The Red Flags You Can't Ignore With A Prenup

0:00This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I choose option B. I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So what like buy, age, or rather, in our store, at least 70% have a phone. I'm Dr. Joy and this is The Arfi for Black Girls. We spend our surviving middle school run getting into what's happening inside your kids' brain, the group chat and their friendships and what you can do about it. Your child is not doing this on purpose. That's the kind of perspective we've been pulling from the psychologists and psychiatrists

1:01who study this for a living. Listen to The Arfi for Black Girls on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Decoding Women's Health. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Pointer, Chair of Women's Health and Gynecology at the Adriah Health Institute in New York City. I'll be talking to top researchers and clinicians and bringing vital information about midlife women's health directly to you. A hundred percent of women go through menopause, even if it's natural why should we suffer through it. Listen to Decoding Women's Health with Dr. Elizabeth Pointer on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On Big Lives we take a single cultural icon. People like Jane Fonda, George Michael, Little Richard. And we pull apart the story behind the image, discovering forgotten interviews that changed exactly how we see these giants of our culture. We're here for the messy, the brilliant, the human version of our heroes. I'm Emmanuel Jochi. I'm Kai Wright. And this is Big Lives.

2:01Listen to Big Lives on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's Kelly Kaloren, Ben Sonan with I Do Hard To Work Here with Courtney Robertson and divorce, a stellar divorce attorney Dennis Vittrona. When we have some burning questions about prenups, let's get started. What are some red flags you should look for? We're reviewing a print print up. Oh God. I mean, I think there can be any one of a number of different red flags in terms of prenups, but I think here's the most important thing to keep in mind. Your situation, your situation, your relationship. Let's not even call it the prenup of the divorce or your assets.

3:02Your relationship is its own thing. It will be different from everyone else's. There will be similarities. Of course, you need to look at this prenup as a piece, an extension of the building of your relationship. It is transparency. It is knowing what you can expect from each other moving forward. I think we're so hyper focused on the divorce and the money and who pays what? What do you expect from him or her and what does the other person expect from you? That's what it comes down to. So if they said, hey, I'm in software, I'm in tech, I'm a multi-multimillionaire, I make plenty of money and we've decided together, not I'm telling you, not I want you to do, we've decided together that the other person is going to be a state-owned parent. Then you've got to know there's got to be transparency and there's got to be that expectancy for the what if. And I think how people approach these terms and these prenups will speak volumes about

4:05who the person is at their core. I don't think it's really a place where you're making major judgments, but you can make a number of different observations and really just process what's going on here. So I think we're always thinking it, well, back up a little bit, I'll share a quote that my mother-in-law shared with my wife when she was dating before we met said, you should choose with your head, not your heart. And I know that's very difficult for people to focus on. And it's always, we always want the fairy tale and I get it. But sometimes, actually most of the time from my perspective, choose with the things you know you need out of another person that you know you want and expect out of life. And the prenup actually, as you lay out what are your debts, what are your assets, what do you expect from the other person, what if we do this, what if we do that, what they're suggesting and all of those what ifs and all their background will tell you volumes about that person.

5:06And then it'll help you say, like you said, hey, you don't want to sign a prenup. Okay, goodbye. It's not not where I want to be. Now that we talked about like, you know, all these emotions, well, I think let me just, if you give me a second just to chat about the emotions, I think that's such an important piece of all of it. Thank you. It's all of it. So so people don't realize that as you go through life, you're growing and changing and evolving it. But when you go through a traumatic experience like a divorce, you know, it's funny. I've heard somebody, I think it was a psychologist chair, they say that people are three degrees away from their normal baseline personality when they're going through a divorce. This is so helpful, Dennis. And so you got to like accept that. So if you're a little pissed off or you're a little out of the out of sorts or a little bit out of the ordinary, you just can't process things in the same way that you'd, yeah, mm-hmm. That's what's going to happen. That's what it's going to be. So so I think going through that, healing from that, learning who your new you is, accepting

6:16that new you, loving that new you, and feeling like that new you is enough such that you do not need someone else to fill a void. That is what will bring that, as you call it, lobster to you. That's what does it. It does it like, oh, let me see. Can I find somebody? Is there dating? Just do you, man. Naturally, organically, you will find the right person at the right time if you even need the right person. Right. And the emotional trauma and the financial trauma is what you were talking about. That is so unbelievably thick and very, very, very difficult to navigate. And you know, I had no choice because I had two kids. I had to just move forward and provide for my children. Yep. But I'm not going to say it was easy. Everyone's like, oh, you just make it look so easy. No, no, I make it's make is the operative word. Right.

