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Financial Abuse, Prenups, And Facing The Scary Realities Of Relationships And Money
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Chelsea and guest Lisa Zeiderman, a divorce and family law attorney, discuss the realities of preparing for marriage, keeping your money safe, and what financial abuse really looks like.
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Chelsea and guest Lisa Zeiderman, a divorce and family law attorney, discuss the realities of preparing for marriage, keeping your money safe, and what financial abuse really looks like.
Lisa Zeiderman website: https://lisazeiderman.com/
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Hello, everyone.
And welcome back to an all new episode of The Financial Confessions. It is I, your host, Chelsea Fagan, founder and CEO of The Financial Diet and person who loves talking about money.
And something that has come up over and over again on the show is the intersection between money and relationships. Now, we've spoken to other experts in the past on different aspects of this phenomenon. We've had therapists.
We've had actually other attorneys. But most of the time when we cover these issues, we received some feedback from you guys that you'd love a lot more of a deep dive into the nitty gritty of things, especially like prenups, and managing assets between partners, and setting yourself up for a good and healthy relationship, and in the event that it happens, a good and healthy divorce. Now, it's important to talk about all of this holistically because if you are planning to have a relationship that is mature, and respectful, and open, it pretty much by nature has to include the possibility that the relationship may end someday.
But a lot of people just really don't like to think in those terms. And in general, something that we've seen over and over at TFD, and all of the various research that we've done, and the content that we've created, and the audience we've spoken to is that for a lot of people, not talking about money can start off as a bad habit. Maybe you're nervous.
You're a little avoidant. You have baggage around money, which everyone does. You don't want to scare the other person off or intimidate them.
And then it just becomes a dynamic in the relationship. And therefore, when it comes time to do things like get married, the idea of bringing up something like a prenup can feel totally out of the blue, and again, scary, overwhelming, potentially alienating, et cetera. But if you've been watching TFD for any amount of time, you're probably aware that this is something that everyone should probably think about at some point, not just rich people and certainly, not just rich men on their third marriage or whoever you associate in your mind with getting a prenup.
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So we wanted to take this opportunity with our guest today to really deep dive on all of that, setting up a good relationship financially, what that means in terms of a prenup, and then what that means in terms of a possible eventual separation. So without further ado, my guest today is Lisa Zeiderman. She is managing partner at Miller Zeiderman LLP.
She is a lawyer who specializes in things like divorce, family attorney, et cetera. And she can speak to all of those issues and more. So welcome to the show, Lisa.
Thank you so much, Chelsea. I'm thrilled to be here and thrilled to be speaking about this topic. I love the concept of a healthy relationship, about money, and also a healthy divorce.
So I'm very excited to be speaking with you. Me as well. So just a couple quick contextual questions off the top.
So do you personally-- and I'd love to learn a little bit about you individually. Do you work a lot on prenups? Do you have one yourself?
So I do quite a bit in terms of prenups. In fact, I just was involved in a marathon for one of the sponsors of a not-for-profit that I'm involved in, Savvy Ladies, which we can talk about for a second at some point, with a company called HelloPrenup. So yes, I am very much involved in prenups.
I am very much a believer in prenups. And I think prenups are very important to have. So at one point, I did have a prenup.
We're past the point of the prenup. But yes, at one point, I did have a prenup. And I'm curious.
When you were going about that yourself, given that this is your profession, did it feel accessible to you? Did you feel OK broaching that conversation? So I'm going to say that at the time that actually I was actually negotiating my prenup, I was not actually an attorney.
This is my second career. So I was in the fashion business. And this is a second career for me.
But at that time, it was accessible to me. It was a very clean, easy prenup. And this is the second marriage for myself and for my husband.
And we are very straightforward and transparent about finances and our marriage, which is something that I really try to convey as an important feature for everybody in their marriage. So it was a very easy negotiation. I love that.
So when you're working on this in your day-to-day practice, can you talk a little bit about what you're typically seeing coming into the office, what's bringing people in, who is leading these conversations, and the dynamic you're seeing around them? So are we talking about prenups, or are we talking about after the prenup perhaps a divorce? Because obviously, there is a difference.
Let's start with prenups. OK. So the people who are coming to us for prenups, are obviously-- they're about to get married.
And we represent both the moneyed and sometimes the non-moneyed soon-to-be spouse. Many of our clients have family money, or this is a second marriage, and they want to protect certain assets that they have had in their lives. They may be real estate developers, or they may be in the financial world.
And they have actually accrued significant assets, and they want to make sure those assets are protected. On the other side, we also have a lot of young people who may have, really, virtually no assets. They may expect at certain points to come into an inheritance.
Or they are thinking about their own businesses, careers, and how they want to conduct themselves in terms of their marriage going forward. When you say you are seeing young people with fewer assets, are you thinking that it's just becoming more normalized? I think that prenups are becoming more normalized.
I think that prenups are now, I think, very normal for people to enter into prenups. Some of these younger people-- keep in mind, they've seen their parents go through divorces or other family members go through divorces. And they've seen the complications that can occur if you don't have a prenup, and so they want to avoid that.
Some of them, also, they really want to have an equal or certainly a transparent type of marriage in terms of finances, and so they want to be able to have a roadmap essentially to follow during their marriage. Is it your professional opinion that essentially everyone who gets married should have a prenup of some kind? So I do believe that.
I think that it is a great time to have a discussion. It is an opening for that discussion before you get married, so that you understand what each one's finances are, and also, things like, how are we going to spend our money, how are we going to save our money, what's important in terms of finances. I think you learn a lot about your soon-to-be spouse when you're negotiating your prenup.
Is that person going to be generous? Is that person someone who really wants to hold on to their money and wants to make sure that you're going to keep your money, and I'm going to keep my money separately? How are we going to divide our expenses?
If that person already has significant assets, do they want to share those assets or don't they want to share those assets? I think that these are incredibly important discussions to have before you get married. They also raise issues of whether somebody's going to want to become a stay-at-home parent.
So if that's the case, that may be a place for that person who wants to be a stay-at-home parent to negotiate some sort of a spousal support package for the future if they do become a stay-at-home parent. You may also learn that your soon-to-be spouse isn't really that interested in having a stay-at-home parent and that he or she expects both spouses to work and to have careers that are full careers. So these are important discussion points, and I think that they are good to have.
