Tesla.

~~~
wolfgke
> This man probably has already a mistress. When you have a couple tens of
> millions in the bank and people know you have it you start attracting
> dangerous women, I would say professionals, gorgeous women that have
> experience manipulating men with sex, the PUA(Pick up artist of their sex).

I would rather argue that this should actually be a strong reason for her to
trust him. If he meets another women, he can never be sure that she is not
into him for the money. On the other hand for the existing wife he knows that
she did not marry him for the money. This fact alone should give him a very
strong incentive to trust the existing wife instead of any other woman that he
now meets. So the wife knows that he has a strong disincentive to leave her.

------
mikestew
The top answer nails it: the husband’s only real option is divorce if she
refuses to sign, thereby bringing about the very thing he’s trying to avoid.

But I’d guess here’s a good chance she can talk him down, as I’m picturing one
of his tech bro’s going, “dude, you _totally_ need a post-nup. This guy I
knew...”

~~~
gaius
That was my guess as well: his business partner or one of their investors is
pressuring him.

------
guuz
He mysteriously does not see her as a contributor to his success or is a d*ck.
The impact a person has in our lives obviously cannot be calculated, but
cannot be simply ignored. If they have been together for six fricking years,
how can he dismiss her influence on him? Considering they have a functional
relationship, she probably has been helping him on infinite occasions, from
domestic chores to emotional support.

This guy is being ridiculous.

------
dilap
Maybe I'm just too ruthless, but I don't see how I, in the wife's position,
would ever agree to this. Especially considering there's going to be a huge
amount of temptation for the husband to cheat now; at least get paid if he
gives in and things go sideways.

Too harsh?

~~~
killface
Not at all. There's no reason for her to sign it.

------
Asparagirl
He made a financial agreement with his wife to share 50-50. That's what a
marriage is, it's a legally binding contract. If he wanted a pre-nup, he
should have gotten one _before_ entering into that contract, i.e. the
marriage.

But he didn't.

And he wants to alter the terms of the deal now, as a post-nup? After years of
partnership? Oh hell no.

If I were his wife, I would seriously consider leaving him over this. Walk,
with "his" assets that were always his-and-hers.

~~~
antisthenes
> If I were his wife, I would seriously consider leaving him over this. Walk,
> with "his" assets that were always his-and-hers

People like you are exactly why people want to sign pre-nups in the first
place.

> He made a financial agreement with his wife to share 50-50. That's what a
> marriage is, it's a legally binding contract.

If it was always clearly cut as a 50-50 split set in stone, there would be no
need for as many divorce lawyers.

> And he wants to alter the terms of the deal now, as a post-nup? After years
> of partnership? Oh hell no.

People want to alter the terms of the deal all the time, a divorce is usually
one of those alterations, most frequently initiated by women. After years of
partnership. Why this is surprising to _anyone_ is beyond me. Is it really
that different in California?

You are correct in one thing though - he probably shouldn't have gotten
married to begin with.

~~~
dang
> People like you

Taking HN threads into personal attack is a sure way to make a flamewar worse.
Please have the self-control to resist this when commenting here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
lostmsu
Isn't he just being factual though? The comment he replied to was also a
personal attack of sorts on the husband from the story.

~~~
dang
"Just being factual" isn't a valid defense. Even if one assumes 100%
factiness, that's not all that matters. There are infinitely many facts. Which
one chooses, how one expresses them, and what their likely effect is in
context, are just three of the other issues at play.

As for the GP comment, I can see why it would feel that way but I didn't read
it that way myself. There's obviously a lot of interpretation involved in
these things.

------
shin_lao
His move makes sense if he plans to quit his wife. He knows she will get half
of what he has, so before he makes a move, he tries to see if she would accept
to sign a post-nup. What's the risk?

Another explanation is that we have an incomplete/distorted explanation from
the wife, and that she may have misunderstood the post-nup. If what he's
working on is getting significant funding, during due-diligence the lack of
pre-nup may appear as a problem.

Anyway, I'm not making any judgment on any of the parties, human relationships
are such intricate machines...

~~~
celticninja
Why on earth would the existence or not of a pre-nup affect funding? The funds
go to the business not the individual and wouldn't form part of their finances
if there was a divorce. No due-diligence is going to raise the lack of a pre-
nuptial agreement as a reason to withhold investment.

~~~
charlesdm
Half his (vested) shares would go to his wife, in the event of a divorce. As a
shareholder, she would have the right to vote on certain matters.

