Aaron Thomas — How a Prenup Could Save Your Relationship Before It Starts

[00:00:00] Aaron Thomas: I feel honestly like it is my duty to be one of the few people out here, you know, educating people on the importance of prenups, the fact that they do not have to mean doom and gloom, that they can be a healthy thing. And most of the couples that we work with today are so happy and relieved that they’ve done it and they take some of these principles that we’re talking about. But I think that when couples are getting married, it’s just the perfect time to try to capture people and say, here are the most common pitfalls that people run across in today’s marriage. And it doesn’t exist for their parents.

[00:00:30] Aaron Thomas: And this is a uniquely now problem. There’s not a lot of education about this out there. There’s not a lot of people talking about it. And hopefully, you bringing me on here and allowing me to talk to your audience, you know, we’re gonna help reach people one step at a time.

[00:00:44] Intro: Do you think money takes up more life space than it should? On this show, we discuss with and share stories from artists, authors, entrepreneurs, and advisors about how [00:01:00] they mindfully minimize the time and energies. Spent thinking about money. Join your host, Jonathan DeYoe, and learn how to put money in its place and get more out of life.

[00:01:18] Jonathan deYoe: Hey, welcome back. On this episode of the Mindful Money Podcast

[00:01:21] Jonathan deYoe: I’m chatting with Aaron Thomas. Aaron is a nationally recognized family law expert. He’s a graduate of Harvard Law, three time winner of Atlanta’s best divorce attorney, with over a thousand clients, including NBA Hall of Famers, Super Bowl champions, Grammy-winning artists. He’s built a career helping high profile as well as I’m assuming everyday people like me, navigate marriage, divorce, and sort of financial security in that process. He’s also the founder of prenups.com. He’s on a mission to reshape how couples approach prenuptial agreements, ensuring they build strong financial foundations before saying I do.

[00:01:55] Jonathan deYoe: Very, very important. I reached out to Aaron because he wrote the book, The Prenup [00:02:00] Prescription: Meet the Premarital Contract Designed to Save Your Marriage, offering a modern approach to love, money, and long-term commitment. Aaron, welcome to the Mindful Money Podcast.

[00:02:09] Aaron Thomas: Thanks so much for having me, Jonathan. Glad to be here.

[00:02:11] Jonathan deYoe: Yeah, I am excited for the conversation. I mentioned at the outset, I’m kind of going through this myself a little bit, so this is part personal, part for the, for the mindful money audience.

[00:02:20] Jonathan deYoe: So first, where do you call home? Where are you connecting from right now?

[00:02:23] Aaron Thomas: I live in Atlanta, Georgia. I’m originally from Memphis, Tennessee, but I have, I’ve been in Atlanta more years than, , I was growing up in Memphis, so Atlanta’s home for me now.

[00:02:34] Jonathan deYoe: So, did you like birth through 18 or how long were you in Memphis?

[00:02:39] Aaron Thomas: Yeah, so we moved from Ohio to Memphis when I was four years old. So it’s pretty much all I remember through 18, , I came down to Atlanta, went to Emory for undergrad. fell in love with it, so I came back here to Georgia after law school and it has been home ever since. So, yeah, my family’s still in Memphis, so I’m, I’m there pretty [00:03:00] often. but yeah, Atlanta is where, where I call home.

[00:03:02] Jonathan deYoe: Yeah. I’m curious, I ask everybody this, like, what kind of lessons did you learn about money or entrepreneurship growing up as a kid?

[00:03:10] Aaron Thomas: As a kid, I learned from my parents, live beneath your means. , not explicitly. More through osmosis. I saw how they lived. You know, my mom, I. Was the first of six kids, , who in a family that immigrated to the United States from Jamaica when she was in high school. and came from, you know, kind of a, a one bedroom house in Jamaica to being the first person in her family to go through college.

[00:03:36] Aaron Thomas: And, she had that experience. My dad was the seventh of nine kids in a one bedroom house. In Indianapolis, Indiana. , and yet his father was able to leave, you know, plenty of money to each of those nine kids, , when he passed away. And so they both came from saving households and so, , that was our household growing up. , it came with some [00:04:00] downsides that we were the last people to get a VCR. We were the last people to get a microwave in our house. , we had to make sure that technology had been tested and was trustworthy for years. , but those were ultimately good lessons for me to take into adulthood.

[00:04:13] Jonathan deYoe: Have you carried them the whole time? Have you, did you like graduate, start saving right away? Or, or how did that, how did you, uh, translate that into life?

[00:04:20] Aaron Thomas: I learned some hard lessons during college. You know, they were waiting with the credit card

[00:04:24] Jonathan deYoe: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

[00:04:26] Aaron Thomas: as soon as I walked onto campus. So I made some of those mistakes early and then, you know, took a year off in between college and law school to pay down the debt and swore to never be in that situation, , again.

[00:04:37] Aaron Thomas: And so after getting outta law school and getting my first job, the emergency fund was. You know, the first order of business and, , I kind of carried it on from there. And that’s, that’s been a habit most of my adult life is spending a lot less than I earn.

[00:04:51] Jonathan deYoe: Yeah, that’s, that’s the iron wire that everything else is hanging on. Right? That’s, the most important thing we can do. ,

[00:04:56] Jonathan deYoe: give the audience a little background, , let us know what led you to family law, , [00:05:00] and I’m curious if there’s a story in your background that led to it. , and then what led you to writing the prenup prescription?