As difficult as they may be, they are good to have before you actually get married. You mentioned that you're often representing people coming to the relationship with more substantial assets. Now, from the outside, especially, given that we speak primarily at TFD to women who on average are earning less are coming into heterosexual marriages with not only often lower wages, fewer assets, things like that, but also, especially if they plan on having children, diminished capacity for earning throughout their lifetime, basically at of financial disadvantage-- And obviously, in a relationship where the other partner is an exceptionally high earner or has really substantial family money, like you said, it seems that the ability to slip into a very controlling financial dynamic, one of a huge kind of power differential-- obviously, in the most extreme cases, things like financial abuse when only one partner is able to control the money.
But it seems like there's a very, very high bar to clear for overcoming the power imbalance that is already preexisting there. And I think some people-- we've heard, especially, again, women I think often have a fear that a prenup can be used to further subjugate, further increase the power dynamic on behalf of the person with more assets. Can you speak a little bit to that phenomenon and how a prenup can actually, in the best case, do the opposite?
Sure. So I think this is exactly my view of prenups. Prenups can empower women.
And the reason I say that is this. The court system is not very kind to women often, particularly, women who have not been in the workforce for a period of time, who have stayed home and raised the children, and then they find out 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and sometimes even more, that they are finding themselves in a divorce. Those women are never going to have that earning power that their husbands who were in the workforce for year after year and didn't take that time to raise children.
They will never have that earning power or virtually never. It will be rare. They will always be in a situation where they are not empowered financially because of that.
And although they may get half of the assets or an equitable share of the assets, the fact is that they've lost that earning power that is created by being in the workforce on a continuous basis. The way to deal with that is a prenup. A prenup allows someone to plan for that in advance and to make sure that there is ample spousal support or ample distribution of assets if they are staying home and raising children, if they are going to be out of the workforce.
So there are ways to balance this in a prenup. Now, I'm not going to tell you that every prenup offers this. It's something that you have to negotiate, right?
It certainly is-- it's a negotiation point. But I will say that this is the time to have that discussion and to find out what it is that's in front of you. Also, if you don't end up-- there were certainly prenups that I draft and certainly prenups that are given to me that had been drafted by other attorneys that don't provide for that spousal maintenance for that woman who is going to be that stay-at-home mom.
I think that it's important for women to know that up front for them to actually plan out their lives accordingly. So maybe they don't leave the workforce. Maybe they raise their children in much the same way that men do, which is they have a nanny, they make sure that they stay in the workforce, they make sure that their career is front and center, that they don't give up those years of earning power because at the end of the day, they now have their roadmap.
And that's really what I was talking about earlier, is that it gives you the ability to understand, what is my life going to be like in the event of a divorce? And if my prenup says I'm not going to get spousal maintenance, or if my prenup says, well, maybe I'll get spousal maintenance, I know that I have to count on myself, I have to make sure that I'm out there in the workforce, and that I can't just stay home and raise children. Now, in some states, New York being one of them, there is a time when you can negotiate a postnup.
And so it's important to realize that maybe they are signing a prenup at one point, and then they're about to have children, and everybody now is on board that they may want that woman to stay home and raise the children because it might be better for their husbands career. Maybe they're going to relocate from one country to another, from one state to another and do this because they're actually enhancing their husband's career. That is all good times to negotiate a postnup.
Not every state actually recognizes postnups, so it's important that you be in a state that does. New York does. But it doesn't have to be that you can't renegotiate your prenup.
You can renegotiate it with a postnup if it's appropriate in that state. Just in terms of the practicalities, how much should people budget for doing a prenup before their wedding? So I would say approximately $10,000.
I don't think that's a crazy amount of money. You're negotiating a very important agreement. That may seem like a lot of money for people.
But frankly, it can run higher. It can also run lower. But I think if you're going to intend to negotiate a prenup, I think you should count on approximately $10,000 to do so.
And remember, that this might be a document that you need 25 or 30 years from now, that your attorney needs to anticipate certain things, that you want to make sure you get this right because the other piece of this is that sometimes we see these prenups. And they've been negotiated 10, 20, 30 years ago. And I look at them by other attorneys, and I say, oh, my goodness.
They just don't make any sense, and they now are litigated. And that was not the purpose of the prenup. So you need to make sure that it's actually being done by a competent attorney.
And if you're paying a bit more frankly than you normally would or normally think you should, then it may be worth it. Well, I mean, $10,000 is a lot of money. But also, I think the average people are spending on weddings these days is nearly $30,000.
It's higher in New York, so I don't know. Yeah. That's 100% correct.
I hadn't thought of it that way, but that's one that is absolutely correct. So the dynamic that you see in terms of the couples, are you more often seeing one party who really wants the prenup and the other who's being dragged along, or are you seeing more, we're coming at this together? I think that we see more at this point of people coming together and saying that they want the prenup.
I think it could be the terms of the prenup that they differ on. But the idea of a prenup has certainly become more popular. And people are not averse as they were years ago to prenups.
It's not insulting to someone. It's not a big shock to someone. Look, I also think that as you're getting closer to the time of being engaged, et cetera, that you want to start to have that discussion.
I don't think it should be a document that you hand to somebody three weeks before the wedding after the wedding dress is picked out, after the venue is chosen and paid for, after all the family is coming in. This needs to be something that is done well in advance of the wedding, so that everyone is on the same table and at the same page, and can negotiate it, and feels that it's fair, and at the very least, that they had time to think about it. Now, when you're seeing couples in your office who are divorcing, we hear a lot, and we talk a lot about how much to what extent money can be a huge contributing factor to divorces and couples separating in general.
And often, even if it's not a principle factor, it's often an aggravating factor. It exacerbates other problems or what have you. Can you talk a little bit about some of the common financial dynamics that you see between couples that are divorcing?
What role is money playing in that separation? So I think money plays a huge role in divorce. I think that-- we talked earlier about control and financial abuse.
And I think there is a large segment of the population that we see that certainly are subjected to financial abuse where there may be, frankly, sufficient funds, but they don't necessarily have access to those funds. It could be even the working spouse, the spouse who is actually out there who is employed or has the career. And they may not have access to their funds, having been told over the years that they should hand over their funds at the end of the week, or at the end of the two week, or that it's automatically deposited into the other individual, the other spouse's, account, which is then solely titled in that individual, and they have no access to these funds.
So that is certainly control and financial abuse. That's an area we see a lot. And look, there are shows about it now all the time.
I don't know if you've watched it, but there's that show called Maid, which is all about financial abuse. And financial abuse unfortunately is often coupled with emotional and physical abuse. If you don't have control of your money, you are often in a situation where you are being subjected to abuse of all kinds because money is power, and you don't have the power.
So that is certainly one issue. I think we also see the issue of how do people spend their money. And we see couples who disagree about how and what the money should be spent on, including whether it be the country club, or clothing, or activities for the children, or summer camp, or college.