I don't think it makes sense for her to sign a standard post-nup, however, I
think it does make sense to account for the fact that the husband wants to
make sure he keeps control of his shares in a business he's currently
building.

~~~
shin_lao
Exactly this. There are ways to do mitigate this problem without going through
a post-nup though.

------
adjkant
I feel like the comments here on HN are really missing at least one important
angle. Frankly, I think it comes from a too closed definition of marriage and
relationships.

What a marriage is legally is far from reflective of most relationships. It's
easy to say "well don't get married then", but there are huge reasons that
legal marriage is important for couples when it comes to things like taxes,
healthcare, and more. Realistically, people of many sorts need the benefits of
legal marriage.

For that reason, I am a huge proponent of modifying the marriage agreement to
each personal case (aka a prenup, but also defining what your relationship is
and not just defaulting to the societal norm. That's a conversation to be had
long before marriage, but revisited at that stage.). For example,
relationships don't have to be lifelong. If a marriage lasts happily for 30
years and then gets stale, that's not ideal but congrats on the 30 years of
great partnership! What about people who have either romantic or sexual
feelings for multiple people? I am sure that polyamorous families run into
many legal issues, and while not terribly common, highlights a stark case of
differing relationship style. There are many much smaller variants that can
have legal implications in the context of traditional legal marriage. The idea
that marriage is lifelong, unconditional, monogamous, and means sharing
absolutely everything is just not going to work for a lot of people.

To me, it sounds like this couple was happy, got married, and skipped this
conversation. Now that a business risk is in play if a divorce happens, it
sounds like they need to have it. It sounds like the husband here did not
approach this well at all, but I think that a fine agreement could be reached
given the right setup of legal advice and information and making sure that the
wife is not pressured into it here, which if it happened, is terrible on his
part. From the full story, I am inclined toward a relatively charitable
reading of the agreement. I'm obviously a person reading one side of the story
over the internet, so I could easily be wrong in this case.

------
sudosteph
I feel bad for this couple. If I had to choose between my life partner and my
business partners, it would not even be a question. Marriage is the ultimate
partnership. If you aren't willing to share everything, good and bad, then
maybe it's not for you. I mean, most people even say that in their freaking
vows! I hope she refuses to sign and he wises up and apologizes.

------
rubicon33
This is why I was upfront with my girlfriend (now fiancé) from the VERY
beginning. I said I would never marry her, nor anyone, ever, without a pre-
nub. Period.

Her money is hers, mine is mine. We will forever operate like that.

~~~
hkmurakami
I've always wondered about the timing to bring up such a topic. How "very
beginning" is very beginning for you, if you wouldn't mind sharing?

~~~
rubicon33
We talked about marriage early in our relationship (within the first month).
The conversation was more about marriage in the abstract sense than it was
about OUR (potential at the time) marriage.

I've always been a blunt, upfront person. Transparent as a plane glass window.
Since we were talking about marriage, I just threw in a casual "when I get
married, there 100% will be a pre-nub or it's not happening". As well as a few
other "hard stops".

As time went on the marriage conversations became more about US getting
married... OUR marriage. I made sure at nearly every point to remind her of my
"hard stops". They're the kind of thing you never want to be vague about, and
are worth stating VERY early in the relationship, in my opinion.

------
ada1981
Every time we hit a new phase in life, our fears come out.

My guess is that this guy might be feeling insecure knowing that his wife
could divorce him.

He's clearly pursued a life that is about making money and intends to keep
doing so, so there is a good chance he equates having money (or both to being
lovable / worthy of Love on some deep level.

He may be trying to arrive at feeling secure in his romantic relationship the
only way he knows how -- via a business deal.

He's missing an incredible opportunity to be vulnerable with her and discover
his true worth, inside.

------
Analemma_
Several of the comments mention they know about startups that have been
destroyed by a divorce when a party without any knowledge of the company got
stock/control. Is this a real thing that has happened? Does anyone have direct
experience with it?

~~~
hkmurakami
Yes there are even recent news articles about such situations not just
startups.

I think some major sports team owner had a forced liquidation like this
recently.

