Divorce, of course, is a sore subject. It’s probably safe to say that most people don’t plan to get a divorce. However, prenups are a smart investment for protecting assets if things turn from better to worse to intolerable.
While, in the past, many women have turned their noses up at the thought of being asked to sign a prenuptial agreement, having a prenup can also save both parties money in the long run.
“You’re going to be in the $20,000 range,” Fawn Dyer, a New Jersey-based divorce attorney, said on the podcast 8 At The Table when asked about how much divorces can cost. Having a prior agreement in place will cut down on the unnecessary hours and fees spent battling over assets in court.
Prenups are an especially important contract for women since they’re more likely to file for a divorce than men.
According to a study by Rosenfeld from Standford University, more than 60 percent of divorces are initiated by women. One significant reason for women initiating divorce is “unmet needs,” either emotionally or physically. According to Divorce.com, affection, assisting with household duties, and financial support are all ways that needs can be neglected in marriage.
While women still make significantly less than men, finances look different for women than previous generations.
According to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, one in three baby boomer women born in the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s have a college degree. That’s nearly double that of their mothers, who were born during the Great Depression. With degrees, it means more women deemed Baby Boomers worked more than women in the previous generation. An estimated three-fourths of women were working in their mid-30s and mid-40s, compared to 57 percent of women in the previous generation working at the same rate.
Women obtaining degrees and their work ethic have been passed down to the newer generations. As a result, the number of millennial women who own $5 million or more in assets has seen a 10 percent increase. An estimated 67 percent of Gen Z women and 71 percent of Millennial women are investing outside of their pension compared to 62 percent of Baby Boomer women.
In some cases, women are the breadwinners for their families. Some 16 percent of women in the U.S. are the breadwinners, up from 5 percent just five decades earlier, CNBC reports.
For Black women, data from the Pew Research Center reveals Black wives are significantly more likely than wives from other racial or ethnic groups to be the breadwinners, which was the case in 1972. Roughly one in four Black wives (26 percent) out-earn their husbands.
As more women acquire assets and make more money, a divorce attorney says it’s time for women, especially Black women, to make sure their ducks are in a row by enacting a prenuptial agreement.
On the “Rich & Regular” podcast with Julien and Kiersten Saunders, the couple speaks with Aaron Thomas, a lawyer, who says middle-aged Black women are most at risk for losing a significant portion of their wealth during divorce proceedings.
“It’s the most heartbreaking thing,” Thomas says. “You have women who spent 20 years or more building their own empire and just thinking, ‘OK, I know he’s not really working like that. I know he’s not saving for retirement,’ and then they get double hit.”
Thomas says the “double hit” for women comes when their partner, who didn’t contribute much during the relationship, comes after half of everything they worked hard for, including property and retirement.
“If you get married, you got to prenup,” Thomas says. “You either write your own prenup, or you’ve got the default prenup based on the state of where you live. That contract … not only have most people not read it, but it was written in the 1800s when women couldn’t even own stuff.”
Halle Berry and Mary J. Blige are tales of caution for women who marry without a prenup.
For Berry, she has to dish out $8,000 a month in child support and 4.3 percent annually on any income she makes over $2 million to her ex-husband Olivier Martinez, who she was married to from 2013–2016, despite sharing joint custody of their daughter, Nahla.
Since her divorce from her husband and manager Martin “Kendu” Isaacs in 2016, award-winning singer Mary J. Blige has been vocal about women protecting their assets. A judge ultimately sided with her now ex-husband even though he allegedly cheated. The judge ordered Blige to pay $30,000 monthly in spousal support so Isaacs could keep up with the lifestyle the singer had him accustomed to.
While on a panel at the 2023 Strength of a Woman Festival & Summit 2023, Mary J. Blige was asked about her thoughts on prenuptial agreements and to give advice to well-off women who may be on the fence about requesting one. The moderator explained that historically, men are known to request prenups. However, in Blige’s case, she was the breadwinner of her family and could have benefited from having one.
“Get a prenup,” Blige said. “Because I didn’t have one, and that’s why I ended up having to just give everything away. It’s so wack right now that men can come at you and get alimony. So when I was getting a divorce, I was like, ‘You mean to tell me I gotta pay him, and he cheated, and he lied, and he stole?”
She continued, “‘You mean I got to pay him for cheating and lying to me and ruining my life?’ Yeah, the law is you have to. So, I say get a prenup. Cover yourself up.”
Both experts and wealthy women will agree: you should consider getting a prenuptial agreement to protect assets in the event of divorce. It’s a practical way to safeguard assets in the heartbreaking event that your marriage deteriorates.