Any of those types of spending creates dissension. Do they have the big wedding? Sometimes we hear about that big wedding much later when people are getting divorced.
I told her, or I told him I didn't want the big wedding. We spent all this money on the big wedding. Or my parents had to spend all that money on the big wedding.
It was something that we shouldn't have done in the first instance. But again, I think that's indicative of a sign to come of the fact that you have differing ideas of how to spend your money. So we certainly see that as an issue.
I think that making sure that also transparency-- So you may have accounts in one spouse's name or the other, but there should be some transparency about what are the assets, what are the liabilities, what is the income. I can't tell you how many people that I see when I do my first consultation that have no idea what their assets, liabilities, or income of each of the parties are. They may know their own, but they may not know their spouses.
And I say, well, didn't you look at the income tax return? No, I really don't look at that. I don't really understand that piece of it of not looking at it because it's important.
How would you budget yourself if you don't know what the income is? So those are the areas that we see various disagreements about. So I want to take a quick pause and once again thank today's sponsor, Avast.
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Just looking at my own life-- happily-- thankfully, my parents are still together after 30 plus-- they've been-- a long time, many, many, many years. But like most people-- I've had a lot of other people, family, friends, things like that, go through divorces with varying levels of acrimony. And I think something that I've noticed personally-- and I'm curious if it's a common thread that you see-- is that often, I've noticed that the biggest financial strains will come from couples that are either living beyond their means, are creating an enormous amount of pressure for themselves financially.
You talked about the expensive camps, the colleges the big SUVs, the biggest house at the top of their budget, all of these things. Now, obviously, in the case of a 2008 crash, that's going to make all of those cracks show in a huge way. But even just on a day-to-day basis, it seems like living at the top of what one can afford seems to cause an enormous amount of stress for even otherwise healthy couples and I've even personally seen seemingly be a huge contributing factor in a lot of divorces.
I think that that is very true. It also contributes to the fact that at the end of the marriage, people sometimes say to me, I don't understand where all the assets are. And I look at what their burn rate is essentially per month and the income.
And I say, well, there couldn't be any assets because you overspent. And you've got debt, but you have no assets because every month, you are overspending. And if you look at the income, and you subtract the taxes, and you subtract all of your expenses, there's nothing there.
And people are often very shocked. And I think that goes to the fact that-- I think people need to be paying much closer attention and having these discussions together to understand what there is in terms of income and what their saving strategy is going to be. So I don't disagree with you.
Sometimes people say to me, there's no money. Well, you just put three children through Ivy League schools, and so yes, there's going to be a lot less money. Those schools were $70,000 a year per child.
And the income didn't make it. So it's very important that there be a sit-down I think that couples need to have a-- and maybe with even a financial advisor-- where they can actually understand what the goals and what the strategy to obtain those goals are. Do they want to save, or frankly, do they want to spend?
Or do they want to do some of both? But they need to be on the same page. It's really interesting because we see a lot in the personal finance world.
I mean, like, at least once every couple of months, some article or story will go viral about a couple who they're taking in collectively $1,000,000 a year, and they're broke. And they share their budget breakdown. And like you said, once you see the numbers laid out, it's very easy to see where all of the money went.
But what I always find really fascinating about it is that, generally speaking, when you're looking at these people who are these high earners, very well educated, in educated environments, these are, one would think, fairly rational savvy people that if they were presented at day one of married life with this budget, I'm sure they would probably be like, well, that's insane. We can't afford to live that way. And yet, over time, it becomes a pretty common phenomenon for people to be living at the very top of their means or even living paycheck to paycheck as high earners.
I'm curious if you have any gathered insights over the years of what you feel like really causes that, what creates that dynamic. So I think part of what creates that dynamic is that if you are living in that environment, you're going to spend as the people who are your friends and your children's friends, et cetera. So for example, if your children are in private school in Manhattan, they are very likely to take trips abroad, they are likely to be in sleep-away camp, or to wear clothes that are at a higher end maybe.
There are all of those expenses that go along with that lifestyle. You're going to live in Manhattan. Then you're going to do a lot of the Manhattan things that you might do.
You might dine out more. You might have a weekend house. There is a whole lifestyle.
And then your children are going to have friends who do many of these things. And you're going to have friends that do many of these things. And so I think one thing creates the other.
And it's very easy to be adding on to your lifestyle unless you make a real commitment that we're going to live within this budget, and we're not going to keep increasing our lifestyle. And maybe we don't have the house in the Hamptons every year. Or maybe we don't go to Europe every year.
I think these are things that you're going to have to decide as a couple. But I think that it's the environment that you're in. And there is also, I think, a piece of the fact that you are working very hard, and you are earning, and you want to be able to enjoy it.
And there's nothing wrong with enjoying. It's just that you have to decide how much you're balancing of what you're going to enjoy now and what you want to put away for later. Yeah.
I mean, it's obviously extreme at those ends. But the truth is that happens to everyone at every income level. We call it lifestyle inflation.
What was great last year is not enough this year. And it's shocking how quickly we get used to new levels of comfort and opulence even at relatively modest levels. But I mean, one question that I have before I dive into our audience questions of which there are many, but we won't get to all of them, unfortunately, is one of the really common questions that we get about navigating these relationship financial dynamics is essentially some version of, well, who gets to win?
Because when you have two opposing views on spending habits, or financial priorities, or what is a reasonable amount for a certain thing, there are certain times that compromises can be reached. But overall, sometimes you're just going to have to default to one person or the other, or there is going to be a more general approach that is taken that is more to one side than the other. How do you recommend that couples navigate those disagreements?
I think that how they navigate those disagreements is going to depend on their personalities. And I also think that, as I said earlier, there are certain control issues. So if you feel that someone is controlling you and the finances and that you're not having a proper say, that's a problem.
And I think that that's a discussion point that you're going to have either with a financial advisor, or a couples counselor, or a therapist. I think that these are all really important pieces. And as you said earlier, these are often the reasons that people get divorced, is that maybe somebody is saying no too often, or somebody is spending too much, or somebody has taken control of the finances.
They won't even give the passwords or the information. So I think that these are all issues that have to be worked out between couples. And they should be-- again, it's about transparency.
I keep saying that because it's so important. Sometimes there is sufficient funds to have the spending that somebody wants to be able to do, but somebody has got their hand on the finances, and they will not let up, and they will not provide the information. So I think one thing is not to be abusive about it.
I think it's really important that even if you're the person who is earning the monies and controlling the finances not to do it in an abusive way. Let's hope. OK.
So as promised, we're just going to get to some of these audience questions. What will happen if I don't have a prenup and I get divorced? So that depends on what state you're in.