[00:05:05] Aaron Thomas: Yeah, I stumbled into family law. I was happily working as a public defender here in Georgia for a few years, and there was a family law firm that, , needed somebody with trial experience. They reached out to me. I. They offered to double my salary. , my student loans were sitting there on my shoulder, not really budging so much.

[00:05:24] Aaron Thomas: And so, , I jumped at the opportunity, , but I didn’t know anything about family law. , at that time. You know, my parents, , are still together. My parents will have been together 59 years in August. and none of my friends, most of my friends and siblings weren’t even married, much less where they divorced.

[00:05:40] Aaron Thomas: So I didn’t know the first thing about family law. I had a real eye-opening experience going into that first year of practicing family law. And, I learned everything about. Divorce and you know, the importance of the marital contract and about how much we all overlook it, , as kind of a crash course.

[00:05:59] Aaron Thomas: , I’ve been [00:06:00] in family law since 2007 and several years into that journey really started looking at prenuptial agreements as not what I think the common, you know, conception of them are. Which is that you’re planning four, your divorce before you get married, and it’s just to protect the super wealthy or the LA couples who know they’re getting divorced down the line, but really as a tool that couples could use to intentionally design their financial relationship and help avoid some of the most common pitfalls that I saw couples go through in their divorce cases over the years.

[00:06:41] Jonathan deYoe: what led you to write the book?

[00:06:43] Aaron Thomas: the book came from the fact that it is difficult to, , explain everything that there is for people to know about marriage, , about divorce, about what prenups can actually offer in a short. [00:07:00] Conversation. , I am that person at the dinner party who will, who will rattle your ear off about prenups if you gimme the opportunity.

[00:07:07] Aaron Thomas: But most people don’t want to dedicate 30, 45 minutes to that kind of conversation. That’s, that’s why I come on here and talk to you, But I wanted somewhere long form where I could really lay out. You know, what is marriage to begin with? You know, what is this, legal contract that we all enter into?

[00:07:24] Aaron Thomas: , what are the implications of it? How has it changed over years and why is now the time that, , as I like to say, every couple should be considering a prenuptial agreement with they get married, not just the independently wealthy or the people with, you know, seven figure eight figure inheritances.

[00:07:40] Jonathan deYoe: Yeah. was not a planned part of the conversation, but I, I had a, you started in 2007 in family law. I’m wondering if you saw an uptick through the great recession, , of divorces or divorce cases.

[00:07:52] Aaron Thomas: Absolutely.

[00:07:53] Aaron Thomas: The stress creates an increase. . Divorce is a recession. Boom industry. with the [00:08:00] housing crisis that happened, you know, financial stress, I. , rolls out into every other part of people’s relationships. And, , there were a lot of couples where , that was the, final straw that pushed them over the edge.

[00:08:14] Aaron Thomas: The same thing happened, , with the pandemic in 2020 where I had to hire more people for my law firm right after the pandemic happened because, , as soon as people realized that the courts weren’t closing. , after COVID, you know, caused the shutdown, , there was a huge, , increase in the number of people seeking divorce cases.

[00:08:33] Jonathan deYoe: So you already kind of mentioned this, but um. Television movies sort of treat prenups as specifically for a, you know, the greedy or the wealthy or, they suggest it actually benefits one partner, not both partners. I mean, we gotta admit it’s a deeply emotional issue, requires very hard conversations.

[00:08:48] Jonathan deYoe: How can somebody bring it up, you know, without offending their partner? what’s the, process for the first time? Bringing it up and explaining, Hey, this is gonna be good for us.

[00:08:57] Aaron Thomas: Yeah, so one thing first, some people have [00:09:00] this idea that there’s a one size fits all prenup. That either when you get married, you’re combining everything which is not having a prenup, or you are keeping everything a hundred percent separate, which is having a prenup.

[00:09:10] Aaron Thomas: And that is not the truth. Having a prenup means that you can customize your financial arrangement with your spouse however you want to. many couples do choose to come in and say, look, if anything happens. Everything that we get from this day forward is gonna be 50 50 no questions asked. , and some people think, well, that’s not having a prenup. Isn’t that what I signed up for when I don’t have a prenup? And no, that is not the case. At least in 41 out of the 50 states, it’s up for debate. You can go in front of a judge and convince that judge, you know, I was the more virtuous spouse, or these were my contributions, both financial and non-financial to the marriage.

[00:09:48] Aaron Thomas: And because of that, I should get this share of the agreement. And so, , the most common use case for a prenup is protecting you and your spouse from your future selves and your [00:10:00] future emotions. And locking in something that you both agree is fair on the front end. ,

[00:10:06] Aaron Thomas: and so, in terms of your question, how do you bring it up? I like to take a little bit of an unconventional approach, which is don’t lead with the word prenup. I think that we can all admit, even me, who writes them for a living that it is such a heavy word and it has so much weight and misconceptions attached to it that if that is the first thing that the person hears, they’re going to think, oh, you’re thinking about leaving me already?

[00:10:34] Aaron Thomas: Oh, you’re already planning the divorce,

[00:10:36] Aaron Thomas: and instead, what I counsel. Couples, , people who are getting married to lead with is what is it that you are trying to accomplish? So, , do you think it’s a good idea for us to both be transparent with our assets and debts before we get married? Like any prenup requires, most people would say yes.

