[gmk]

Originally Posted by IbnMardhiyah

Question for all the proponents of marriage prenups and contracts:

Can you give me an example - either public or from your own knowledge - where a woman who did not have such a contract, got "totally screwed over" in a divorce, despite the professional assistance of a divorce lawyer? In the majority of cases, its the guy that gets screwed over, hence the Barbie joke -

Have you seen the new divorced Barbie? She comes with everything Ken had.

I disagree with you here (bolded section). Check this out:

Marriage Brings Wealth, Divorce Steals It | LiveScience

Also, I was having a discussion with my husband the other day about how parents are more protective of their daughters than their sons, and he pointed out that women have more to lose. If a woman becomes a single parent, it is much less likely that she'll get married than a man who is a single parent. There are a lot of reasons for this, which I won't go into at the moment, but once I thought about it, a couple of my friend who are young and attractive and not hurting in the man department, both married guys with kids. So I think this is true. Men not only have more $$$ after a divorce, but they are also more likely to get married again, I believe.

[PhDGirl]

Originally Posted by IbnMardhiyah

Can you give me an example - either public or from your own knowledge - where a woman who did not have such a contract, got "totally screwed over" in a divorce, despite the professional assistance of a divorce lawyer? In the majority of cases, its the guy that gets screwed over

I also disagree with the bolded and italicized section. If a woman gives up her career for the family and then later gets divorced, her financial status is likely to decline, and her earning potential will be less than it would be otherwise because of the years outside of the workforce and opportunities not pursued. There's a wealth gap where divorced women have less money than divorced men (standard of living decreases about a third, and men's standard of living increases by about a tenth) yet typically have custody of the children. Yes, the men are supporting two households, but the money that they give to the other household is capped, whereas it wasn't before.

But since you asked for an example, I know a few physicians whose first wives supported them through medical school and residency and then stayed home with the kids when the husbands became attendings. Later, the husbands decided to get younger second wives, divorced the first wives and now the the first wives are living in rather poor conditions. It happens all the time. I grew up with kids whose dads left their moms and then they wound up living with a much lower standard of living and visiting their dads on the weekends in a much nicer, cooler house. And not just American kids - Muslim ones too (only two Muslim kids though I'm afraid it's getting more common).

Rarely does it happen that a man will have to give up more than 50% of the assets accumulated during the marriage. But, the definition of "screwed over" also depends on how you view money in the marital relationship. If you view assets accumulated during the relationship as a joint venture, it is obviously very different than if you don't. If a man has a stay at home wife, he has someone to take care of details at home, do household chores etc, that frees him to do work (and there are studies indicating that married men are more successful in the workplace than their single counterparts). However, if you think that the work that women do at home is easier than working and anyone can do it (which is what people here have said in the past) then you will think it is unfair that the man has to give money that he earned to his wife. In any case, it's definitely good to discuss these things with potential spouses beforehand, but it's one of those things where you don't really know how it will turn out until decisions have to be made.

[IbnMardhiyah]

I was referring to guys getting screwed over as in, they often lose custody of the kids and then, all the payments they have to make - alimony, child support, wage garnishes, etc. It may be less if the wife works and has her own stream of income, but the guy is getting screwed over because he's being forced to support his ex-wife and his kids. If she gets re-married, then in some cases she still gets some money from him for herself, and in any case, he still has to pay for supporting his kids while they're in another man's house, not to mention supporting his own new wife [and kids] if he's decided to start all over.

Originally Posted by PhDGirl

But since you asked for an example, I know a few physicians whose first wives supported them through medical school and residency and then stayed home with the kids when the husbands became attendings. Later, the husbands decided to get younger second wives, divorced the first wives and now the the first wives are living in rather poor conditions. It happens all the time. I grew up with kids whose dads left their moms and then they wound up living with a much lower standard of living and visiting their dads on the weekends in a much nicer, cooler house. And not just American kids - Muslim ones too (only two Muslim kids though I'm afraid it's getting more common).

Did the women in these cases seek the help of divorce lawyers for fair distribution of assets and income?

[Timbit]

You can't depend on anybody to support you.
Your husband can die or just become unable to work for whatever reason (unemployment, illness, disability) or you might get divorced and yes, it is women who get screwed over financially because of divorce. Getting back into the workforce is much harder than it seems too.