7:16Make it look easy. It is not easy. Right. Make it tell you make it. I was crying in my closet. I was like, how am I going to do this? I was like, no, man, it's going to ever love me with my first husband. I was like, everyone thinks that I'm just a nobody. Then my second fiance, I'm like, now he's trying to exploit me. I'm like, I can't get a break. And I know a lot of women feel like that. And when you have kids, sometimes you don't have the time to grief. I didn't. You don't have the time to cry in the way that you need to. You don't have time to process. You don't have because you're expected to suck it up, swallow it, and have a brave, brave face for your kids. And by the way, Dennis, if you don't just kind of like lock into your friends and family and say, I need help, I need to move forward. I need the strength. Let's go. I mean, this podcast really, really, really shifted my energy because I was talking to people like me.

8:16We were sharing stories. I felt comfortable saying I was so, I was a mess. A hot mess, express. That's me right now. I have no shame in my game. They were like, oh, you go to go to red carpets and you smile. I'm like, that doesn't mean I'm not like literally frying inside. Your hands are getting anxiety. You're talked about your sweaty palms. That's an FN job. People don't realize that is a brand. You need to live your brand every day. And obviously, I don't have the same level of notoriety that you do, but I mean, even for myself, like I need to live a brand every day. I live the company as I live who I am, my persona, every single day. So I have to be really doubly certain about the way I'm dealing with people, the way I show up and public. That is a job. That is pressure. That is locked in focus. That's not enjoyment. And some people don't understand that because what we do is different. And so everybody has their own map of the world, like what I do. Right.

9:17You do. We all have our own map of the world. I love that you said it's a brand. Like, we are a little bit not conventional. And that's why I like to try to, you know, not everybody's going to understand, right? Like, so, but Kelly, off with the said, you're writing shotgun with me. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and health captive for nine months. I survived and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are the survivor files. You just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and I just started screaming.

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12:30or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro's Society on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. That call was really pivotal for me. Hey, it's Emily Tish Sussman and this season on She Pivots, the podcast where women share bold career moves and personal turning points that changed everything. I sit down with culture shifting women who share their pivots like Para Olympian, Ali Truitt. I was like, I'm on out from a shark attack. There's no way in 11 months I'm making the very long text advocate Elizabeth Smart. I still feel that drive that I can still make a difference. So I'm going to keep going. Celebrity chef Carla Hall was that scary to walk away from such a stable career after just two years? No, I was more afraid of being unhappy than I was broke and in a dead and job that I didn't enjoy. And feminist legend, Gloria Steinem. All of us were trying to express women's real lives. We need a meeting place of our own.

13:32If I can contribute to that, I'd like to maintain that and leave this house for that purpose. Listen to She Pivots on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is not a sexy thing to think about, but like what are the, what are the five things that you need to have ready to go when you're, when you're going to put a prenup together? What we typically, yeah, I mean, what we typically ask for at the outset is really just a network statement. So I really just want people to focus on like what are the assets that are out there that you're trying to protect? What do they plan their future is going to be? What do they expect from this other person? And I think one thing and again, I know I keep coming back to it. People are always looking at the end game with the prenup, but the prenup, if it's being done right, is an opportunity for you to get some insight into the other person. Not only the finances and the income and the credit score and all of those things, but also

14:36what can you expect from that person moving forward? And I think as you go through those things, the red flags that will come up is if what they're asking you for in the prenup is different than what they've said to you where you've talked about. So you say, hey, I want to take care of you. I want you to stay home with the kids and that, but you don't get anything if we get divorced and I don't want to pitch out support out. So and each and every one of those terms. So and if it, I mean, there's also just things that are just like not logical. So if it comes up with something like, hey, I just want to make sure if I'm, if you find out that I did X or Y or Z, that maybe there's something underlying that. You know, why won't agree to a no cheating clause? It could be cheating already. So I mean, again, if it's something, if you look at that prenup and it seems like it doesn't fit with what you expect from this person, your expectations with what you, with who you believe they are and what you believe their behavior will be moving forward.

