To OP: you don't have to hide your assets in offshore accounts, you can talk to an estate planner and look into setting up a trust (google domestic asset protection trust) and make yourself the sole beneficiary. You would no longer "own" the money and it's protected in a divorce.
Also prenups are typically worthless in the madness that is family court. Never ever ever rely on one.
Also, in a community property state like CA, all assets acquired during marriage are presumed to be "community property" of both spouses, unless there is a prenuptial agreement specifically describing the ownership of assets acquired during the marriage using a spouse's individual and separate pre-marital assets (i.e., pre-marital savings). Thus, an estate planner could not do anything to help you in this situation.
Don't be an armchair lawyer if you don't know what you're talking about.
Do you have some research on the topic? I'll admit my assumption has always been they are more or less worthless due to my anecdotal direct experience, and I've even had a family law attorney in my state make comments that also led me believe this was the case.
Are you saying that prenups are worthless in the case of child support or that prenups are worthless in all cases? In the case of child-related issues, you're right. However, in the case of dividing assets, I think you might be mistaken.
I've read stories of super wealthy people with prenups who did not get screwed; i.e., the prenup held up. The best example I can find is a certain billionaire who got divorced, but I cannot mention his name without creating irrevelant political discussion. He had an ironclad prenup and it held. That's the point I want to make. Prenups still work.
That's because we (the USA) have a two-tiered legal system.
lol would that be by any chance XXXXXX XXXX ?
Thank you for this real and actionable advice.
I found this article, and according to it, California does not allow it. I guess I'll have to move to 1 of those state? Not too bad lol. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleaebeling/2016/07/06/compari...
Is that the second-most-common case? I haven't seen a single amicable divorce amongst my friends and colleagues. The level of nastiness has been different, of course, but it's never been amicable.
Given the profound downsides that I've seen, I think that a prenuptial agreement is mandatory for anyone who chooses to marry in our era. Otherwise you're just going for the standard 'prenup' — and like the standard deduction on your taxes, it just ain't sufficient.
Now I only ever visit Cricket's website in incognito mode.
Let's be extremely optimistic and say 80% of divorces occur amicably.. that would give us ~10% odds of a nasty divorce--which I would not chalk up to "outliers"
[0] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/upshot/the-divorce-surge-i...
My point was that, no matter how you fudge the numbers, it's impossible to chalk up bad divorces as outliers. Outliers are defined as 3 standard deviations from the mean in a normal distribution, so the parent was implying that bad divorces occur at a rate of 0.1% or less--which is off by at least one order of magnitude.
I kind of agree with your overall point, but that definition is wildly incorrect.
Because, unfortunately, it is way too easy to give up on a marriage[0] instead of trying to work it out. Marriage takes effort.
[0] Preemptively, because surely someone will reply about it: If a spouse is getting beat, they aren't giving up on their marriage if they leave; they're protecting their life.
[0] is IMHO a fairly evenhanded (and comprehensive) treatment of divorce outcomes by state, partially written by an MIT CompSci professor.
It was an eye opener, and I wouldn't call it a men's rights website.
Shit happens, thats why we have audits, contracts and airbags and why many people avoid driving motorcycles vs. cars. There is stuff outside of our control and to get rid of unnecessary risk is a benefit in itself.
Why buy car insurance? Just find the right car and work on your driving.
Suppose liability insurance was entirely voluntary and not required by law. Would you get it? I'll bet you that most people with good income or significant assets would still buy it, just like people buy home or fire insurance even when not mandatory.
A prenuptial agreement would safeguard you more than attempting to hide money overseas. Another safeguard would be to marry a person who wouldn't be eligible for alimony due to preexisting income.
I consider this sort of optimization to be an inaccurate threat model, focused on outliers rather than the expected case. The expected case in California or any other state would be that the marriage would survive if not flourish (the most common case for upper-middle-class marriages), with a contingency that a divorce would occur amicably (the second-most common case). Screening for contentious attitudes is part of the due diligence of dating.
(only on HN would I ever expect to post something like this instead of the common-sense "find the right spouse and work on your marriage and you won't have to worry about this issue")