Don't ever sacrifice your financial security for the sake of a family. It's very possible to raise kids and have a successful career too. Maybe you can cut back your hours or work from home or whatever... but it's possible. And if you don't have kids, then there's no reason whatsoever to stay at home.

[displaced]

I like how this has become a who-gets-more-screwed-over competition.

imo, a pre-nup basically says "look, I don't trust you to take care of me." and if you don't trust someone to take care of you, don't marry him/her.

[displaced]

Originally Posted by Timbit

You can't depend on anybody to support you.
Your husband can die or just become unable to work for whatever reason (unemployment, illness, disability) or you might get divorced and yes, it is women who get screwed over financially because of divorce. Getting back into the workforce is much harder than it seems too.

Don't ever sacrifice your financial security for the sake of a family. It's very possible to raise kids and have a successful career too. Maybe you can cut back your hours or work from home or whatever... but it's possible. And if you don't have kids, then there's no reason whatsoever to stay at home.

and this is why I find it incredibly irritating when girls cop-out and pick some going-nowhere major to kill time until they get married.

[PhDGirl]

Originally Posted by IbnMardhiyah

I was referring to guys getting screwed over as in, they often lose custody of the kids and then, all the payments they have to make - alimony, child support, wage garnishes, etc. It may be less if the wife works and has her own stream of income, but the guy is getting screwed over because he's being forced to support his ex-wife and his kids. If she gets re-married, then in some cases she still gets some money from him for herself, and in any case, he still has to pay for supporting his kids while they're in another man's house, not to mention supporting his own new wife [and kids] if he's decided to start all over.

Did the women in these cases seek the help of divorce lawyers for fair distribution of assets and income?

I fail to see how paying alimony and child support is being screwed over. I can see your point if alimony doesn't end with remarriage (which usually it does), but your kids are your kids no matter where they live, and paying for their expenses shouldn't be viewed as being screwed over. It's unfortunate that people view that as a burden.

The women in the cases I mentioned did in fact use divorce lawyers. But these situations happen all the time. The amounts are very discretionary. My secretary at my old job was going through a custody battle and wound up getting joint custody and about $250 a week in child support. That's not really enough when you consider diapers, formula etc. All the more reason for women to make sure that they have financial security. But, a prenup is not a very good protection against that kind of situation happening because people don't want to spell things out in such great detail because they're in the first blush of love and all that and they often aren't iron-clad. Plus, amounts that are reasonable today might not be 30 years from now. I don't particularly like the idea of pre-nups, but then again a nikkah is a contract and some people have things spelled out and others don't - personal preference and all that.

[IbnMardhiyah]

Originally Posted by displaced

imo, a pre-nup basically says "look, I don't trust you to take care of me." and if you don't trust someone to take care of you, don't marry him/her.

Ditto ... yeah, thats what I said above.

[displaced]

Originally Posted by IbnMardhiyah

Ditto ... yeah, thats what I said above.

your posts are too long to read every word of

[Timbit]

Originally Posted by displaced

imo, a pre-nup basically says "look, I don't trust you to take care of me." and if you don't trust someone to take care of you, don't marry him/her.

Yeah, that's true.

I don't think you should depend on anybody to "take care" of you ever though once you're an adult.
You can write in your marriage contract though how you'd want things to end (as in how you'd want assets to be distributed) in the event of a divorce. That way, you can avoid things getting ugly in a court.

[displaced]

Originally Posted by Timbit

Yeah, that's true.

I don't think you should depend on anybody to "take care" of you ever though once you're an adult.

marriage = two people taking care of each other.

[Timbit]

Originally Posted by displaced

marriage = two people taking care of each other.

Yeah, I meant financially.

[IbnMardhiyah]

Originally Posted by displaced

your posts are too long to read every word of

Introducing the all new and improved Speed-Reader-X !!!

On SALE now!!!!

OMG!

[PhDGirl]

Originally Posted by Timbit

You can write in your marriage contract though how you'd want things to end (as in how you'd want assets to be distributed) in the event of a divorce. That way, you can avoid things getting ugly in a court.

Does anyone know someone who did that in their nikkah contract? Ours is pretty much the boilerplate one provided by the masjid and most of the people I know had something similar. I guess we just threw caution to the wind