That being said post nups are weird to me, so the terms really should be
spelled out to surviving prevent a business scenario but to give her some
amount of compensation maybe? Idk.

~~~
s73ver_
Could you provide some of those situations? Was that the only thing that sunk
it, or were those companies in trouble already?

------
HoppedUpMenace
To me, post and pre-nuptial agreements merely reinforce the idea that either
you or your partner or both don't trust each other and are together out of
mere convenience. If that were the case, why not just stay unmarried?

BTW, the level of support for the husband, among the hacker news community, so
far, is pretty astounding, contrasting with the support the wife receives on
reddit. Not to paint with a broad brush but I think this really says something
about the kind of people running things in tech, not to mention all the stuff
women had to put up with in the news the past couple of years with regards to
any tech workplace.

~~~
adjkant
I am strongly against that first statement.

My current partner and I have what we both deem a great romantic relationship
and friendship. We plan to get married for legal benefits and stay together
for some time. We could care less what it says about our relationship, but
there are simply legal things that make sense. It's likely we will never
divorce. But we both can envision worlds where divorce happens. If it happens
after 30 years of great partnership, so be it. It doesn't invalidate those
great years we had. But if it does happen, we would want a fair and just split
after it. Not based on 50/50, and not necessarily based on "yours is yours,
mine is mine". Neither of us would want to leave the other in financial
trouble, but if one of us made much more than the other, we both agree that it
would be fairer to give that person some sort of better split, so long as it
does not dramatically hurt the others remaining life. It'd also depend on the
life goals of each of us from that point and who would need the money more for
their respective goals. What we find fair may be different than others, but
given the scope of the agreement it's really only about what we both see as
fair.

We trust each other 100%. We could probably act on this type of agreement
without a lawyer. But no one ever knows how divorce will go down, so why not
put it in writing?

All of this isn't to say that there can't be nefarious reasons at work here
and is not to invalidate or ignore the terrible way tech treats women. But
this is not a categorical thing, and it really comes down to the specific
agreement and the two people involved, presuming neither side is coerced or
uninformed about the agreement.

~~~
HoppedUpMenace
"My current partner and I plan to get married for legal benefits and stay
together for some time."

Comes off sounding like a business transaction, which is fine if that's how
you plan to leverage the idea of marriage, but then again it probably should
be properly labeled as a joint business venture/partnership where people have
written agreements to protect each other's assets in case of things going
badly between them.

~~~
adjkant
It has a romantic and friendship aspect as well though, as the primary purpose
over the legal benefits, which are a distant third to those two. Bad wording
on my part, sorry. Editing to be clearer. Anyone that knows us would see us
externally as any other couple in terms of relationship style unless we have
specifically talked about our relationship more with them.

My point is that people leverage the legal construct of marriage in many ways,
and prenups enable that. To say that a prenup is inherently a sign of lack of
trust is far from accurate.

In practice, I agree it does often point to that, but there are plenty of
counterexamples. I would argue it works as such a good indicator due to how
many bad relationships are out there.

------
killface
So I'm not trying to scam anyone, but is there a way for a business
arrangement to be made that doesn't incur this risk? I know you can put
together a buy/sell agreement and have successorship/rights of first refusal
documents, but is there a legal way a married person can protect assets from
their partner if they wanted to, without going into complicated trusts and
shit?

------
king07828
>"protect himself and his work"

From what? The other spouse or the legal system? Most would assume it is
protection from the other spouse. To verify, one could offer to sign a prenup
that splits everything 50/50, i.e., that codifies what would happen under
community property law. This provides the benefit of clarifying how a
separation would occur to protect the spouses and their work from the legal
system.

If protection from the legal system is sought, then the 50/50 prenup should be
agreeable.

If protection from the other spouse is sought, then what is the first spouse
(the one demanding the prenup) going to give up in order to gain that
protection?

If the first spouse is demanding a one-sided prenup that only benefits the
first spouse, then it can be argued that the first spouse has broken a
marriage vow by seeking to enrich his or her self at the expense of the other.
[1]

[1] None of this is legal advice and should not be used as such.

~~~
gspetr
Pre-nups can get thrown out of courts if a court decides it was signed under
"duress". E.g. less than 6 months before the marriage.

------
stuffedBelly
[https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/7m7i5x/my_31...](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/7m7i5x/my_31f_husband_36m_of_3_years_came_into_a_lot_of/drry353/)

This Reddit comment is pretty spot on regarding this case.

------
huffpopo
Sounds like risk management. I presume he wants to stay married but also wants
to protect his business ventures by getting her to agree to a maximum payout.
I've known many wealthy men who were completely financially destroyed by
divorce. There is often no clean way of splitting a business and having to
liquidate cash to buy the partner out can often sink the company.

On a related note, I consider Amber Heard as a risk to the whole Mars mission
and get a bit nervous when I hear rumors of them getting back together. I
wonder if I'm the only one.

Edit: I grew up in farming country and by far the biggest risk to farms there
is divorce. This is insane given all of the other risks in farming.

------
dogma1138
TBH if you have a side project or a company a prenup is pretty much a must
it’s the only way to ensure you remain in control over it regardless of how
financially successful it is.

I’m not particularly wealthy (as in millions/not have to worry about working
for the rest of my life) but have a high income and had a few side projects
and I would never consider a marriage without a prenup to protect both myself
and my partner from vindictive practices and petty behavior.

The divorce scheme today is simply too messy without prenups.

