The Math Nobody Wants to Talk About
Youโre scrolling through your phone, looking at engagement rings or venues, imagining your perfect wedding day. The last thing on your mind is what happens if things donโt work out. Thatโs exactly why you need to think about it now. Nobody walks down the aisle expecting divorce. But hereโs what the numbers tell us: 39% of first marriages end within 20 years. If this is your second time at the altar? That number jumps to 60%. Third marriage? A staggering 73% fail.
These are data points you canโt ignore when youโre making one of the biggest financial decisions of your life. The word โprenuptial agreementโ makes people uncomfortable. It sounds unromantic, pessimistic, like youโre already planning your exit before youโve even said โI do.โ But what if a prenup isnโt about distrust at all? What if itโs actually one of the most honest, transparent things you can do for your relationship?
Letโs look at five things about prenups that most people get completely wrong.
First marriages ending in divorce is tough enough. But second marriages? The pattern gets worse. Way worse.
The stats paint a clear picture. After that first divorce, couples often rush into a second marriage faster than they should. Theyโre older, carrying baggage from the first relationship, and sometimes they havenโt fully processed what went wrong. The result? Six out of ten second marriages collapse.
Then thereโs the โGray Divorceโ trend. People over 50 are splitting up at rates weโve never seen before. These arenโt young couples with a few thousand dollars in the bank. These are people with decades of accumulated wealth, retirement accounts, real estate, and often children from previous marriages.
When a 55-year-old couple divorces without a prenup, the financial devastation can be catastrophic. Retirement plans get shredded. Family homes get sold. Inheritances meant for kids from a first marriage end up in the hands of a second spouse.
A prenup doesnโt guarantee your marriage will last. Nothing does. But it gives you clarity about what happens to your assets if things fall apart. Think of it like insurance for your car. You donโt buy it because you plan to crash. You buy it because youโre smart enough to know accidents happen.
Full Disclosure Changes Everything
Creating a valid prenup requires both partners to reveal everything. Every asset, every debt, every dollar. No hiding that credit card you maxed out in college. No โforgettingโ about the inheritance from grandma. No fudging your salary numbers. If you try to hide anything, the entire agreement can get thrown out in court. This forced transparency might sound scary, but itโs actually the best possible start to a marriage.
Money is the second most common reason marriages fail. Not infidelity. Money. Couples who argue about finances once a week are 30% more likely to divorce than couples who donโt. That weekly argument adds up, erodes trust, builds resentment. A prenup forces you to have those difficult money conversations before youโre married. You have to discuss spending habits, debt, financial goals, who pays for what. All the stuff that causes fights later gets aired out early. When youโre laying everything on the table, youโre building trust. Your partner knows exactly what theyโre getting into. You know exactly what theyโre bringing to the relationship. Thereโs no room for financial surprises three years down the road.
Your State Already Wrote Your Divorce Contract
Every single state has default rules for how assets get divided in a divorce and if you donโt write your own prenup, youโre just accepting the one your state legislature wrote for everyone. Community property states like California, Texas, and Arizona split everything 50/50. Doesnโt matter who earned more. Doesnโt matter who contributed what. Half and half, done. The other states use โequitable distribution.โ Sounds fair, right? Except โequitableโ doesnโt mean โequal.โ It means a judge decides whatโs fair based on factors you canโt predict. Length of marriage. Each spouseโs income. Who gets the kids.
One judge might give you the house. Another might give your spouse most of the retirement accounts. You wonโt know until itโs too late. A prenup lets you design your own rules. You and your partner sit down and decide what makes sense for your unique situation. Maybe you want everything kept separate, want to split only assets acquired during the marriage or instead maybe you want to protect a business you built before you met. Youโre not opting out of a contract. Youโre choosing which contract governs your life. Your rules, or the stateโs generic template.
โA prenup is about building a foundation of transparency and trust from day one. When couples can talk openly about money before theyโre married, theyโre setting themselves up for a stronger partnership, not a weaker one.โ
โ Jake Claver, CEO, Digital Ascension Group
Debt Protection Is Just as Important as Asset Protection
Everyone thinks prenups are for protecting wealth. Theyโre wrong.
One of the most valuable things a prenup can do is protect you from your partnerโs debt. Student loans. Credit card balances. Medical bills. Business liabilities.