In New York State, you will either decide by agreement between you and your spouse how to divide up the assets, which in New York is what we call equitable distribution, which doesn't necessarily mean equal distribution. And you will also owe child support, spousal support, and what we call add-on expenses are also things that you and your spouse can discuss and come to an agreement on with usually an attorney for each of you helping you out in terms of how to get to that agreement. And if you can't decide, then a court will actually decide for you.
Is it true that you have to take on the debts of your spouse if anything happens to them? So when you say anything happens to them, if they were to were to actually become deceased, then it depends on what those deaths are. And that's something to ask probably much more an estate and trust attorney than it is to ask me because we really don't deal with death.
We deal with divorce. OK. What should I do if I'm scared about a prenup jinxing my marriage?
So a prenup should not jinx your marriage. If you feel that way, then I think that need to speak to your soon-to-be spouse about your concerns. I also think you can speak to your attorney who you're going to retain for the purpose of reviewing your prenup.
And maybe if you have a trusted friend or a therapist, you might want to speak to that particular person as well. I don't think that prenups jinx the marriage. I think that prenups have to be carefully negotiated, so that they can actually be helpful and empowering during your marriage.
Can adultery impact the financial settlement of a divorce? Not usually. So the adultery itself isn't what impacts.
What could impact the settlement of a divorce is if the adultery involves spending. So for example, if one of the spouses was spending on a boyfriend or girlfriend, travel, gifts-- and we see this quite a bit. Sometimes we see it in millions of dollars literally, certainly, hundreds of thousands of dollars where somebody is taking somebody dining out, taking them to the Caribbean, taking them to Mexico, meeting them in Paris, doing all of those things.
Those monies can be calculated to the extent that you can figure this out during discovery by going through credit cards, and checking accounts, and figuring out the cash that's being taken out, and coming to a conclusion of how much has been spent on this adultery, and then putting that money back into the pot, essentially, so that particular money can be redivided. So essentially, if everybody was to get 50% of the marital assets, and you would spend $240,000 on your girlfriend or boyfriend, you would get $120,000 back to the other spouse. That is such an-- I cannot.
Some people are truly insane to be spending that kind of money on your mistress. That is-- It happens. It happens.
I believe you. Oh, I've certainly had cases like that. And it does happen.
And that's called a wasteful dissipation of assets. And we do recalculate. Man, that is-- OK.
So this person is saying, my marriage is not going great. We want to avoid divorce and save our marriage. But how should I start preparing for the worst?
So one step to take is to start to become acquainted if you're not with your finances. Make sure that you have copies of the last five years of tax returns. Make sure you have copies of bank statements, credit card statements.
All of those types of items will be helpful in determining the finances and how finances are split. So start making sure that you are paying close attention to what is going on in your household. I would also make sure that you don't see any large transfers happening in any of the bank accounts that would be unique or different than what the status quo is.
Make sure that you are keeping track of those strange or different expenditures. And it's always good to have a consultation with a divorce attorney if you think that may be headed in that direction, so that you can get some feedback about what it would look like. Can you include pets in a prenup?
So you can. You can. In New York, we have custody now of-- custody is an issue for pets.
It was a new law that was enacted. So yes is the answer. Wow.
Yeah, that's-- I'm right there. I mean, God, forbid I separate from my husband. But I want that dog.
If you marry a divorced person who's currently paying alimony/spousal support, can their ex take a percentage of your money? So can their ex take a percentage of their money? So the answer is if you marry somebody who is paying spousal support, that's a perfect place to actually put a clause in your prenup to make sure that spousal support is your-- soon-to-be spouse's responsibility and that it doesn't become your liability.
But the answer otherwise is somebody has to pay that alimony. And so if your spouse is paying that alimony and it's coming out of marital earnings, then it is basically coming out of what is your money. And it's a responsibility that you're both taking on in advance of your marriage.
So you can either utilize the prenup to make sure that it's not your responsibility. It's not that it becomes your responsibility under the law, but you may be using marital earnings to support it. So this person is married, no prenup.
I paid 20% down on my home before marriage, but the deed now has both of our names on it. Does my husband still get half of the house if we divorce? So again, it is important to realize that every state is different.
In New York, if you can prove the monies that were for the down payment were made prior to the marriage, and you can show how much was put down, you might get a credit called a separate property credit for that, and the house would not necessarily-- the net proceeds would not necessarily be divided on a 50/50 basis. You might get that 20%, that payment that was at that point 20%. So let's just say it was $100,000 at that point.
You may get that $100,000 back to you. OK. Can I DIY a prenup?
So people do that sometimes. There is-- as I said to you earlier, I had actually been involved in a marathon for a company called Hello Prenup, which is a company that actually has people go online and do their prenups themselves. It's a program.
And so there are people who do that. I don't necessarily think people with complex finances should do this themselves. And I think it's always good to have a lawyer look it over no matter what.
OK. Marriage versus common law. How do prenups work for common law marriages, and how do you prove common law status?
So common law is a very interesting piece. So not every state recognizes common law. Common law is recognized in a handful of states throughout the country.
And it is the concept that you have held yourself out as husband and wife even though you are not married. And in those particular states, your assets and other things may be treated as if you were married. We do not have common law in New York.
Nice. Yes, you can live in sin forever here. OK.
So as a last question, kind of a more general one, is there any one thing that people often overlook to put in their prenup? I'm thinking about that. Is there any one thing?
So I don't think that anyone necessarily overlooks the fact that they want to keep their separate properties, separate meaning pre-marital property. But I think that they need to make sure that appreciation of that separate property is somehow dealt with in the prenup. So if you have, for example, a home that you might have prior to the marriage, what is going to happen to that home if it appreciates during the marriage?
That's important. I think that that's sometimes overlooked. I think also people sometimes overlook their school loan debt, how that could be dealt with in a prenup.
And I also think that as you raised the issue of other debts, such as alimony that you might have from a prior marriage, et cetera, how that's going to be paid out, that's sometimes overlooked. Wonderful. Well, Lisa, this has been informative, as I knew it would be.
Where can people go to find out more about what you do? Maybe they're looking for a divorce. So they can certainly go to my website lisazeiderman.com.
And they will find a host of information there. And we have a blog, and we have many articles, which I've written. They can also go to my LinkedIn.
If they're signed up for LinkedIn, they can just plug in my name, Lisa Zeiderman. And there's also a lot of information there. They can certainly contact us at 914-455-1000.
Or they can email me at lz@mzw-law.com. Love it. I think this is the first time we've ever had a phone number, which is great.
