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The Diary of a CEO

Most Replayed Moment: Why You Need A Prenup And How To Avoid Divorce!

28 min episode · 2 min read
·
Steven Bartlett,Unknown Divorce Lawyer/family Law Attorney

Episode

28 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Career Growth, Productivity, Personal Finance

AI-Generated Summary

Key Takeaways

  • ✓Prenup Reframe: Every married couple already operates under a prenup — either one written by state legislators or one written by the couple themselves. Since nearly 60% of U.S. marriages end in divorce, choosing your own terms rather than defaulting to government-written rules is a concrete, proactive step couples can take before marriage.
  • ✓Child Support Math: In New York, child support is calculated as a percentage of gross income minus FICA: 17% for one child, 25% for two, 29% for three, and 31% for four. Critically, these payments are modifiable every three years when income shifts by 30% or more — meaning a career surge years post-divorce triggers automatic recalculation upward.
  • ✓Hidden Wealth Structures: Ultra-high-net-worth individuals often own almost nothing personally — assets sit inside trusts, corporations, and layered holding companies built for tax efficiency. During divorce, forensic accountants must determine whether these structures were created for legitimate estate planning or as fraudulent transfers made in anticipation of divorce proceedings.
  • ✓Having Children Is the Highest-Risk Relationship Decision: A divorce attorney's assessment is that having a child with someone carries greater financial and emotional exposure than marriage itself. A client spent $100,000 in legal fees disputing a four-day Thanksgiving custody window. Unlike asset disputes where legal costs create rational settlement pressure, parents assign unlimited personal value to time with children.
  • ✓The You-Me-We Framework: To sustain a long-term relationship, actively maintain three distinct identities: your individual self, your partner's individual self, and the shared partnership. Regularly check in on each layer, allow both people to change over time, and lean into uncomfortable conversations rather than avoiding them — the harder conversation is usually the necessary one.

What It Covers

Divorce attorney James (Diary of a CEO guest) covers prenuptial agreements, child support calculations, hidden wealth structures in high-net-worth divorces, and the financial risks of having children outside of marriage, using real case examples and U.S. divorce statistics to reframe prenups as practical planning tools.

Key Questions Answered

  • •Prenup Reframe: Every married couple already operates under a prenup — either one written by state legislators or one written by the couple themselves. Since nearly 60% of U.S. marriages end in divorce, choosing your own terms rather than defaulting to government-written rules is a concrete, proactive step couples can take before marriage.
  • •Child Support Math: In New York, child support is calculated as a percentage of gross income minus FICA: 17% for one child, 25% for two, 29% for three, and 31% for four. Critically, these payments are modifiable every three years when income shifts by 30% or more — meaning a career surge years post-divorce triggers automatic recalculation upward.
  • •Hidden Wealth Structures: Ultra-high-net-worth individuals often own almost nothing personally — assets sit inside trusts, corporations, and layered holding companies built for tax efficiency. During divorce, forensic accountants must determine whether these structures were created for legitimate estate planning or as fraudulent transfers made in anticipation of divorce proceedings.
  • •Having Children Is the Highest-Risk Relationship Decision: A divorce attorney's assessment is that having a child with someone carries greater financial and emotional exposure than marriage itself. A client spent $100,000 in legal fees disputing a four-day Thanksgiving custody window. Unlike asset disputes where legal costs create rational settlement pressure, parents assign unlimited personal value to time with children.
  • •The You-Me-We Framework: To sustain a long-term relationship, actively maintain three distinct identities: your individual self, your partner's individual self, and the shared partnership. Regularly check in on each layer, allow both people to change over time, and lean into uncomfortable conversations rather than avoiding them — the harder conversation is usually the necessary one.

Notable Moment

A divorce attorney attempted to purchase a booth at multiple U.S. wedding expos to distribute prenup information — not to discourage marriage, but simply to raise awareness. Every single expo refused his money, despite prenup booths costing thousands of dollars and nearly 60% of marriages ending in divorce.

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Episode Transcript

More and more people are getting prenups. You said to me that a lot of people contact you these days asking for you to help with prenups. One of the interesting things we were talking about before we started filming was it's really uncomfortable to turn to your partner and ask them for a prenup. I know a lot of people say that, and I think it's a question of how you enter the conversation. Again, like, you know, I guess because I get paid to talk, and I'm used to talking sometimes about difficult things with a judge or revealing, you know, things that are hard to reveal about someone and trying to make sure that they're not viewed negatively, even though they might have behaved negatively. So I think prenup, it's all about how you bring up the conversation. And my preferred entry point for a prenup when I talk to someone is every single person who gets married has a prenup. It's either written by the government or it's written by the two people who love each other more than the other eight billion people in the world. I personally think that the two people in a marriage are better qualified to create the rule set of their marriage than politicians they don't know, especially when you consider the nature of politicians. They won a popularity contest. They managed to offend as few people as possible, and they change constantly. So you're signing up for the most legally significant thing you're ever going to do other than die with a rule set that no one ever explains to you in advance and that can be changed by people who don't know you based on who won a popularity contest. Okay? That seems smart to you? Or, or... do the two of you decide what the rules are going to be? And then starting from the beginning, which is where you are if you're doing a prenup because you're about to get married, okay? Then you live your life in accordance with that rule set together. And when one of you is deviating from it or when a red flag goes up, like you go, hey, how come you're doing it that way? Remember we have that rule set. And so I like that. I think prenups, even having a conversation about a prenup, I think, is a very healthy exercise for a couple. I cannot tell you how many people since our first conversation have stopped me on the streets of New York City and said, I got into the coolest conversation with my girlfriend about prenups and marriage after I saw you and Steven talking. I've had probably like two people a week say that to me. It's a very, I always say to these people, I'm like, you do weird stuff in bed. Like you're watching Diary of a CEO in bed. It's because you know there's other stuff. Like I'm not great on the …

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