The Journal. - Should Everyone Get a Prenup?

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

The prenup is getting a modern makeover. Once seen mainly as a way for the ultrawealthy to protect their assets in the event of a divorce, they’ve now become a financial planning tool for many middle-class newlyweds. WSJ’s Erin Mulvaney talks about what’s driving the change in prenup culture, and one New York couple dives into the money conversations they had before tying the knot! Jessica Mendoza hosts. Further Listening: - The Booming Industry Keeping Taylor Swift's Wedding a Secret - Lady Gaga, Low-Rise Jeans, and the Next Recession Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, it's Jess. Before we start, I wanted you all to know this is going to be my last week on the show for a while. I'm going on maternity leave. I'll be back early next year, but in the meantime, you'll be in good hands with my colleague Imani Mouise, who'll be co-hosting the show with Ryan while I'm gone. Now here's today's episode. So I am a millennial and a woman, which means that one important reference for me when it comes to all things love and marriage is sex in the city. What? Okay, this is a little unusual. He has you on a vesting schedule. And that includes prenuptial agreements, or prenupt. There's one episode in which Charlotte is about to marry Trey, who's very wealthy. When he hands her a pre-up before the wedding, she gets her lawyer friend Miranda to look over the contract, which lays out what would happen if Charlotte and Trey got divorced. For every five years that you're married, you get a percentage of $500,000.

I'm only worth $500,000? Over 30 years. Well, maybe that's your wholesale price. And then, this year, there was the hit divorce memoir, Strangers by Bell Burden. Burden stopped working to raise the kids. I really handed over my financial life to my husband. That's Burden on the Drew Barrymore Show, advising more women to have that conversation.

Because when her husband abruptly left after 20 years of marriage, she was surprised at how little money she was entitled to in her pre-nup. Have that conversation with your partner. Like, if this ended, what would happen to me? I really kind of got very comfortable in not knowing and put you in a terrible position. It did. I was really at risk of losing my financial security.

These scenes reinforce something a lot of us may think about pre-ups, that they're mostly for the ultra-wealthy, very rich people who want to protect their assets. But these days, pre-ups are changing. They're getting more popular, and they aren't just for the super-rich anymore. A 20-23 survey showed that one in five adults who were either married or engaged had a pre-up, and Gen Zian millennials are more likely to have one. Culturally, pre-ups are becoming something that's seen more of an empowerment tool

rather than a stigmatized contract that kind of jinxes. is your marriage. Our colleague, Aaron Mulvaney, has been reporting on pre-ups. It's definitely changed to be more of a financial planning tool for the middle class. And that's definitely a change that's been happening in the last few years. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Friday, September 18th.

Coming up on the show, the pre-nup gets a modern makeover. It isn't romantic, but Mary's a Mendoza. but marriage is a contract. So even if you don't get an official pre-up, there are still laws that would apply if you get a divorce. In a way, whichever state you're in kind of is your pre-up if you don't have one. In that case, the state decides how your assets get split up. So it kind of depends.

Roughly, a judge or the couple themselves will do an equitable distribution of assets. Some states are more purely 50-50, and the court will basically kind of decide what's fair. at the end of a marriage given whatever the circumstances are. And that's largely, we'll be kind of out of the couple's hands. Now, more and more couples are looking to change that and considering getting pre-ups. There's just a growing awareness about pre-ups just because there's TikToks, Instagram. Are pre-ups really that offensive, or do we just not know what they are?

Let me tell you a reason why you should get a pre-up, even when you have nothing. No assets, no money. One of my non-negotiables support getting married is getting a pre-up. Aaron came across influencers giving advice under hashtags like pre-up talk and quippy taglines like protect your peace, protect your bag, or romanticizing financial transparency. I think that that has definitely helped the messaging of what a pre-up is. What has led to the recent popularity of pre-ups, do you think? Yeah, a few things. One, it's the people who are younger and getting these are kind of millennial gen Z

who a lot of them had gone through situations where their parents got divorced and saw the other end of it. They saw what happened and they didn't want that to happen to them. In another way, people are getting married a little bit later in life, and they might come into their marriage with either already having established careers or businesses or even student loans. So maybe the other spouse wouldn't necessarily have to be responsible for that. It's also easier than ever to get a pre-up, with many templates online that help you start

the process without lawyers. There's one big trend in recent pre-ups that Erin says has changed the way a lot of people talk about them. It's a clause that protects a partner who leaves the workforce to take care of the kids. Some couples are putting clauses in their pre-ups that are helping shift the balance of power. To make it less reactive and defensive and more proactively looking at answers to questions about what will happen in the future, you'll say, okay, in the event that one of us does stay home and raise the kids, what will that look like? imagine that a person gives up their career, say career as a lawyer or a teacher or anything, and to raise children, you might get half of the money.