I love that. Well, thank you so, so much for joining us. And thank you guys all for tuning in.
And we will see you back here next Monday on an all new episode of The Financial Confessions. Goodbye. [MUSIC PLAYING]
And welcome back to an all new episode of The Financial Confessions. It is I, your host, Chelsea Fagan, founder and CEO of The Financial Diet and person who loves talking about money.
And something that has come up over and over again on the show is the intersection between money and relationships. Now, we've spoken to other experts in the past on different aspects of this phenomenon. We've had therapists.
We've had actually other attorneys. But most of the time when we cover these issues, we received some feedback from you guys that you'd love a lot more of a deep dive into the nitty gritty of things, especially like prenups, and managing assets between partners, and setting yourself up for a good and healthy relationship, and in the event that it happens, a good and healthy divorce. Now, it's important to talk about all of this holistically because if you are planning to have a relationship that is mature, and respectful, and open, it pretty much by nature has to include the possibility that the relationship may end someday.
But a lot of people just really don't like to think in those terms. And in general, something that we've seen over and over at TFD, and all of the various research that we've done, and the content that we've created, and the audience we've spoken to is that for a lot of people, not talking about money can start off as a bad habit. Maybe you're nervous.
You're a little avoidant. You have baggage around money, which everyone does. You don't want to scare the other person off or intimidate them.
And then it just becomes a dynamic in the relationship. And therefore, when it comes time to do things like get married, the idea of bringing up something like a prenup can feel totally out of the blue, and again, scary, overwhelming, potentially alienating, et cetera. But if you've been watching TFD for any amount of time, you're probably aware that this is something that everyone should probably think about at some point, not just rich people and certainly, not just rich men on their third marriage or whoever you associate in your mind with getting a prenup.
And before we get started, I want to thank Avast for supporting today's episode of The Financial Confessions. Avast's new all-in-one solution, Avast One, helps you take control of your safety and privacy online. Learn more about Avast One at avast.com.
So we wanted to take this opportunity with our guest today to really deep dive on all of that, setting up a good relationship financially, what that means in terms of a prenup, and then what that means in terms of a possible eventual separation. So without further ado, my guest today is Lisa Zeiderman. She is managing partner at Miller Zeiderman LLP.
She is a lawyer who specializes in things like divorce, family attorney, et cetera. And she can speak to all of those issues and more. So welcome to the show, Lisa.
Thank you so much, Chelsea. I'm thrilled to be here and thrilled to be speaking about this topic. I love the concept of a healthy relationship, about money, and also a healthy divorce.
So I'm very excited to be speaking with you. Me as well. So just a couple quick contextual questions off the top.
So do you personally-- and I'd love to learn a little bit about you individually. Do you work a lot on prenups? Do you have one yourself?
So I do quite a bit in terms of prenups. In fact, I just was involved in a marathon for one of the sponsors of a not-for-profit that I'm involved in, Savvy Ladies, which we can talk about for a second at some point, with a company called HelloPrenup. So yes, I am very much involved in prenups.
I am very much a believer in prenups. And I think prenups are very important to have. So at one point, I did have a prenup.
We're past the point of the prenup. But yes, at one point, I did have a prenup. And I'm curious.
When you were going about that yourself, given that this is your profession, did it feel accessible to you? Did you feel OK broaching that conversation? So I'm going to say that at the time that actually I was actually negotiating my prenup, I was not actually an attorney.
This is my second career. So I was in the fashion business. And this is a second career for me.
But at that time, it was accessible to me. It was a very clean, easy prenup. And this is the second marriage for myself and for my husband.
And we are very straightforward and transparent about finances and our marriage, which is something that I really try to convey as an important feature for everybody in their marriage. So it was a very easy negotiation. I love that.
So when you're working on this in your day-to-day practice, can you talk a little bit about what you're typically seeing coming into the office, what's bringing people in, who is leading these conversations, and the dynamic you're seeing around them? So are we talking about prenups, or are we talking about after the prenup perhaps a divorce? Because obviously, there is a difference.
Let's start with prenups. OK. So the people who are coming to us for prenups, are obviously-- they're about to get married.
And we represent both the moneyed and sometimes the non-moneyed soon-to-be spouse. Many of our clients have family money, or this is a second marriage, and they want to protect certain assets that they have had in their lives. They may be real estate developers, or they may be in the financial world.
And they have actually accrued significant assets, and they want to make sure those assets are protected. On the other side, we also have a lot of young people who may have, really, virtually no assets. They may expect at certain points to come into an inheritance.
Or they are thinking about their own businesses, careers, and how they want to conduct themselves in terms of their marriage going forward. When you say you are seeing young people with fewer assets, are you thinking that it's just becoming more normalized? I think that prenups are becoming more normalized.
I think that prenups are now, I think, very normal for people to enter into prenups. Some of these younger people-- keep in mind, they've seen their parents go through divorces or other family members go through divorces. And they've seen the complications that can occur if you don't have a prenup, and so they want to avoid that.
Some of them, also, they really want to have an equal or certainly a transparent type of marriage in terms of finances, and so they want to be able to have a roadmap essentially to follow during their marriage. Is it your professional opinion that essentially everyone who gets married should have a prenup of some kind? So I do believe that.
I think that it is a great time to have a discussion. It is an opening for that discussion before you get married, so that you understand what each one's finances are, and also, things like, how are we going to spend our money, how are we going to save our money, what's important in terms of finances. I think you learn a lot about your soon-to-be spouse when you're negotiating your prenup.
Is that person going to be generous? Is that person someone who really wants to hold on to their money and wants to make sure that you're going to keep your money, and I'm going to keep my money separately? How are we going to divide our expenses?
If that person already has significant assets, do they want to share those assets or don't they want to share those assets? I think that these are incredibly important discussions to have before you get married. They also raise issues of whether somebody's going to want to become a stay-at-home parent.
So if that's the case, that may be a place for that person who wants to be a stay-at-home parent to negotiate some sort of a spousal support package for the future if they do become a stay-at-home parent. You may also learn that your soon-to-be spouse isn't really that interested in having a stay-at-home parent and that he or she expects both spouses to work and to have careers that are full careers. So these are important discussion points, and I think that they are good to have.
As difficult as they may be, they are good to have before you actually get married. You mentioned that you're often representing people coming to the relationship with more substantial assets. Now, from the outside, especially, given that we speak primarily at TFD to women who on average are earning less are coming into heterosexual marriages with not only often lower wages, fewer assets, things like that, but also, especially if they plan on having children, diminished capacity for earning throughout their lifetime, basically at of financial disadvantage-- And obviously, in a relationship where the other partner is an exceptionally high earner or has really substantial family money, like you said, it seems that the ability to slip into a very controlling financial dynamic, one of a huge kind of power differential-- obviously, in the most extreme cases, things like financial abuse when only one partner is able to control the money.