~~~
BadassFractal
I've been told that it's not uncommon for CA judges to throw prenups away in
cases where, say, one of the two partners started a company and vested a huge
chunk of shares, but the other partner would be getting none of that on
divorce according to the prenup. In this case California community property
laws overrode the prenup. In fact, having dealt with a prenup myself, I've
been told not to even bother with a pre-nup as it was supposedly
"unenforceable" according to my legal counsel.

Any basis to this or is this just a scary story?

~~~
dominotw
I know someone who's prenup was invalid because other party claimef didn't
understand what she was singing. It's very very unlikely that ur prenup will
be thrown if it's deemed unfair.

~~~
BadassFractal
I believe the judge will want to see that both parties had qualified legal
counsel at the time of signing the prenup, otherwise it might not be
considered valid.

I suppose with enough money at stake and enough animosity between the two
parties, it is always advantageous to claim to not have understood the
original contract. Worst case you lost a bunch of money in legal fees, best
case you win big.

------
drivingmenuts
The answer is simple to me: the wife should get a lawyer and file for divorce
and half or more of the assets. If the hopefully-soon-to-be ex-husband thinks
he can talk her into a post-nuptial agreement, then he also probably thinks he
can talk her down from her share of the money.

Given what was described, she needs to aggressively defend herself.

------
methodover
Could someone help explain this to me? I don't understand why the wife
shouldn't sign. As far as I can tell from the post, she didn't help create any
aspect of the apps that her husband made which made them rich. I don't
understand why she would be entitled to half given that she did not contribute
half.

~~~
gaius
I can't tell if you are serious or not but... Nothing happens in a vacuum.
Would he have had the time or opportunity to work on side projects without his
wife handling some aspect of their domestic situation, for example? But the
bigger picture is that a married couple is a single entity legally speaking as
far as property and finances are concerned. Judges in many jurisdictions
completely ignore pre-nups for this very reason.

~~~
methodover
Was serious. Thanks for the response. My parents always kept separate bank
accounts, always seemed to have clearly defined separations between who owned
what. Separate cars, separate car payments. Separate careers, separate
everything. I always got the sense that my parents were two separate
individuals in a partnership. I don't think either of them would have a
problem signing a postnup solidifying that.

~~~
gaius
My parents did it like this: my father’s salary went into their joint account
and my mother’s salary went into her own account. Huh.

------
chrisbennet
To put this in a slightly different light, suppose you entered a contract with
a startup and got some equity. Now suppose the owner decided he wanted your
equity back in case you left the company. How’s that make you feel? (Any
similarities to Zygna is purely coincidental.)

------
ivm
It reminded me how we failed to raise funding and one of the investors said
that doing business together with my wife was a red flag for him because
"wives ruin startups."

Probably it was the same for others but they didn't say it explicitly. Oh,
well.

------
cupofjoakim
The problem is in perspective, right? She says it feels like he doesn't trust
her when asking for the post-nup, but coming from his side a post-nup would
enable him to feel more at ease with her, enabling a higher level of trust.
Saying no to signing the post-nup is saying "You were right not to trust me".

~~~
wolfgke
Because of the liability that no post-nup causes, not signing it is a clear
message: "I am sabotaging your business ventures".

~~~
s73ver_
No, it really isn't. Because if she signed, then he's basically free to cheat
on her at will, and there really isn't anything she can do about it. If she
were to divorce, she would be out in the cold.

Why, apparently, is it acceptable for him to have a "contingency plan", but
not her?

~~~
wolfgke
> No, it really isn't. Because if she signed, then he's basically free to
> cheat on her at will, and there really isn't anything she can do about it.

As far as I understand the Reddit post, the post-nuptial agreement is only
about his new business venture and not about other, existing assets. So he
still has something to lose, if they divorce.

~~~
shepardrtc
No, she didn't specify what it was about.

