There’s One Thing That Is Essential to Me Before I Tie the Knot. My Fiancé Is Refusing to Do It.

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When I was 10, my dad had a midlife crisis, and, without warning the family, he quit his job to “find himself.” My parents had three kids plus a baby, and my mom hadn’t been in the workforce for years. It was financially devastating. She ended up divorcing him eventually, but it was bad. Now I’m getting married, and this childhood experience, along with something particular in my husband’s past, have led me to make a certain request of my fiancé. His response was upsetting.

Because of my childhood, a prenup is very important to me. My now-fiancé was married and divorced when he was very young, before we met. His ex-wife and his own family have been vocal about the belief that she got shortchanged in the divorce, which shocked me. He’s always been generous and open with me about money and everything else.

We make about the same now, but we plan on having kids, and I know that could skew my earning power. I want us both to have the ability to get out. To me, that means each having separate personal money outside our pooled shared funds, plus a clear prenup about how to divide assets if we do divorce. He has agreed on the shared funds/personal funds, but refuses to negotiate and sign a prenup. He argues that we’re just setting ourselves up for distrust and divorce. I love this man, but I’m ready to walk away over this. Is this unreasonable?

You watched your mother get financially destroyed because she had no protection. Your fiancé’s ex-wife got “shortchanged” in their divorce—his own family says so. And now he refuses to negotiate a prenup because it shows “distrust”?

Let me translate what he’s actually saying: “I don’t want you to be financially independent. I want you financially vulnerable the way my ex-wife was.”

A prenup isn’t about planning for divorce—it’s about clarity. It says: “Here’s what we each brought in, here’s how we’ll handle money during marriage, here’s how we’ll split things fairly if it doesn’t work out.” That’s not distrust. That’s adulting.

His refusal is the red flag. He claims prenups cause divorce, but statistically they don’t. In fact, just 15 percent of couples sign prenups (up from 3 percent in 2010), according to a 2022 survey by Harris Poll, while Pew Research Center estimates the number of divorces is down sharply in the past 15 years, from 22.2 divorces per 1,000 married women to 14.4 divorces per 1,000 married women in 2023. What causes divorce is financial conflict, mismatched expectations, and people discovering too late that their partner has very different ideas about fairness. A prenup forces the two of you to have those conversations now, before you exchange vows.Here’s what really concerns me: you experienced devastating financial vulnerability as a child. He knows this. You’ve told him a prenup is non-negotiable for your emotional security. And his response is… “No, trust me instead”?

That’s not love. That’s control. And that should be a deal breaker.

Also, about that “shortchanged” ex-wife? Maybe she got a raw deal because he refused to be fair. You’re getting a preview of how he’ll behave if your marriage ends. Believe him.

Don’t marry without a prenup. Period. Because you want it. Make sure he understands: “This isn’t negotiable. We either work with a family law attorney to create a fair prenup that protects both of us, or we don’t get married. I’m not asking for your permission—I’m telling you my boundary.”

If he won’t budge, walk away. A man who refuses to protect you financially when you’ve told him why you need it doesn’t deserve to marry you.

More Money Advice From Slate

My wife is bad with money. If we have money in our bank account, she will spend it. We have a shared account for bills and separate personal accounts, but when she has spent the money in her personal account she will just switch over to the shared account. I end up using my personal account for bills frequently. We’ve talked about this endlessly, we’ve looked at how much money we’re spending, we’ve done budgets, but she just doesn’t stick to it, and my personality does not lend itself to enforcement.