This is what happened when Cass and I negotiated our prenup

So many money conversations happen behind closed doors. That’s part of why I To view this email as a web page, [click here]() I’m an open book about prenups So many money conversations happen behind closed doors. That’s part of why I started [my podcast](). Nearly every couple is talking or arguing about money – but always in private. For this reason, we don’t realize that other people are facing similar problems and trying to answer the same questions. Most people don’t know how to have these kinds of conversations. I want to shine light on money topics that people don’t talk about. I want people to be informed. When my wife Cass and I were thinking about getting engaged a few years ago, I started looking into prenups. I didn’t know much about them at first. I only knew what I heard on TV — that they're only for celebrities or people who have inherited large amounts of generational wealth. So, what IS a prenup? A prenup sets the terms of what you are coming into a marriage with. It’s acknowledgment that one or both partners might have certain assets or interests, like a business, cash, or investments. If the marriage ends for whatever reason, it sets the terms for what happens with those assets, specifically the premarital assets. But if you Google “how to sign a prenup,” you’re going to find a lot of really generic and borderline bad advice. It’s from disgruntled Redditors or AskMen or magazines, where they say things like: You should say your lawyer is forcing you to sign it. You should blame it on your parents. How do you get away with not making your fiancé mad? That was not the tone I wanted for my relationship in general OR my financial relationship with Cass … and yes, that’s what marriage is. It’s legal, it’s financial, and it’s also love. You’re a team in every way. Marriage is absolutely about love, but it’s also an arrangement. The biggest objection to prenups is that you’re planning for the marriage to go wrong. I wasn’t. I intend to be married forever. But in recognizing that we are a team and that marriage isn’t just about love but is an arrangement, it was important to me that we set expectations and defined our arrangement. Making a prenup is like putting numbers to your boundaries In Ramit’s Book Club, we’re discussing Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. (Remember – you don’t have to read it to be part of the conversation. Drop in whenever on [Instagram]().) As the authors say, “Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me.” Making a prenup was like creating boundaries AND putting numbers to those boundaries. That was not easy, and it got pretty heated at times. My perspective was, “I’ve thought about money for 15 or 20 years every day. This is my business, and I’m really proud of what I’ve accomplished financially.” I thought I made a very fair, bending-over-backwards offer. My wife’s perspective was very different, and I didn’t listen as much as I should. I was like, “I, I, I. I did this, I made this offer.” She would say something, and I would say something like, “Look at this spreadsheet, look at the numbers.” We would just stop talking about it for weeks at a time because it was just too stressful. Finally, she said, “We have to go talk to somebody about this. We should go see a therapist.” I was like, “Yeah, we really should.” Our therapist was very good. She asked us about how we grew up with money and what it meant. It turns out money meant totally different things to us. For me, it meant being proud of what I’ve accomplished. It meant the work and the sacrifices it took to build it. For anyone who’s ever built something, you can look back and remember Friday nights when you didn’t go out, or you can remember certain risks you took. My wife was seeing it differently. Money meant something different to her. When it came to the prenup, my wife wanted to feel safe. She wanted to know that if anything went wrong, she would be taken care of … but I didn’t really internalize what that meant to her at first. This therapist helped us bring all of this up through every session. We still were having the lawyers go back and forth, but now we were connecting more with each other financially and we were reminded by the therapist that we were a team. We finally came to an agreement, and we signed it. What I would’ve done differently I should’ve taken my own advice and talked about money with my wife way earlier, before we were close to getting engaged. We should’ve seen a therapist earlier and not let it stretch out as long as it did. Everyone involved in a prenup process, like the lawyers, wants it to stretch out. You have to take control and manage the process, but both of you have to be aligned on that. A therapist would’ve expedited things for us. And one of the most important things I would’ve done differently is to START off talking about MEANING, not money. I wish I hadn’t started out as Mr. Spreadsheet Dude. [Meme] Yes, you have to talk about the numbers, but once you get meaning aligned, the numbers work themselves out. Putting this in the context of boundaries gives it another perspective: “Feelings are also a warning signal telling us that we need to do something. For example, if you are angry at someone for something she did, it is your responsibility to go to her and tell her you are angry and why. If you think that your anger is her problem and that she needs to fix it, you may wait years” (Boundaries, p. 157). In other words, Cass's and my feelings were each of our responsibilities to bring to the surface. That’s how boundaries work. So we should’ve started there — intentionally. And also, we could’ve used feelings as a signal to guide the process. We could have come up with an agreement that worked for us both much smoother and quicker. Instead, we extended the process and made it a lot more torturous than it could’ve been. Money is emotional because it’s important to us. Anything important in our lives is emotional. Our relationships are emotional, our work is emotional, and so is our money. One of the misconceptions about money is that it’s all math. It’s not. It’s inextricably tied to our emotions, wants, and dreams. And recognizing that is a key part of building your Rich Life. What do you think of Ramit’s Book Club so far? We’ll be discussing the book more throughout the month, but I’ve been enjoying talking about Boundaries with you so far! So many of you have joined the discussion on [Instagram]() or replied to emails with your thoughts. [Ramit's Book Club]() Join the conversation on [Instagram]()! This is my first book club, so I wanted to check in with you. What do you think of Ramit’s Book Club so far? 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