But it seems like there's a very, very high bar to clear for overcoming the power imbalance that is already preexisting there. And I think some people-- we've heard, especially, again, women I think often have a fear that a prenup can be used to further subjugate, further increase the power dynamic on behalf of the person with more assets. Can you speak a little bit to that phenomenon and how a prenup can actually, in the best case, do the opposite?
Sure. So I think this is exactly my view of prenups. Prenups can empower women.
And the reason I say that is this. The court system is not very kind to women often, particularly, women who have not been in the workforce for a period of time, who have stayed home and raised the children, and then they find out 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and sometimes even more, that they are finding themselves in a divorce. Those women are never going to have that earning power that their husbands who were in the workforce for year after year and didn't take that time to raise children.
They will never have that earning power or virtually never. It will be rare. They will always be in a situation where they are not empowered financially because of that.
And although they may get half of the assets or an equitable share of the assets, the fact is that they've lost that earning power that is created by being in the workforce on a continuous basis. The way to deal with that is a prenup. A prenup allows someone to plan for that in advance and to make sure that there is ample spousal support or ample distribution of assets if they are staying home and raising children, if they are going to be out of the workforce.
So there are ways to balance this in a prenup. Now, I'm not going to tell you that every prenup offers this. It's something that you have to negotiate, right?
It certainly is-- it's a negotiation point. But I will say that this is the time to have that discussion and to find out what it is that's in front of you. Also, if you don't end up-- there were certainly prenups that I draft and certainly prenups that are given to me that had been drafted by other attorneys that don't provide for that spousal maintenance for that woman who is going to be that stay-at-home mom.
I think that it's important for women to know that up front for them to actually plan out their lives accordingly. So maybe they don't leave the workforce. Maybe they raise their children in much the same way that men do, which is they have a nanny, they make sure that they stay in the workforce, they make sure that their career is front and center, that they don't give up those years of earning power because at the end of the day, they now have their roadmap.
And that's really what I was talking about earlier, is that it gives you the ability to understand, what is my life going to be like in the event of a divorce? And if my prenup says I'm not going to get spousal maintenance, or if my prenup says, well, maybe I'll get spousal maintenance, I know that I have to count on myself, I have to make sure that I'm out there in the workforce, and that I can't just stay home and raise children. Now, in some states, New York being one of them, there is a time when you can negotiate a postnup.
And so it's important to realize that maybe they are signing a prenup at one point, and then they're about to have children, and everybody now is on board that they may want that woman to stay home and raise the children because it might be better for their husbands career. Maybe they're going to relocate from one country to another, from one state to another and do this because they're actually enhancing their husband's career. That is all good times to negotiate a postnup.
Not every state actually recognizes postnups, so it's important that you be in a state that does. New York does. But it doesn't have to be that you can't renegotiate your prenup.
You can renegotiate it with a postnup if it's appropriate in that state. Just in terms of the practicalities, how much should people budget for doing a prenup before their wedding? So I would say approximately $10,000.
I don't think that's a crazy amount of money. You're negotiating a very important agreement. That may seem like a lot of money for people.
But frankly, it can run higher. It can also run lower. But I think if you're going to intend to negotiate a prenup, I think you should count on approximately $10,000 to do so.
And remember, that this might be a document that you need 25 or 30 years from now, that your attorney needs to anticipate certain things, that you want to make sure you get this right because the other piece of this is that sometimes we see these prenups. And they've been negotiated 10, 20, 30 years ago. And I look at them by other attorneys, and I say, oh, my goodness.
They just don't make any sense, and they now are litigated. And that was not the purpose of the prenup. So you need to make sure that it's actually being done by a competent attorney.
And if you're paying a bit more frankly than you normally would or normally think you should, then it may be worth it. Well, I mean, $10,000 is a lot of money. But also, I think the average people are spending on weddings these days is nearly $30,000.
It's higher in New York, so I don't know. Yeah. That's 100% correct.
I hadn't thought of it that way, but that's one that is absolutely correct. So the dynamic that you see in terms of the couples, are you more often seeing one party who really wants the prenup and the other who's being dragged along, or are you seeing more, we're coming at this together? I think that we see more at this point of people coming together and saying that they want the prenup.
I think it could be the terms of the prenup that they differ on. But the idea of a prenup has certainly become more popular. And people are not averse as they were years ago to prenups.
It's not insulting to someone. It's not a big shock to someone. Look, I also think that as you're getting closer to the time of being engaged, et cetera, that you want to start to have that discussion.
I don't think it should be a document that you hand to somebody three weeks before the wedding after the wedding dress is picked out, after the venue is chosen and paid for, after all the family is coming in. This needs to be something that is done well in advance of the wedding, so that everyone is on the same table and at the same page, and can negotiate it, and feels that it's fair, and at the very least, that they had time to think about it. Now, when you're seeing couples in your office who are divorcing, we hear a lot, and we talk a lot about how much to what extent money can be a huge contributing factor to divorces and couples separating in general.
And often, even if it's not a principle factor, it's often an aggravating factor. It exacerbates other problems or what have you. Can you talk a little bit about some of the common financial dynamics that you see between couples that are divorcing?
What role is money playing in that separation? So I think money plays a huge role in divorce. I think that-- we talked earlier about control and financial abuse.
And I think there is a large segment of the population that we see that certainly are subjected to financial abuse where there may be, frankly, sufficient funds, but they don't necessarily have access to those funds. It could be even the working spouse, the spouse who is actually out there who is employed or has the career. And they may not have access to their funds, having been told over the years that they should hand over their funds at the end of the week, or at the end of the two week, or that it's automatically deposited into the other individual, the other spouse's, account, which is then solely titled in that individual, and they have no access to these funds.
So that is certainly control and financial abuse. That's an area we see a lot. And look, there are shows about it now all the time.
I don't know if you've watched it, but there's that show called Maid, which is all about financial abuse. And financial abuse unfortunately is often coupled with emotional and physical abuse. If you don't have control of your money, you are often in a situation where you are being subjected to abuse of all kinds because money is power, and you don't have the power.
So that is certainly one issue. I think we also see the issue of how do people spend their money. And we see couples who disagree about how and what the money should be spent on, including whether it be the country club, or clothing, or activities for the children, or summer camp, or college.
Any of those types of spending creates dissension. Do they have the big wedding? Sometimes we hear about that big wedding much later when people are getting divorced.