[00:10:55] Aaron Thomas: Should we get on the same page about how our money’s gonna flow? Are [00:11:00] we gonna put everything into a joint account? Are we gonna separate things into separate accounts? what about ownership Of the things we’re bringing in is my retirement that I had up to this day. Magically joint on day two of our marriage, or are we going to put some dividing lines between what’s mine, what’s yours, and what’s ours? without it, everything kind of usually gets lumped up as ours.

[00:11:21] Aaron Thomas: and so most people would agree that those are reasonable things to address for a couple that is getting married, particularly in this day and age when most people are not 21 years old with zero to their name at the beginning of a relationship.

[00:11:35] Aaron Thomas: Average people get married today. 30 and they’ve usually got four or five bank accounts and three to four credit cards and a couple retirement accounts. Maybe some equity in a small business or a condo, so we’re not in our grandparents or our parents’ situation when we’re getting married where it’s a complete blank slate Today.

[00:11:54] Aaron Thomas: Getting married is a corporate merger. And it requires the kind of thought that you would [00:12:00] have if you were going into business with somebody else. Uh, our marriages deserve that today. And so, I know that’s a, a long way to get around to you. You, you need to start the conversation with kind of like the elements that you want to address in terms of your financial relationship rather than prenup.

[00:12:17] Jonathan deYoe: What, what, what are the biggest like, um. What’s the biggest pushback you get? I’m, I’m just imagining. Well, oh, it’s kind of, do we have to make this a business arrangement? I realize it is a legal business arrangement, but, but do we have to make it that, I mean, I love you. You know, come on, let’s just, just get married.

[00:12:30] Jonathan deYoe: Like what, what if one partner’s just doesn’t wanna do it?

[00:12:34] Aaron Thomas: Yeah, no, and that’s a great question. Uh, the, the, the biggest pushback we get is exactly what you said. It’s, it’s, this feels like a business arrangement. Oh, is it all about money? And the way that I try to get through to those people, and what I found to be most effective over the years is explaining to people that you’ve already got a prenup. when you get married, you are signing probably the most consequential [00:13:00] contract you’ll ever sign in your life. And the issue is just that no one’s read it.

[00:13:04] Aaron Thomas: You are signing what I call the default prenup. if people had to sign that, that prenup, and enter into it knowingly, every couple would get a prenup. Every couple would draft their own prenup. Why? Because the default prenup puts the ultimate power in the division of everything that you, every penny you’ve ever earned in the hands of a third party who doesn’t know you from Adam.

[00:13:27] Aaron Thomas: a judge who is elected, or is chosen, tapped to sit on a bench who will have very little time to learn about you and your situation is going to have the ultimate decision making power over your entire life savings. And most people would say, I’m in a better position, or we are in a better position to decide. You know, what’s mine, what’s yours and what’s ours than a judge that we may have three to six hours to explain, you know, the last 20 years of our marriage to, , in terms of, you know, [00:14:00] deciding these very, very important, , issues in our financial lives.

[00:14:03] Jonathan deYoe: Can, can you just touch on the, process, , say you wanna go through a divorce, you don’t have a prenup. , what is the process relative to, you go through divorce and you have a prenup.

[00:14:11] Aaron Thomas: great question. If you do not have a prenup, the average divorce case takes a year to a year and a half. and the average expenditure is $15,000 per spouse. the more money you have, the more you tend to spend on your, divorce case. the way I like to explain it is there are, there are two divorces. There is one meaning divorce, , the end of the relationship that you thought was going to last forever, and that is painful enough. We do not, as a society, need to make it any more difficult on human beings than the end of that relationship. But then there’s the divorce case. And that is a second tragedy all unto itself. And a big part of it is the discovery process. You can’t divide a marital estate until you know what’s in it, and that’s where most things break down. That’s where most [00:15:00] divorces get difficult, is just deciding, number one, what exists in terms of assets and debts between these two individuals? And two, which of those assets and debts are considered part of the marial estate and part of not, I. And so even if you have a couple that says, everything that we earn from the day of the marriage board should be 50 50 and everything that was in existence before we got married goes with the person who had it or owed that money. It can still take years and tons of legal fees to get through a divorce case because just having to figure out. For example, you have a 401k and maybe you had that coming into the marriage,

[00:15:42] Aaron Thomas: , after 15 years of marriage. How do you decide how much of that account. Is the growth of what you had coming into the marriage and how much of that is the growth of what you contributed during the marriage itself? You could have a team of forensic accountants working around the clock and all [00:16:00] come up with different answers to that question, and I think a lot of people go into divorce thinking, surely the government, the court system has a very easy plug and play formula to make these decisions and they do not. and you know, us divorce lawyers make a lot of money. Going and fighting, you know, one side or the other of these types of equations. But there are formulas that you can put in place at the beginning of your marriage in the form of a prenup if you want to take that potential year and a half of litigation and tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars off the table. If you end up like 45% of married couples do facing a divorce at some point in your relationship.

[00:16:43] Jonathan deYoe: , so having the prenup and taking the time upfront to actually explain these equations and put ’em in a document, and sign the document, smooths the process out, removes a ton of emotion and allows you to focus on the thing that’s really the loss, which is the loss of the, of a long-term relationship.

