RL's GF is pretty nice. Probably won't end up badly. Not at all like his prior GF's! :p :D

RL, you never cease to amaze me and make me laugh my a$$ off. :)

You're still single, aren't you Noah? ;)

I did so in 1976. Got a ton of criticism from everyone we knew.

It never even came up 12 years later in the divorce. We had never comingled funds, and the property in common was equitably split without debate. It probably didn't hurt that she was, at the time, making $100K a year more than me, and I didn't ask for alimony.

I should mention that I was once engaged to a FOBBY Chinagirl (and she was very hot) who WAS in the US only because her dad told her to come here and get a Green Card. Her dad arranged a no-show job for her through one of his buddies here, who paid her a salary with payroll taxes and sponsored her H1. My ex's dad reimbursed her boss through his bank in China. The difference with this one was that her dad was a filthy rich industrialist and she would never ever need a dime from me. She wouldn't even need a Green Card, since she was close enough to getting it through her no-show job than marrying me would have gotten her. I hear it's a real PITA, even when done by marriage. Anyway, the whole thing ended pretty badly, but had nothing to do with money or a Green Card.

I'd seriously consider a prenup. As mentioned, why would she object? If you want a buffer when mentioning it just tell her you were going over some business with your lawyer and when you casually mentioned that you were planning marriage he asked you to consider it.

That reminds me, Sandy met our very own Marcesq this past weekend at our DE. He's a divorce lawyer and she knows I talk to him often.

What a great strategy. RL, just get Marc to mention it in front of Sandy. :)

***Note to Rick*****

Don't let Sandy see this thread :cool:

She doesn't know about Pelican, but either way, nothing bad has been said about her here. I really have nothing bad to say about her anyway.

I'm off marriage completely. I don't see the point, I really don't.

"Hey, I really love you! Let's make it so that if we ever decide to split, it won't be any harder to do, but we'll have to employ lawyers at $300 an hour and subject ourselves to the whims of a Family Court Judge! We'll still split up in the end, but it will take a lot longer and cost both of us lots of mental and financial anguish"

I think marriage is a crazy, outdated notion that should have been put to rest when no fault divorce and economic parity for women became the norm.

Very good friend of mine is marrying a really terrific Japanese woman (he lived in Japan for five years and has returned). She is very much like the woman you are talking about, very secure and smart.

He is ten years older than she is, neither has ever been married before.

We had a long talk on prenups and weighed the potential impacts of various approaches to either dropping the prenup bomb or not.

He decided to confess to her that he was thinking about the pro and cons of a prenup, was very conflicted about it and wanted her to know that either way, he loved her.

Worked well...she said she had no issues signing, which I don't he'll ask now.

Well said, sums it up nicely.

Couple of points...

- H1 does not mean she does not need you for a green card. Jsut that she does not need you NOW... If the company folds, if the process takes 6+ years, if if if...

- Prenups are quite often the first thing that gets destroyed by the other party's lawyers during a divorce, they are not all that solid, actually - unfortunately. Not that you shouldn't get one anyway...

- Everybody's real nice and does not need a prenup until they are not nice anymore and take 1/2 your stuff... Just seen it happen to a family member this year.

As for breaking it to her, I think it is fairly common nowadays, just present it as a formality, something very common in the US that protects your savings from before you met her... If she's got a BIG problem with it, then you just may have discovered she has ulterior motives and dodged a bullet just in time. Of course if your prenup is "she gets NOTHING - EVER" she might get offended. As long as it applies to what you had before the wedding, it should be all right !

Yes, I know pre-nups can be contested. But I thought as long as it was drawn up and signed long before a wedding, then no one would be able to claim they signed it under duress. I also know an H1 is not a guarantee of a Green Card. Right now she's working on OPT, which is part of her F1 visa from grad. school. She has until November before she needs to get the H1 thing going. I really am not worried about this part of it, as she demonstrated quite well that she can find a good job and a sponsor.

Anyway, I'm headed to China in May and she can't come with me. So I put a feeler out there to see if she and her folks would like for me to visit the folks in Nanjing. We'll see how that goes. There will be no talk of engagment before I get back from China.

Ok, so apart from the saccharine "soulmate" crap http://www.pelicanparts.com/support/...s/pukeface.gif, what is the point of getting married, other than to give some chick a shot at 1/2 of your stuff or a green card? http://www.pelicanparts.com/support/...s/smileJap.gif

If you got into it (either person) with a who is going to win or loose more attitude then forget it , aint going to work, ever, stay single

Lots of bitter dudes on this board.

IMO, if you're going to ask for a prenup, you might as well not marry the girl. It reeks of uncertainty and distrust. I think that's why something like half of marriages in the US end in divorce. It's just too easy to get out, especially when it's all planned out before you even say, I do!

Flame away, but I don't think anyone should marry until you know the other half well enough to be certain it's going to work out or that both of you will be committed to making it work 'til death do you part.

Are you kidding? How many millions of couples were 110% sure they knew each other well enough and still got divorced, usually with the man getting financially pillaged in the process? Why don't you see a pre-nup as taking money off the table? Since most divorces are caused by disagreements about money, I'd think a pre-nup would actually help keep a marriage together in some cases. Hey, I wear a seat belt every time I get into a car and my chances of a car wreck are far smaller than those of divorce. Would you feel better losing half of everything, but till able to say, "Well, at least I didn't insult her by asking for a pre-nup."?

Disagreements about money is caused by the couple not having the same goals and attitude towards money to begin with. Again, it boils down to really getting to know the person, IMO.

Not accepting marriage as a worthwhile exercise in this day and age is not "bitter." Nor is, if you are dead set on getting married, planning for what today is a 50% probability -- divorce.

My advice before anyone decides to get married is to think about why you are doing it. If it's because that's what your parents did, or because you want to have a ceremony, or because that's what's "expected" of you in your community, to me those are not good enough reasons.

The only difference between marriage and a committed relationship is that with marriage, you are inviting the government to get involved in your relationship. Marriage is giving authority over a part of your life to the courts. In return, you can say, “we are married.” There may be some insurance and estate benefits, but otherwise it’s identical to a committed relationship.

It's no harder to break up when you are married, it's just that you have to break up the way they tell you to. Why give that authority to some third party you don’t know, to decide your break up according to rules with which you are not familiar?