I told her, or I told him I didn't want the big wedding. We spent all this money on the big wedding. Or my parents had to spend all that money on the big wedding.
It was something that we shouldn't have done in the first instance. But again, I think that's indicative of a sign to come of the fact that you have differing ideas of how to spend your money. So we certainly see that as an issue.
I think that making sure that also transparency-- So you may have accounts in one spouse's name or the other, but there should be some transparency about what are the assets, what are the liabilities, what is the income. I can't tell you how many people that I see when I do my first consultation that have no idea what their assets, liabilities, or income of each of the parties are. They may know their own, but they may not know their spouses.
And I say, well, didn't you look at the income tax return? No, I really don't look at that. I don't really understand that piece of it of not looking at it because it's important.
How would you budget yourself if you don't know what the income is? So those are the areas that we see various disagreements about. So I want to take a quick pause and once again thank today's sponsor, Avast.
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Just looking at my own life-- happily-- thankfully, my parents are still together after 30 plus-- they've been-- a long time, many, many, many years. But like most people-- I've had a lot of other people, family, friends, things like that, go through divorces with varying levels of acrimony. And I think something that I've noticed personally-- and I'm curious if it's a common thread that you see-- is that often, I've noticed that the biggest financial strains will come from couples that are either living beyond their means, are creating an enormous amount of pressure for themselves financially.
You talked about the expensive camps, the colleges the big SUVs, the biggest house at the top of their budget, all of these things. Now, obviously, in the case of a 2008 crash, that's going to make all of those cracks show in a huge way. But even just on a day-to-day basis, it seems like living at the top of what one can afford seems to cause an enormous amount of stress for even otherwise healthy couples and I've even personally seen seemingly be a huge contributing factor in a lot of divorces.
I think that that is very true. It also contributes to the fact that at the end of the marriage, people sometimes say to me, I don't understand where all the assets are. And I look at what their burn rate is essentially per month and the income.
And I say, well, there couldn't be any assets because you overspent. And you've got debt, but you have no assets because every month, you are overspending. And if you look at the income, and you subtract the taxes, and you subtract all of your expenses, there's nothing there.
And people are often very shocked. And I think that goes to the fact that-- I think people need to be paying much closer attention and having these discussions together to understand what there is in terms of income and what their saving strategy is going to be. So I don't disagree with you.
Sometimes people say to me, there's no money. Well, you just put three children through Ivy League schools, and so yes, there's going to be a lot less money. Those schools were $70,000 a year per child.
And the income didn't make it. So it's very important that there be a sit-down I think that couples need to have a-- and maybe with even a financial advisor-- where they can actually understand what the goals and what the strategy to obtain those goals are. Do they want to save, or frankly, do they want to spend?
Or do they want to do some of both? But they need to be on the same page. It's really interesting because we see a lot in the personal finance world.
I mean, like, at least once every couple of months, some article or story will go viral about a couple who they're taking in collectively $1,000,000 a year, and they're broke. And they share their budget breakdown. And like you said, once you see the numbers laid out, it's very easy to see where all of the money went.
But what I always find really fascinating about it is that, generally speaking, when you're looking at these people who are these high earners, very well educated, in educated environments, these are, one would think, fairly rational savvy people that if they were presented at day one of married life with this budget, I'm sure they would probably be like, well, that's insane. We can't afford to live that way. And yet, over time, it becomes a pretty common phenomenon for people to be living at the very top of their means or even living paycheck to paycheck as high earners.
I'm curious if you have any gathered insights over the years of what you feel like really causes that, what creates that dynamic. So I think part of what creates that dynamic is that if you are living in that environment, you're going to spend as the people who are your friends and your children's friends, et cetera. So for example, if your children are in private school in Manhattan, they are very likely to take trips abroad, they are likely to be in sleep-away camp, or to wear clothes that are at a higher end maybe.
There are all of those expenses that go along with that lifestyle. You're going to live in Manhattan. Then you're going to do a lot of the Manhattan things that you might do.
You might dine out more. You might have a weekend house. There is a whole lifestyle.
And then your children are going to have friends who do many of these things. And you're going to have friends that do many of these things. And so I think one thing creates the other.
And it's very easy to be adding on to your lifestyle unless you make a real commitment that we're going to live within this budget, and we're not going to keep increasing our lifestyle. And maybe we don't have the house in the Hamptons every year. Or maybe we don't go to Europe every year.
I think these are things that you're going to have to decide as a couple. But I think that it's the environment that you're in. And there is also, I think, a piece of the fact that you are working very hard, and you are earning, and you want to be able to enjoy it.
And there's nothing wrong with enjoying. It's just that you have to decide how much you're balancing of what you're going to enjoy now and what you want to put away for later. Yeah.
I mean, it's obviously extreme at those ends. But the truth is that happens to everyone at every income level. We call it lifestyle inflation.
What was great last year is not enough this year. And it's shocking how quickly we get used to new levels of comfort and opulence even at relatively modest levels. But I mean, one question that I have before I dive into our audience questions of which there are many, but we won't get to all of them, unfortunately, is one of the really common questions that we get about navigating these relationship financial dynamics is essentially some version of, well, who gets to win?
Because when you have two opposing views on spending habits, or financial priorities, or what is a reasonable amount for a certain thing, there are certain times that compromises can be reached. But overall, sometimes you're just going to have to default to one person or the other, or there is going to be a more general approach that is taken that is more to one side than the other. How do you recommend that couples navigate those disagreements?
I think that how they navigate those disagreements is going to depend on their personalities. And I also think that, as I said earlier, there are certain control issues. So if you feel that someone is controlling you and the finances and that you're not having a proper say, that's a problem.
And I think that that's a discussion point that you're going to have either with a financial advisor, or a couples counselor, or a therapist. I think that these are all really important pieces. And as you said earlier, these are often the reasons that people get divorced, is that maybe somebody is saying no too often, or somebody is spending too much, or somebody has taken control of the finances.
They won't even give the passwords or the information. So I think that these are all issues that have to be worked out between couples. And they should be-- again, it's about transparency.
I keep saying that because it's so important. Sometimes there is sufficient funds to have the spending that somebody wants to be able to do, but somebody has got their hand on the finances, and they will not let up, and they will not provide the information. So I think one thing is not to be abusive about it.
I think it's really important that even if you're the person who is earning the monies and controlling the finances not to do it in an abusive way. Let's hope. OK.
So as promised, we're just going to get to some of these audience questions. What will happen if I don't have a prenup and I get divorced? So that depends on what state you're in.