[00:16:57] Jonathan deYoe: Is that,

[00:16:58] Aaron Thomas: , that’s exactly right, and

[00:16:59] Aaron Thomas: would [00:17:00] say that it goes one step further it can reduce tension during the relationship itself. A lot of times, you know, one in, five couples say that the biggest thing they argue about is money, and that’s one in four. When you look at millennials,

[00:17:15] Aaron Thomas: no one is surprised by that.

[00:17:16] Aaron Thomas: Everyone would probably put it in their top three things of tension and relationships. And what I saw over my divorce career, having participated in a thousand divorces over the past two decades, is that people are making the same predictable mistakes, the same, , issues back and forth. And a lot of those issues, you know, when I got married in 2016, , which is when I really started, , specializing in prenups , and honing in on them as an area where I could make an impact in some difference in people’s lives. I started from the standpoint of I’m writing my own prenup with my wife, who was a lawyer who had been through her own divorce case where her spouse was the financially irresponsible one, and we sat down and said. How [00:18:00] can we write a prenup that number one would, obviously we want to stay out of the courtroom at all costs, but also could we write like the, perfect prenup?

[00:18:09] Aaron Thomas: Could we write a prenup that helped us avoid arguments during the relationship itself?

[00:18:14] Aaron Thomas: And that led to my approach to putting into a lot of our prenuptial agreements, a lot of common sense, intended to reduce conflict. During the marriage itself to provide a framework for us to resolve conflict when it comes to money during the marriage itself. For example, we have a rule in our prenup that says, if either of us is gonna spend more than $500 from the joint account, we discuss it first.

[00:18:41] Aaron Thomas: That is just, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen and probably in your work where you’ve seen, you know, couples that are arguing about, this person made a big expenditure, I didn’t know about it.

[00:18:51] Aaron Thomas: Or they committed us to, you know, this big debt and I didn’t play a role in it and putting in place, you know, just a simple rule like [00:19:00] that kind of changes the tone

[00:19:02] Aaron Thomas: or. You know, disclosure of all your assets and debts is a mandatory step for your prenup or postnup to be enforceable and. No one wants to be surprised by, you know, $50k of credit card debt that they didn’t know existed.

[00:19:17] Aaron Thomas: And so having like a release valve where, okay, we’re gonna put everything down on paper, all of our assets, all of our debts, we’re going to trade it. It’s not something that typically comes up on the first date or the third date or the tenth date of your relationship, and then all of a sudden you are getting ready to walk down the aisle and you have no idea what the finances of the person on the other side.

[00:19:36] Aaron Thomas: Look like, , this provides an opportunity for that kind of disclosure, , and having these important conversations. Conversations we all agree, are important for couples to have, but are also very, very easy to skip over. We make that all part of the process of getting a prenup.

[00:19:52] Jonathan deYoe: I’m remembering. So I was married once before, , I’m married now. , both times I got married, I went through like a premarital. [00:20:00] Class the first time. It was with like a church. Second time was like a, was a public thing where there was a class you took, oh, you’re getting married.

[00:20:06] Jonathan deYoe: We take this class, , and you end up, you talk about money, you talk about kids, you talk about, you know, changing diapers. I mean, , you talk about all the stuff, , , that comes up in a marriage. My sense is that that’s on the decline, that, that people don’t do that anymore. And I wonder how the loss of that sort of makes this process, the prenuptial process more important because we are not having the conversation about money before we get married and this actually forces the conversation about money, but there’s also the other stuff we lose.

[00:20:32] Jonathan deYoe: do you touch on any of the other stuff in the prenuptial process? probably not, but maybe you do.

[00:20:36] Aaron Thomas: We do

[00:20:37] Aaron Thomas: actually,

[00:20:38] Aaron Thomas: you know, one of the things that I like to say, is that the financial dynamics of your relationship. Reveal the personal dynamics of your relationship. if you just showed me, you know, the way that someone’s a couple’s finances are set up, I can probably predict whether or not there is certain types of dysfunction in that [00:21:00] relationship.

[00:21:00] Aaron Thomas: Whether one spouse has all of the power, , or whether there is some kind of, . , you know, deception going on in one form or the other based on the way that couples have their finances set up. , 40% of couples, in the United States, the spouses don’t know what their spouse makes. One spouse doesn’t know what the other spouse makes.

[00:21:20] Aaron Thomas: That’s

[00:21:20] Aaron Thomas: 40%.

[00:21:22] Aaron Thomas: 40% of couples.

[00:21:23] Aaron Thomas: That is true. Only 54% of couples say they make financial decisions jointly. one in four couples say they’re frustrated at their partner’s financial habits, but they let it go to keep the peace.

[00:21:35] Aaron Thomas: So couples by and large are not even doing the bare minimum. I mean, what you did, Jonathan, before, marriage is better than most,

[00:21:41] Aaron Thomas: most people, if they do a little bit of premarital counseling, they don’t touch on finances at all. and you know, my parents got married in 1966, right? back then, the average age of getting married was 21.

[00:21:55] Aaron Thomas: They had not a penny to their name. They started everything together. There [00:22:00] was no discussion. There was no disclosure of assets and debts. They had no assets and debts, right?

[00:22:04] Aaron Thomas: Back then, credit cards didn’t even exist. You were unlikely to have a house. Student loans. My, my dad worked his way through school. Something that’s laughable, you know, today for most people looking at higher education. and today. it is so much more complex there is so much more of a need, but we have not kept up as a society.

[00:22:23] Aaron Thomas: Premarital counseling has not kept up with the complexity of the transaction that is getting married in today’s day and age.

