It seems wrong of me to be thinking about money in the context of being married. But I am.
I've spent my last 20-30 years working towards being able to retire. I think marriage is giving me a feeling of having less control over my retirement. Not so much that it affects when or how I retire, but how the worst case scenario could play out. Fear of losing most of it, I guess. It's a pretty remote possibility but it is giving me a few sleepless nights.
I trust my soon-to-be wife. She's a good, honest soul. She's talked about her prior marriages (yes 2
) and how things unfolded after the divorce. After these discussions it is pretty evident she isn't a vindictive person and if, god forbid, we ever did get a divorce she wouldn't go after me. And, she has read all of the trust documents and we've talked at length about it and she is perfectly fine with all of it.
The lawyer asked me about a prenup but I've done some googling (and the lawyer confirmed) and it turns out the Florida divorce laws seem pretty sensible (to me at least) assets accumulated before marriage aren't split. Assets accumulated after marriage are. So, my retirement seem pretty safe from that point of view. No prenup.
Although I'm pretty much at peace with the financial part of the wedding, I feel somewhat schmucky for thinking about all of this the way I've been thinking about it.