In New York State, you will either decide by agreement between you and your spouse how to divide up the assets, which in New York is what we call equitable distribution, which doesn't necessarily mean equal distribution. And you will also owe child support, spousal support, and what we call add-on expenses are also things that you and your spouse can discuss and come to an agreement on with usually an attorney for each of you helping you out in terms of how to get to that agreement. And if you can't decide, then a court will actually decide for you.
Is it true that you have to take on the debts of your spouse if anything happens to them? So when you say anything happens to them, if they were to were to actually become deceased, then it depends on what those deaths are. And that's something to ask probably much more an estate and trust attorney than it is to ask me because we really don't deal with death.
We deal with divorce. OK. What should I do if I'm scared about a prenup jinxing my marriage?
So a prenup should not jinx your marriage. If you feel that way, then I think that need to speak to your soon-to-be spouse about your concerns. I also think you can speak to your attorney who you're going to retain for the purpose of reviewing your prenup.
And maybe if you have a trusted friend or a therapist, you might want to speak to that particular person as well. I don't think that prenups jinx the marriage. I think that prenups have to be carefully negotiated, so that they can actually be helpful and empowering during your marriage.
Can adultery impact the financial settlement of a divorce? Not usually. So the adultery itself isn't what impacts.
What could impact the settlement of a divorce is if the adultery involves spending. So for example, if one of the spouses was spending on a boyfriend or girlfriend, travel, gifts-- and we see this quite a bit. Sometimes we see it in millions of dollars literally, certainly, hundreds of thousands of dollars where somebody is taking somebody dining out, taking them to the Caribbean, taking them to Mexico, meeting them in Paris, doing all of those things.
Those monies can be calculated to the extent that you can figure this out during discovery by going through credit cards, and checking accounts, and figuring out the cash that's being taken out, and coming to a conclusion of how much has been spent on this adultery, and then putting that money back into the pot, essentially, so that particular money can be redivided. So essentially, if everybody was to get 50% of the marital assets, and you would spend $240,000 on your girlfriend or boyfriend, you would get $120,000 back to the other spouse. That is such an-- I cannot.
Some people are truly insane to be spending that kind of money on your mistress. That is-- It happens. It happens.
I believe you. Oh, I've certainly had cases like that. And it does happen.
And that's called a wasteful dissipation of assets. And we do recalculate. Man, that is-- OK.
So this person is saying, my marriage is not going great. We want to avoid divorce and save our marriage. But how should I start preparing for the worst?
So one step to take is to start to become acquainted if you're not with your finances. Make sure that you have copies of the last five years of tax returns. Make sure you have copies of bank statements, credit card statements.
All of those types of items will be helpful in determining the finances and how finances are split. So start making sure that you are paying close attention to what is going on in your household. I would also make sure that you don't see any large transfers happening in any of the bank accounts that would be unique or different than what the status quo is.
Make sure that you are keeping track of those strange or different expenditures. And it's always good to have a consultation with a divorce attorney if you think that may be headed in that direction, so that you can get some feedback about what it would look like. Can you include pets in a prenup?
So you can. You can. In New York, we have custody now of-- custody is an issue for pets.
It was a new law that was enacted. So yes is the answer. Wow.
Yeah, that's-- I'm right there. I mean, God, forbid I separate from my husband. But I want that dog.
If you marry a divorced person who's currently paying alimony/spousal support, can their ex take a percentage of your money? So can their ex take a percentage of their money? So the answer is if you marry somebody who is paying spousal support, that's a perfect place to actually put a clause in your prenup to make sure that spousal support is your-- soon-to-be spouse's responsibility and that it doesn't become your liability.
But the answer otherwise is somebody has to pay that alimony. And so if your spouse is paying that alimony and it's coming out of marital earnings, then it is basically coming out of what is your money. And it's a responsibility that you're both taking on in advance of your marriage.
So you can either utilize the prenup to make sure that it's not your responsibility. It's not that it becomes your responsibility under the law, but you may be using marital earnings to support it. So this person is married, no prenup.
I paid 20% down on my home before marriage, but the deed now has both of our names on it. Does my husband still get half of the house if we divorce? So again, it is important to realize that every state is different.
In New York, if you can prove the monies that were for the down payment were made prior to the marriage, and you can show how much was put down, you might get a credit called a separate property credit for that, and the house would not necessarily-- the net proceeds would not necessarily be divided on a 50/50 basis. You might get that 20%, that payment that was at that point 20%. So let's just say it was $100,000 at that point.
You may get that $100,000 back to you. OK. Can I DIY a prenup?
So people do that sometimes. There is-- as I said to you earlier, I had actually been involved in a marathon for a company called Hello Prenup, which is a company that actually has people go online and do their prenups themselves. It's a program.
And so there are people who do that. I don't necessarily think people with complex finances should do this themselves. And I think it's always good to have a lawyer look it over no matter what.
OK. Marriage versus common law. How do prenups work for common law marriages, and how do you prove common law status?
So common law is a very interesting piece. So not every state recognizes common law. Common law is recognized in a handful of states throughout the country.
And it is the concept that you have held yourself out as husband and wife even though you are not married. And in those particular states, your assets and other things may be treated as if you were married. We do not have common law in New York.
Nice. Yes, you can live in sin forever here. OK.
So as a last question, kind of a more general one, is there any one thing that people often overlook to put in their prenup? I'm thinking about that. Is there any one thing?
So I don't think that anyone necessarily overlooks the fact that they want to keep their separate properties, separate meaning pre-marital property. But I think that they need to make sure that appreciation of that separate property is somehow dealt with in the prenup. So if you have, for example, a home that you might have prior to the marriage, what is going to happen to that home if it appreciates during the marriage?
That's important. I think that that's sometimes overlooked. I think also people sometimes overlook their school loan debt, how that could be dealt with in a prenup.
And I also think that as you raised the issue of other debts, such as alimony that you might have from a prior marriage, et cetera, how that's going to be paid out, that's sometimes overlooked. Wonderful. Well, Lisa, this has been informative, as I knew it would be.
Where can people go to find out more about what you do? Maybe they're looking for a divorce. So they can certainly go to my website lisazeiderman.com.
And they will find a host of information there. And we have a blog, and we have many articles, which I've written. They can also go to my LinkedIn.
If they're signed up for LinkedIn, they can just plug in my name, Lisa Zeiderman. And there's also a lot of information there. They can certainly contact us at 914-455-1000.
Or they can email me at lz@mzw-law.com. Love it. I think this is the first time we've ever had a phone number, which is great.
I love that. Well, thank you so, so much for joining us. And thank you guys all for tuning in.
And we will see you back here next Monday on an all new episode of The Financial Confessions. Goodbye. [MUSIC PLAYING]