[00:22:32] Jonathan deYoe: that’s normal about everything. It just feels like everything has gotten more complex and we need to have some sort of a pre something contract for everything, for, almost for dating. You know, this whole idea of we need to have, you know, deep conversations about, the kinds of sex we’re gonna have, the kinds of things that we’re gonna, you know, how are we gonna raise kids the money?

[00:22:49] Jonathan deYoe: That just seems like everything is super complex and this is just one thing where we can actually set aside and, make it a little bit better

[00:22:55] Jonathan deYoe: question I have, you just touched on this a second ago, is power dynamics. when [00:23:00] one partner earns more income, and we talked about there is you, you, you have a prenup already ’cause of the state, what is in it for the partner who is not the earner or doesn’t have the same potential of earnings to sign the prenup, goes into the prenup to protect that person?

[00:23:17] Jonathan deYoe: Because. It’s, you know, the, the, the assumption is just there to protect the guy who makes the money or the woman who makes the money,

[00:23:22] Aaron Thomas: Yeah. and it’s a great question because a lot of people are going to assume all you’re doing is, securing the finances of the more moneyed spouse.

[00:23:31] Aaron Thomas: Usually , when there’s someone who is coming from a lot of money and there’s someone who is not. , there’s a lot of protections that go in for the spouse who is putting themself in really a very vulnerable position. If you are going to be financially dependent on your spouse going forward, you are probably going to forego future education. You’re going to forgo work opportunities. You, you may not focus as much on your career, and so if that relationship , comes to an end, you could end up being in a worse position.[00:24:00]

[00:24:00] Aaron Thomas: Then if you’d never gotten married to this person the beginning, and so a lot of times it is the conversation is number one, recognizing that. Having the conversation with, you know, somebody who’s in love and they’re not thinking anywhere down the line that this is the position that they’re putting themselves in and then putting in certain provisions that say, okay, , the more moneyed spouse comes in is going to remain that person’s business and protected, but the money that is earned during the relationship.

[00:24:25] Aaron Thomas: Some of that money is going to go into a joint bucket that if this couple ever splits up is going to be divided, and we’re gonna make sure that that account, , maybe a brokerage account or something along those lines is titled in both names so the Les Moning spouse can see exactly what is part of the shared estate.

[00:24:42] Aaron Thomas: What is mine, what’s yours, what’s ours? Rather than doing what most couples do, which is move forward based on assumptions. And if those assumptions don’t match up, you end up with very messy divorces and very rich divorce lawyers. I’ve been a part of that system, so I know it. , but then also, we do a lot of things like if a spouse is leaving the [00:25:00] workforce, we’re gonna fund a, a spousal IRA or a brokerage account.

[00:25:04] Aaron Thomas: That spouse’s name, , that is just in that spouse’s name. And so they’re going to accumulate retirement savings just as if they were working, , a full-time career. Or we will lock in, you know, that they will not receive, you know, anywhere less than a certain percentage of the total assets of both parties. So that you don’t end up in what I am now calling the Kevin Costner situation. Right. So Kevin Costner got divorced in 2024. , he had been married to his wife for about 20 years, and when they got married, they signed a prenup. Kevin Costner was already, he was already rich and famous at the time and signed a prenup.

[00:25:38] Aaron Thomas: I think she was 20 years old at the time. And they signed a prenup that said, no matter what, no matter how long the marriage lasts, she gets $1 million. Now as a 20-year-old, 20 years ago, that probably sounded like a ton of money. When they got divorced, Kevin Costa was worth $400 million and they’re living in Southern California on a compound, you

[00:25:55] Aaron Thomas: know, more acres than we probably have square feet in our house.

[00:25:59] Aaron Thomas: Right? [00:26:00] And so when they, when they broke up, she’s left with an amount of money that wouldn’t even allow her to get an apartment in the same zip code as where her husband and their three teenage children were living. If they had had a prenup that literally said nothing more than like, she’s not gonna walk away with less than 2%. Of the entire assets, she would’ve been eight times better off

[00:26:21] Aaron Thomas: than the agreement that she signed because there weren’t any guardrails in there. And her attorney didn’t negotiate something that that set a floor of the shared marital wealth that she would walk away with. So there’s alimony, there’s funding retirement accounts, there’s funding joint accounts, there’s putting a house in joint names. They’re all, they’re setting a percentage of the joint assets. That, that at a minimum the lowered money spouse will receive. So there’s all kinds of tools that you can do to give security to the less wealthy spouse without putting, you know, the family estate. I. Of the moneyed spouse on the line and, [00:27:00] and kind of having help to navigate help that couple, navigate that process and get to something that feels good for both spouses. , not only makes for a less messy divorce if it happens, but it also gives both spouses clarity during the relationship itself as to where they stand.

[00:27:16] Jonathan deYoe: Yeah. Just in that example, and there’s, and there’s no, she has no recourse. She signed that when she was 20., and it’s, it’s done.

[00:27:23] Aaron Thomas: And not only is there no recourse, but if she fought the enforceability of the prenup, what a lot of prenups have today, and it is a clause that says if

[00:27:31] Aaron Thomas: You.

[00:27:32] Aaron Thomas: fight it. And the prenup is upheld. You’ve gotta pay the lawyer’s fees for both sides. So there’s a penalty for even trying to get it thrown out.

