Money, Marriage, and Mutual Respect: What Navigating a Prenup Taught Us About Partnership
We enter into contracts all the time — with business partners, with investors, with the companies we work for. We consider it good practice: clarity up front, expectations named, everyone protected. And yet when the contract is a prenuptial agreement between two people who love each other, the topic becomes a deep, dark thing we'd rather not touch.
Earlier this year, my partner and I had the privilege of presenting a living case study at the NEXUS Summit in New York on exactly this: how we navigated our prenup with openness, vulnerability, and mutual respect. What surprised me most wasn't the questions we got afterward — it was how many people called us brave for simply talking about it, and how many lingered to say some version of "we need to have this conversation, and we don't know how to start." And that's the thing: talking about money with the person you love shouldn't require bravery. The fact that it does is exactly why I'm writing this. I'm not a prenup expert — I'm simply someone who lived it, and I'm sharing our experience in the hopes of opening more invitations for conversation around a topic we've kept in the dark for far too long.
The thing we talked around
Growing up in a family business, I was comfortable talking about money. Spreadsheets, investments, operations — money was a regular, everyday topic at our table. But the prenup? That was the thing I always knew was in my future, yet something we never dove deep on. It sat there like a looming cloud, with an unspoken warning attached: choose well, because this is something you will have to navigate with your partner someday.
When my partner and I came together, we wanted things to be as equal as possible — and we skipped a few steps along the way, buying a house and moving in together at the same time. The purchasing process required a cohabitation agreement: a legal document that outlines how unmarried partners will share property, finances, and responsibilities — and what happens to each if the relationship ends. It's essentially a prenup's younger sibling, and it meant one thing above all: disclosure of assets. Suddenly, the abstract became concrete.
Then came the moment I'll never forget. I knew I held an ownership stake in our family company, but it had never been compiled into a single document — and honestly, it had never quite felt like mine. One night I was working upstairs while my partner was downstairs. An email arrived from our office manager, with him cc'd. In it was my ownership stake in the operating company, spelled out. My dollar sign. I immediately started crying.
From downstairs, I heard laughter.
He came up, gave me a high five and a hug, and went back down. He didn't press with questions — he just remarked how great it was that he wouldn't have to worry about taking care of me financially. For me, it was a genuinely hard moment: the abstraction of "family wealth" suddenly reduced to a number with my name on it. But his humor told me something the number couldn't: the number didn't really matter.
That night captured the tension at the heart of this entire process. We were entering a system that asks you to assign a dollar figure to your life — and by extension, to each other. How do you look at your favorite person in the world and participate in a process that says, this is what you're worth? Assigning a dollar sign to each party inherently creates a power dynamic. And the foundation of our relationship — what we value about one another — has nothing to do with money.
That tension is exactly why most couples avoid the conversation. It's also exactly why the conversation matters.
Why this moment, why this conversation
If it feels like everyone is suddenly talking about prenups, it's because they are. According to a 2023 Harris Poll, 47% of millennials and 41% of Gen Z adults who are engaged or have been married say they entered a prenup — compared to roughly 20% of married couples overall, and up dramatically from earlier generations. More recent polling suggests the number has climbed past half of engaged and married couples under 45. Notably, family law attorneys report that women are increasingly the ones raising the topic first.
Layer onto that the largest wealth transfer in history: Cerulli Associates projects that $124 trillion will change hands in the U.S. through 2048, with roughly $105 trillion flowing to heirs — and millennials inheriting more than any other generation over that span. That means an entire generation of next-gen wealth holders is entering marriage carrying not just assets, but family legacies, stewardship responsibilities, and money stories they didn't choose.
I'm one of them. I watched how money transformed and fractured relationships in my own family. I knew I didn't want that for us. I've always understood my wealth not as identity but as a resource I'm responsible for stewarding — a tool that should unlock possibilities, not define worth. The prenup was never going to be optional for me. What was optional was how we did it.
What we did differently
When we got engaged, the cohabitation agreement became our launching pad. We'd already done a version of the hard thing — disclosed, discussed, and survived. Now we could be intentional about the real thing.
We started with values, not numbers. Before any documents, we talked about our money stories. How was this money generated? What shared values do we hold? What do we each believe money is for? How do we want to partner around money? And what's important to keep separate? Most couples begin a prenup with disclosure schedules. We began with questions.
We made it collaborative, not conditional. I never wanted this to be "you have to do this thing to be with me." We approached it as something we were building together — a process with a job to do, and one we wanted to feel positive and fair for both of us.
He chose his own lawyer. I asked my firm which other firms they had partnered well with in the past. They gave me a list, I passed it on, and my partner chose his own representation. This mattered more than it might sound: he had counsel who was genuinely his, experienced attorneys who knew how to work together productively, and neither of us had to wonder whether the process was tilted. Fairness isn't something one person gets to define for two.
We stayed true to ourselves inside an adversarial system. Lawyers work within a system designed to advocate solely for their own client's best interests. That's their job, and they're good at it. But it means the process will inevitably put you in moments where a proposal feels like it isn't in your best interest — or your partner's. When that happened, we didn't let the system script our reactions. We kept coming back to our shared values and what we knew to be true about each other. The prenup wasn't the marriage contract. Our vows were.
We designed for his wholeness and my protection. These two things aren't in tension — that was one of our biggest lessons. I carry a responsibility to be a good steward of what my family built, and protecting that legacy matters. But stewardship and generosity aren't opposites either, and I always want to operate from a place of generosity. I knew my partner had made choices in his career and life based on the fact that he didn't need to be our provider — choices that benefit the life we've built together, and that deserved real recognition. The question that anchored everything for me: If I were to disappear tomorrow, what would you need to continue living the life we've built? At first, he resisted — he didn't want anything. But as we kept talking, he came around to what I knew to be true: the purpose of a prenup isn't to punish. It's to be fair. I wanted him to enter this partnership as a partner, not a dependent — stepping into both the opportunities our family's resources open and the genuine complexities they bring. And I trust that he does good with resources and would continue to, whether or not I'm in the picture.
We moved from scarcity to sufficiency. Secrecy, possession, and protection mindsets don't serve a marriage. If the prenup lives as a big hidden dark thing, there's more to explore underneath it. The ideal outcome is that you do the work, and then you rarely think about it again.
The questions that anchored us
If you're facing this conversation, these are the questions that carried us through:
What do we want? What don't we want? What's fair and equitable? What do we know to be true — about each other, and about what we're building? When things get hard, what will we do so we don't retreat into corners? What's the fear underneath this? And my favorite: When do you feel valued by me? The answer is almost never money.
The hard truth — and the gift
Discussing the possibility of separation while you're deeply in love is an awkward moment. It's also an essential one. If you can navigate those conversations with vulnerability, love, and respect — isn't that exactly the foundation you want for a marriage? We should all be more comfortable talking about money: what's yours, what's mine, what's ours.
A prenup is hard. So is marriage. The ability to navigate difficult moments together — with openness, vulnerability, and bravery — is exactly the skill you're building for the decades ahead. Short-term discomfort, long-term safety and clarity, for both of you.
Money is a resource. It is not a reflection of the value of your relationship or the value of your partner. When the process got hard, we returned to that truth — and to the simplest one of all: he's my favorite person. That's the north star.
To love is a risk. There are no guarantees. But it remains the greatest one we take — and having these conversations, honestly and early, is one of the most loving things you can do.
In my coaching practice, I work with next-generation wealth holders navigating exactly these intersections of money, identity, values, and relationship. If this resonates and you'd like a thought partner for your own conversation, I'd love to connect.