The average student loan debt per borrower in 2025 is $38,000. Credit card debt? Another $7,300 per household. And hereโs the kicker: 37% of Gen Z and 41% of millennials say student loans are a major reason they want a prenup.
Smart. Because in community property states, debt incurred during marriage is usually split 50/50. Even if only one spouse signed for it.
Letโs say your partner decides to go back to school and takes out $80,000 in student loans while youโre married. If you live in California and you divorce, youโre potentially responsible for half that debt. $40,000 you never agreed to borrow.
Or maybe your spouse starts a business that fails. The business owes $200,000 to creditors. Without a prenup, those creditors can come after your personal assets to collect.
A prenup creates clear boundaries. It says: this debt belongs to this person. That debt belongs to that person. Our shared debts are these specific things we agreed to together.
Itโs not cold or calculating. Itโs mature. Youโre protecting each other from bad decisions while still building a life together.
The Agreement Only Works If You Follow It
Signing a prenup is step one. Maintaining it is step two. Most people completely forget about step two.
The legal term is โcommingling.โ Itโs when you mix separate property with marital property. Once you do that, your prenup might not protect you anymore.
Say you inherit $100,000 from your parents. That money is yours according to your prenup. But then you deposit it into a joint checking account you share with your spouse. You use that account for groceries, bills, date nights.
Congratulations. You just commingled your inheritance. In a divorce, a judge might rule that the entire account is marital property. Your $100,000 is no longer protected.
Or letโs say you owned a house before marriage. Your prenup says itโs yours. But during the marriage, you use marital funds to pay the mortgage. Or you add your spouseโs name to the deed. Again, youโve transmuted separate property into marital property.
Courts place the burden of proof on the person claiming an asset is separate. If you canโt document where money came from or how it was used, judges assume itโs marital property.
Keeping your prenup intact requires discipline. Separate bank accounts for separate property. Clear documentation for every major transaction. Regular reviews with an attorney to make sure you havenโt accidentally crossed any lines.
Your prenup isnโt a set-it-and-forget-it document. Itโs an ongoing practice. How you handle money during your marriage matters just as much as what you signed before it.
Building Something That Lasts
Hereโs what it comes down to: a prenup is a blueprint.
Not for your divorce. For your marriage.
When both partners understand exactly what theyโre bringing to the relationship, when theyโve talked through every financial scenario, when theyโve agreed on how to handle money, thatโs when real partnership begins.
The couples who last arenโt the ones who avoid difficult conversations. Theyโre the ones who lean into them. Who face reality head-on. Who build their relationship on transparency instead of hope.
A prenup wonโt save a bad marriage. But it will strengthen a good one. It removes the financial anxiety that destroys so many relationships, creates trust before you need it and turns money from a source of conflict into a shared understanding.
And if things do fall apart? Youโve already done the hardest work. You know what happens next with no fighting over bank accounts, court battles that drain your savings or public probate process exposing your private business.
Just two people who once loved each other, parting ways with dignity and clarity.
In a world where almost half of all marriages end, choosing to create that clarity isnโt pessimistic. Itโs wise.
If youโd like to explore how wealth protection strategies, estate planning, and legal structures can protect your familyโs future, the team at Digital Ascension Group can answer your questions and connect you with professionals who specialize in these areas. You can reach out by completing contact form.
Because the best time to protect what matters most is before you need to.
When Structure Meets Strategy
Digital Ascension Group has spent years helping families protect their wealth through proper legal structures, from LLCs to trusts to comprehensive estate plans. The same principles that protect digital assets, real estate, and business interests apply to marriage. Itโs about creating clear boundaries, maintaining proper documentation, and ensuring that whatโs yours stays yours. Not through secrecy, but through transparency.
Too often, people wait until theyโre in crisis mode to think about protection. A lawsuit hits. A divorce filing appears. An audit notice arrives. By then, options are limited and expensive.
The families who build lasting wealth donโt wait for emergencies. They plan ahead, have uncomfortable conversations early and put structures in place when the stakes are low, so theyโre protected when the stakes get high.
Thatโs exactly what a prenup does. Itโs not a sign of distrust. Itโs a sign that youโre serious about building something that lasts, whether thatโs a marriage, a business, or a family legacy that outlives you both.