[00:27:38] Aaron Thomas: And what came out in the news in this situation is she went to court and asked for $250,000 a month in child support. And that’s what hit the headlines. And everyone said, oh, look at this greedy woman, such a gold digger. She’s going out, but child support is one of the few things you

[00:27:54] Aaron Thomas: cannot address up front in a prenup. And so that was literally the only legal [00:28:00] tool she had left to try to get. Some kind of money to maintain some type , of basic standard of living that her and her children had gotten used to over the past two decades, so that she could continue to live near where the kids went to school so that she could continue, you know, she’d foregone, you know, 20 years of, of work opportunities.

[00:28:18] Aaron Thomas: She can’t just start in her forties and start over , and get back to any kind of reasonable level of supporting herself. , and so that’s kind of the only recourse that, that some people are, are left with.

[00:28:29] Jonathan deYoe: it’s a little bit of a cautionary tale that yes, prenups are important, but you need to make sure you have excellent counsel if you’re signing a prenup, especially if you are not the, the high earner or the, the one with coming in with assets. , it seems like she got misrepresented

[00:28:44] Aaron Thomas: Absolutely. And I think that that’s where a lot of people go wrong is maybe the less moneyed spouse says, well, I just, I don’t want to be difficult and you know, I know this person’s gonna take care of me. I’ll just sign whatever you have. And no, it’s all the more reason for you to have good [00:29:00] representation.

[00:29:00] Jonathan deYoe: yeah, yeah. yeah. can a prenup evolve, as a couple, you know, grows in their life, one person retires, the one that we didn’t expect to be the higher earner ends up starting a business or some kind of product line, , how does a prenup evolve? Is there a process for evolution over time?

[00:29:14] Jonathan deYoe: I.

[00:29:15] Aaron Thomas: Yeah, absolutely. So there are a few things that you can put in place. I mean, so I’ll say up front you can get a postnuptial agreement if it ever comes to where you need to revise your agreement, you can get a postnup where it’s the same thing as a prenup, but you’re signing it after the date of the marriage.

[00:29:29] Aaron Thomas: And so a lot of couples will get to a place where something happens in their relationship that was not foreseen, and it’s big enough that they want to make a change. , but in really carefully crafted agreements, you can allow for enough flexibility that it can grow with the couple.

[00:29:45] Aaron Thomas: I’ll give you a few examples. , one is, , a lot of couples will put into their prenup something that I call like the annual shareholders meeting. , where you sit down and you kind of have an ongoing obligation to share your finances and maybe change the way [00:30:00] that you’re contributing to the joint account or each person’s play money, will change over time.

[00:30:05] Aaron Thomas: , my wife and I have done that. We had a certain amount that we got in terms of each of us got our own discretionary money that came from the joint pot of money every month. And, you know, as we’ve done better, we’ve changed that number, it’s gone up. , . , one of the most popular provisions that couples put in their agreements now are counseling provisions.

[00:30:20] Aaron Thomas: So, I have it in my own prenup that says once a year, either me or my wife can trigger up to three counseling sessions. And We’ve agreed on it ahead of time so that if one of us says, Hey, let’s go do some counseling

[00:30:31] Jonathan deYoe: For any topic,

[00:30:32] Aaron Thomas: for any topic.

[00:30:33] Jonathan deYoe: That’s brilliant.

[00:30:35] Aaron Thomas: It’s a framework to resolve conflict overall what I found in my divorce practice is what happens is when somebody asks for counseling, it sounds like an accusation

[00:30:44] Aaron Thomas: that if something’s wrong with the other person, and I’m gonna make you go to counseling rather than you set it in place at the beginning. There’s a structure around it and you know how many sessions each party can kind of request per year, so it doesn’t feel punitive when someone brings [00:31:00] it up. It’s just matter of fact, this is the way that we resolve conflict. Or a lot of couples today are now using it as just almost like an annual checkup.

[00:31:07] Aaron Thomas: They’ll put in their agreement. We’re going to two counseling sessions every year. No questions asked, and that way they have kind of like a way to check in on the relationship or a release valve. , and a lot of the prenups that we do now are what I call title based prenups. So the default prenup, you know, the one you sign when you don’t sign one and you just get married at the courthouse basically says that, , if your name is on an account.

[00:31:30] Aaron Thomas: It belongs to you. If your spouse’s name on account, it belongs to them. You get married, that goes out the window and whose name is or title is on an account or a piece of property is no longer the deciding factor. There’s nothing else that you can do in life that throws that, what I call, title based system out.

[00:31:45] Aaron Thomas: What a lot of people do in their prenup is go back to that title based system and say, if an account is in my name, it belongs to me. If a credit card is in my name, that debt belongs to me. Anything we title in joint names belongs to the two of us, and what that does is it gives couples the [00:32:00] flexibility that if they move forward in their relationship, they buy a house. There’s put in both names and automatically all the equity in that house and the debt against it is going to belong to the couple. Or you could have someone say, I inherited some money from my family, but I’m just gonna, I’m gonna put it in, you know, a little investment property here on the side, we’re gonna title in my name, and that’s just gonna be my, and there’s clarity that that asset belongs to that spouse and any debts. Associated with it, belong to that spouse as well. People do the same thing with businesses and vehicles, and it’s so much more flexible for couples to have the option during their marriage of deciding, this is mine, this is yours. This is ours. That’s how most couples live. Most couples do not live their lives.