But what you've given up is a job that gives you career seniority, 401k in your name, that has been building interest, annual raises. And so when you're going back and you're kind of on your own, you're really starting from square one. and you'll get alimony potentially, but that doesn't last forever, typically. So you're just in a situation where there's a compounding factor of giving up your career, basically. The idea is the spouse who stopped working to care for children would eventually have to go back to the workforce once the divorce is finalized. But that doesn't seem to account for the, as you said, economic disadvantage of having missed years of work, and there isn't necessarily compensation. for that loss.

Right. There's a lot of sad stories about people who, you know, built up their life, you know, and then they kind of feel like they have to start from scratch. Depending on how the terms are set up, the spouse who stays at home could have a trust set aside in their name in the event of a divorce. Or they could get a lump sum or a kind of alimony that reflects their previous salary. And data shows this mostly affects women. In 2025, 68% of most people.

mothers with children under six participated in the workforce, compared with 95% of fathers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Divorce lawyers Aaron spoke with said these trigger clauses are increasingly popular, and they're part of a shift in how pre-ups are viewed and used. Did it surprise you to learn about this clause? Like, does it kind of flip the idea of a pre-up on its head a little bit? Yeah, because I think that when you first imagine a pre-up, it's more about protecting money and thinking like this is mine. This is mine. I earned this, so I'm going to leave with it,

versus acknowledging whatever you build during a marriage really is both of yours from the outset. But taking that extra step of ensuring that that's recognized for someone who actually isn't earning money and bringing it into the marriage. After the break,

I get a peek into the modern-day pre-up conversation by sitting down with a couple who signed one last year. When you're a mid-sized business, you need every competitive advantage you can get. Like an AI solution that works for you, not against you. SAP Grow is built with AI embedded at its core, working across every system, and it's ready to go from day one

so you can hit the ground running. Bring it with SAP Grow, AI Cloud ERP for any size business. Anna Morganstern and Zachary Spice are a New York City couple in their 40s, and they signed a pre-up before they got married last June. And now, tell me a little bit about how you two met. Can we hear your love story? Every time I say it, he gets mad at me, so I'll let him do this one. You guys haven't sorted out how the story is told yet? I always tell stories with a little bit more flare and drama, and he doesn't like that.

So I'll let you start and I'll fill in the gaps. Perfect. So the story is I decided to sell my Coachella ticket. And Anna was the buyer. Ten years ago. Ten years ago. And met Anna at a coffee shop to sell the ticket. It's like a test.

I don't remember. You don't remember the website that we used? No. He hates it that. I responded to his Craigslist ad. He's like, I've purposely forgotten. I'm like, I wasn't. I erased that memory completely.

So you answered the ad? I answered his ad. He was the only one that wanted to sell the ticket to me at face value. So, yeah, I picked him. And we became Facebook friends before a meeting to make sure that we were normal. And I remember thinking, like, oh, he's cute Jewish guy. And then we met in person. He had zero interest in me.

Didn't even look at me. He was like, here's your bracelet. Where's the cat? Thank you very much. Have a good time. And that was, I was like, oh, okay, I guess you didn't like me. After that first meeting, Zach went back to his career in art and real estate. And Anna started a matchmaking business. Eight years later, she was scrolling through a dating app, something she often did for herself and her clients. And she came across a familiar face she couldn't quite place. She sent him a like. I was like, did I set you up before? He said, no. And then he called me,

and in my phone, it said Zach ticket. And I was like, oh my gosh, there's a Coachella guy. The Coachella guy. And we started dating after that first date, basically. Anna and Zach were engaged just months later. But in the days leading up to the engagement, Anna went on a podcast as a dating expert, and she was asked if she would ever get a pre-up. It never even crossed my mind that someone like me would need a pre-up or even would consider a pre-up.

Because, like a lot of people, Anna thought pre-ups were just for the ultra-wealthy. You know, I think that stereotype is just so embedded in us in so many different TV shows or movies or stories that we hear in the news. Zach, what went through your mind when Anna brought it up? I was just a little surprised, I guess, and brought back some dark memories.