15:38I always say with relationships, your core values need to be aligned. I'm a big proponent of two people having their own lives, their own independence, their own sources of income, their own thing, and not just because I feel like it's, it's good, you know, it will put them in a better position. If somebody doesn't pitch out support, you have to file court orders and be able to support themselves, but for your own independence, you have to maintain your own person. You can't like, okay, when you get married, yes, now you're a married couple, of course. There's a married life, but there's also your independent self. There's also your own identity and there needs to be, there needs to be the two. There needs to be the two. Well, I've been guilty of losing myself. Sorry to, I'm just taking notes here because I'm old school. But so did I. I've been guilty of losing, losing myself in relationships and what I just heard, how I translated that is you got it, you can't lose yourself.

16:40Yeah. You know, what's interesting is that when, when, you know, some people were very, very negative towards me about what I was doing and getting a divorce and, you know, they're being negative and I'm trying to like, you know, push this, the positivity. But everybody goes through these things. Everyone's going through these emotions and I'm just, Courtney, I'd love that you're so open about how you feel. Well, I need my core people. I mean, I, but what I'm hearing you say, Kelly, there's an imaginary audience like everybody has their own shit going on, right? Yeah. You can lean on your people and they will be there for you. But I mean, we live in a world where everybody has their own stuff going on. There's an imaginary audience and I think that, you know, I can be vango and I can paint a picture in my mind of what is this person thinking about me? People magazine, I'm releasing a statement. And that's something Kelly, you and I can talk about offline. But I think if you're listening, you know, I'm guilty of losing myself in romantic relationships.

17:45I've had them since I was 18. I'm 43. And Dennis, that's kind of what I, I mean, I have so many pages of notes here and I, I'm sorry if I was just so fired up today because I'm, it's my first day without the kids. I've had them and you touched on that. I've had them for a week. Yeah. And I think now is the time and brief pockets of time to let's start off with not give a fuck with anybody else thinks about what they, you really, you really, and it's funny because I tell my wife this pretty often lately. I say, I'm turning 55 tomorrow. Oh my gosh. Happy. Oh my goodness. Your Virgo. I am. I love her. Happy birthday, Dennis. Thank you. Oh. So at 55, I tell my wife, but really anybody who will listen for that matter because I like to talk. So, um, I, uh, I have grown into who I am and I'm comfortable with who I am more than

18:49I ever have been in my entire life. So when I go into a room, no matter who it is, no matter where it is, no matter what it is, I don't worry about are they going to like me? I don't. I don't. I'm the guy that's going to go to a place where it's a black time. I'm going to say I'll take a cheeseburger and I'll take a nice gold beer and if people don't like it, that's fine. That's fine. And I'll be on my phone watching the game. I right. I keep my side of the street clean and that I try to be the best person I can be and everything else the chips are going to fall where they may. And I think as you go through the divorce process, it's really sage advice to say, not give an F what anyone else thinks, including sometimes your mom or your dad or your sister or your brother, your living your own reality and you're doing the best you can. And for most, they're doing a pretty good job and they just don't know it. All right. Everybody, Kelly, I've loved connecting with you and Dennis. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please rate, review, subscribe, maybe share it with a friend who might be going

19:51through something similar. Do you have questions about prenums? Maybe you need some advice. We want to help you out. So send us an email or leave a voice mail, all the info in the show notes. So follow us on social medias wherever you listen to your shows. I do part two. An I heart podcast where falling in love is the main objective. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I choose option B. I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility.

20:52Listen to Solita on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On big lives, we take a single cultural icon, and we pull apart the story behind the image, discovering forgotten interviews that change exactly how we see these giants of our culture. We're here for the messy, the brilliant, the human version of our heroes. I'm Emmanuel Jochi. I'm Kai Wright and this is Big Lives. Listen to Big Lives on the I heart radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Self-care September is your reminder to slow down, check in with yourself, get off your phone, and maybe ask why am I like this? I'm Gemis Bayek, host of the Psychology of your 20s podcast and this month we're helping you make sense of the person that you are becoming from setting boundaries and navigating friendships to understanding anxiety, confidence, relationships, and attachment.

21:54Sometimes our biggest decisions, without us even realizing it, aren't driven by what we truly want, but by what will prevent us from feeling lonely or being alone. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. In February of 2024, celebrated illustrator and children's book author, Patreon Mathers and her husband Michael, mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know they had died by suicide. Dear Hunnies, this is goodbye. By the time you get this letter, both petrified and I will be dead. Next stop, Wonderland. Why did they do it? And what did it do to the people they left behind? Listen to death of an artist on the I heart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.