[00:32:40] Aaron Thomas: Like everything, literally everything is joint property, right? This is my cell phone. My wife’s cell phone is hers. I have my car, my wife has her car. Right. We may share most things, but it is never truly, everything is 50 50, and this allows the flexibility going through relationships for couples to divvy things up as they see fit in [00:33:00] real time.

[00:33:00] Jonathan deYoe: Yeah, so I’m, I’m thinking in the last 20, 30 years, marriages have changed. As you said earlier, people getting married, older. You know, there’s dual income, you know, cost of living is through the roof. has the structure of prenups or the idea of prenups changed given all those things?

[00:33:14] Jonathan deYoe: Or is it just each case? It’s an independent, you know, case

[00:33:18] Aaron Thomas: Absolutely. It has changed so, so much over 40, 50 years ago, especially, in the 1980s is when the Uniform Prenuptial Agreement Act was passed, and that gave some uniformity across most of the nation, , about what you need in a prenup to be enforceable. Previously, , before the eighties, you didn’t know if your prenup was gonna be enforced or not.

[00:33:39] Aaron Thomas: If you went to court some states supported them, some do not. Now all 50 states, , allow for the enforceability of prenuptial agreements. , and then they went from being something that was just for the ultra wealthy and, you know, hugely successful people to now most people getting prenups are. 30-year-old millennials who, you know, don’t have a [00:34:00] million dollars in assets. They’re just people who saw their parents go through the 50% divorce rates of the 1980s and are saying, I’m not going to have that be me. And I’ve already got a 401k started, I’ve already got a small business started,

[00:34:12] Aaron Thomas: you know, my wife has already got a condo and we just want to be clear.

[00:34:15] Aaron Thomas: Then not everything is gonna fall into the hours bucket. , and so that there’s been a real evolution of, you know. It being something that is dooming your marriage altogether to now is just seen as like another common sense financial tool in your arsenal. The same way that you would get a will or a trust or insurance, you can get a prenup.

[00:34:38] Aaron Thomas: , and it’s just , one more protection that keeps more money in couples pockets and out of the pockets , of potentially lawyers down the road.

[00:34:44] Jonathan deYoe: It sounds like millennials are embracing the prenup in a way that pride generations haven’t. Would you say that’s the case?

[00:34:49] Aaron Thomas: It is absolutely the case. In 2003% of marrying couples were getting prenups. Today it’s up to 15%. That’s a fivefold. And when you poll millennials, [00:35:00] 45% of them are in favor of prenups. So it’s not quite to, you know, half of people. But it is a world of difference from,, our generation, you know, people , who may have had their first marriage 30 years ago.

[00:35:11] Jonathan deYoe: know that we’re not planning for divorce, but that percentage of people who are for prenup is eerily similar to the percentage of people , that are getting divorced.

[00:35:19] Aaron Thomas: it’s, it’s, and you know, it should be higher. I’m confident that it will be higher. , I may be biased, but I also was in the business of divorce for the majority of my career and I saw how many situations where it could have saved people a lot of heartache, a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of stress. , and, , there is no other financial risk in our society. I. That, you know, where there’s a 45% chance of, , this unfortunate consequence happening and we would not insure against that.

[00:35:51] Aaron Thomas: if there was a 45% chance , of you dying in the next 20 years, everyone would have term life insurance.

[00:35:57] Aaron Thomas: Every single person, right? Home insurance, car [00:36:00] insurance, all of those have a much lower risk factor than marriage does. And for some reason we’ve made it distasteful to protect against one of the biggest financial ca catastrophes of most people’s adult lives. , and it’s just totally unnecessary when there is a healthy and affordable and. You know, a good way to do it that is not going to damage , your relationship and, and I think that’s the state that we’re in today.

[00:36:25] Jonathan deYoe: This is a different kind of question, , , it’s more about the business of family law or the business of, so in my industry there are millions of millions, thousands of commentators, pundits, people talking about how people should manage their money better in financial planning and et cetera.

[00:36:41] Jonathan deYoe: I think you’re the first person to run across that actually does this publicly. Talks about this on and wrote a book about it and is talking about it on podcasts, how come or or am I missing it? Are there a lot of people talking about it? I don’t know about it. Are you just the only one out there doing it?

[00:36:54] Jonathan deYoe: And why not more people? It seems like it’s a really, really important thing.

[00:36:58] Aaron Thomas: it’s a good question Jonathan, [00:37:00] and the cynic in me would say that, , the money’s in divorce. , when people are going through a divorce case, the money is going , where it’s needed. Most people have no choice but to hire an attorney at that time. And there’s basically, you know, nothing they can do, but hang on and pay what they have to pay to get through to the end. , the prenup is, is a tougher sell. , you’ve gotta convince people that it is a worthwhile investment. , and do it at a time when they’re madly in love and do not ever see, the remote possibility that the relationship could come to an end.

[00:37:33] Aaron Thomas: it’s a combination , of taboo. Of lack of education, of not knowing how to approach it. And, I just saw so many messy divorces in my career that I truly believe could have been prevented I feel honestly like it is my duty to be one of the few people out here, you know, educating people.