The thing is, Zach had been engaged before, and he feels that that engagement had ended partly because of the controversy, that came up around a pre-up. I had a lawyer, my ex had a lawyer, and it was just like a battle. And we ended up calling off the wedding. So when Anna came to Zach with the idea of a pre-up,

it took him a second to warm up to it. I guess, you know, the more I thought about it and learning more about it, it just made more sense to me. Yeah, for us, we just, didn't have, like, assets we wanted to protect or family business. You know, we were kind of coming into a relationship and more equal footing. You know, we agreed coming into the marriage with separate properties. You know, we keep what we had previously in terms of our businesses. That

will remain ours. You know, neither of us will have a claim to it. Anna and Zach used an online software for their pre-up, which provided them a list of course. questions to discuss with each other, all without lawyers present in the room. The questionnaire brought up things like assigning financial beneficiaries and figuring out things like health insurance. And honestly, I'm so glad we did because there's so many things we talked about through the pre-nup questionnaire that never even occurred to me to talk to him about. And, you know, and some of those questions, they could cause serious arguments for couples. But for us, you know, we actually agreed, I think, on most items. There's just a couple of things that we had different, you know,

opinions on, but we were able to talk it through very calmly. There was questions about the rings. You know, who gets to, you know, do you get to keep your ring? The wedding band or the engagement ring or both? Actually, both. I think it's really more for the engagement ring, I would imagine. I told him, I was like, I'm like, well, what if you cheat on me? I'm like, okay, if I cheat on you, You can have the right back. There was one prompt in particular that stood out to Zach. It discussed spousal support if one of them stopped working to take care of their kids. Zach told Anna that if her business became really successful, he'd be happy to be the one who stayed home.

That's probably the thing that attracted us most to each other, because that we're both entrepreneurial and have our own businesses. And, yeah, that was really touching to me that he believed in my business so much that he was like if, you know, years really took off. and, you know, it made more sense for him to stay home with children for child care when they're young versus us, you know, hiring a nanny, that you'd be happy to do that. Yeah, we discussed it. And even though we don't have kids yet, you know, God willing, in the future, it makes sense that I could step up or if my business is booming, you know, Anna could step up. Either of us would be able to do that. In a way, it felt more like estate planning than it did like a pre-up, thinking of what would happen if one of us passed away. And, you know, yeah, things are in the future.

There was one section about if we froze embryos, what would happen to that. You know, there was, it was really more about all the things we were going to do and achieve and how that would play out versus I'm protecting myself from him. I never felt like that. In fact, Zach thinks it's helpful to think about it. it as a business deal. If you run a business, you're going to send a contract to the other party, right? Your client, your vendor, right? And in that contract, there's going to be some terms. And there's also going to be like a termination clause, right? The termination clause is not necessarily

your goal, right? Like, your goal is to get the renewal. When that year's over, you want to renew, You want to maybe raise your price. Like, obviously you're not going to be doing that with your wife, right? But like... But you want to maintain the partnership. Exactly, right? Like, you want to keep that contract renewing and grow the relationship with the client. But you're putting something in writing.

Do you think that all newlyweds should have a pre-no? I do. I think that it will give you so much more confidence marrying the person that you're with. People, you know, I think are taught to not talk about money. or it's taboo or to not, or to be embarrassed about your financial situation if you do have some debt or some things that you're working on. But it's of the utmost importance to be upfront with your partner about those things. And yeah, the pre-up just made us very raw with each other and vulnerable and put it all out in the open. There's no secrets. And yeah, I do think that made us

a stronger couple. Well, thank you both for sharing your story. Thank you. Thank you. That's all for today, Friday, September 18th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. The show's made by Catherine Brewer, Evelyn Fajardo Alvarez, Pia Gidcarri, Max Green, Sophie Codner, Ryan Knootson, Matt Kwan, Colin McNulty, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez de LaRosa, Sarah Platt, Alan Rodriguez-Egas Espinoza, Heather Rogers, Katie Shepard, Pierceingi, Jivica Verma, Catherine Whalen, Tatiaeelan, Tatiaeis. Diana Zemise and me, Jessica Mendoza. Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapok, and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by So Wiley. Additional music this week from Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, Emma Munger, Nathan Singapok,

So Wiley, Griffin Tanner, and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact-checking this week by Kate Gallagher, Jennifer Goren, and Nicole Pesulka. Thanks for listening, and keep an eye on the feed on Sunday for an episode from our recent live event in New York. See you then.