[00:37:53] Aaron Thomas: On, you know, the importance of prenups, the fact that they do not have to mean doom and gloom, that they can be a healthy thing. And most of the couples that [00:38:00] we work with today , are so happy and relieved that they’ve done it and they take some of these principles that we’re talking about. I mean, obviously you don’t have to hire me to. Put an annual meeting in your household where you sit down and talk about money. , you don’t have to draft a postnup to go out and have a rule for your relationship where you’re going to institute counseling as like an ongoing thing, or just put it on the table that this is what we do when we run into tough patches in our relationship. But I think that. , when couples are getting married, it’s just the perfect time to try to capture people and say, here are the most common pitfalls that people run across in today’s marriage, and it doesn’t exist for their parents. So you’re, you’re not gonna get this advice from your parents. You’re not gonna get it from your uncles and aunts. You’re not gonna get it from your grandparents because your marriage is totally different from what theirs is.

[00:38:46] Aaron Thomas: And this is a uniquely now problem. , and so all of those factors combine, I think, to, you know, leave people in a situation where there’s not a lot of education about this out there.

[00:38:57] Aaron Thomas: , there’s not a lot of people talking about it. , and [00:39:00] hopefully, you bringing me on here and allowing me to talk to your audience. You know, we’re gonna help, you know, reach people, you know, one step at a time.

[00:39:06] Jonathan deYoe: That, that’s, that’s definitely the hope. that note, let’s make this really simple for people. , let’s say , there’s a couple listening or maybe a, a person that’s considering popping the question, listening. , , and they’re on the path towards getting married, what is one thing that they can do right away to sort of begin the process, lay the groundwork for getting married the right way?

[00:39:23] Jonathan deYoe: , what’s one thing they can do today to do that?

[00:39:26] Aaron Thomas: Put your assets and debts on paper and share ’em with your spouse, , , it is something that most couples have not done. I think what a lot of couples would say they’ve done is they’ve talked generally, I. About their assets and debts with their spouse.

[00:39:38] Aaron Thomas: But there is something different about putting it on paper and trading it where you can’t hide and say, oh, well I forgot about that. Oh, well, you know, this credit card, I usually pay it off. But there’s a little bit of a balance. No, put it all on paper, trade it with each other, and that is going to naturally spur additional conversations.

[00:39:54] Aaron Thomas: You know, We all think that we should be like 10 years further along in our financial journeys.

[00:39:58] Aaron Thomas: Everyone, no matter how much money [00:40:00] they have, think that they should be a little bit further, you know, have a little more assets, have a little bit less debt. , but just share those things and get ’em on the table, naturally spur those conversations. And then it’s much easier to have those conversations about, you know, what if this happens?

[00:40:13] Aaron Thomas: Or, you know, is this mine? Is this yours? Do you expect me to participate and help pay off this debt that you have? Those conversations are easier to have when you have that first step outta the way, which is disclosure of everything you’ve got going on financially.

[00:40:26] Jonathan deYoe: I mean, frankly, if one partner doesn’t wanna disclose, you know, that’s kind of a, that’s a red flag. Like maybe,

[00:40:31] Jonathan deYoe: you know.

[00:40:32] Aaron Thomas: of a, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And if you can’t get on the same page when it comes to your finances, that’s a big part of marriage. That’s a big part of your relationship. And that may be something you wanna work out or address before you walk down the aisle.

[00:40:46] Jonathan deYoe: Yeah, for sure. Just before we wrap things up, I’d like to come back to something personal, , , you know, so take this as you well, but, , what’s the last thing you changed your mind about?

[00:40:54] Aaron Thomas: I think the last thing, it is funny that you asked this. I’ve, I’ve thought about [00:41:00] this, recently, which is, That you can convince people to, change their mind about big things, , that they have , in their lives. And I’ve realized that, you know, maybe it’s my age or where I’m in life, but I think that, you know, people are who , they are and they have to reach those points for themselves.

[00:41:17] Aaron Thomas: Where they want to make the change. And no amount of, of education or cajoling or badgering is going to change somebody else’s mind. That you can just, you can present the information, you can advise people, you know what you think, and then you have to kind of leave it out there and let people make their own decisions.

[00:41:36] Aaron Thomas: And I think that’s helped me stop beating my head against the wall with some of my own loved ones. You know, who I, I wish I could change, you know, their, their behavior or activity, you know, in one way or another. And, you know, instead now I just, I just educate and I’d be there to be the sounding board when needed.

[00:41:52] Jonathan deYoe: Yeah, I think my dad said when I was, I’m from South Dakota. This is probably informative. you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make you drink,

[00:41:58] Aaron Thomas: Absolutely,

[00:41:59] Jonathan deYoe: So, [00:42:00] Aaron tell people how they find you, where they connect with you.

[00:42:02] Aaron Thomas: Yeah, so prenups.com, with the s on the end, prenups.com is the best place. You can get links out there to our free ebook, 7 Steps to a Marriage- Saving Prenup, or to our book, The Prenup Prescription. I’m on Instagram @prenupguy. But all of those are linked from our website. So if you go to prenups.com, that will give you everywhere else you need to go.

[00:42:25] Jonathan deYoe: Aaron, thanks so much for coming on and sort of just sharing the knowledge , with the audience. I really appreciate it. It’s really important stuff.

[00:42:31] Aaron Thomas: Thanks so much for having me, Jonathan. It’s been great.

[00:42:33] Outro: Thanks for listening. Full show notes for each episode, which includes a summary, key takeaways, quotes, and any resources mentioned are available at Mindful Money. Be sure to follow and subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. And if you’re enjoying the content and getting value from these episodes, please leave us a rating and review [00:43:00] ratethispodcast.com/mindfulmoney. We’ll be sure to read those out on future episodes.