Latest / The Uncommons / The Prenup That Almost Broke Our Marriage: Do We Still Need It? (10 Years Later) | Ep 21

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The Prenup That Almost Broke Our Marriage: Do We Still Need It? (10 Years Later) | Ep 21 · The Uncommons

• Parisa Bady: Least favorite thing that I would ever want to discuss. It's been almost a decade that we did that crazy financial agreement before marriage, aka Breno. How do you feel about it now? It was crazy and spent all that money on this fucking stupid lawyer's really bad memory. You're just gonna say I'm gonna go file for divorce. Now I can't see it because you're crying. My partner's like, what are you doing? This is a high risk situation. You know it for five months. Revision of prenuptial agreement. Today we can figure out to sign this or what? Hi everyone. Welcome to the Uncommons podcast, where we explore what it really takes to build a meaningful life. I'm Parisa. Paige. And we got a little update here. We upgraded our studio, little studio. Yes. Which is exciting. Today. Any guesses what we're gonna talk about? It's my It's my least favorite thing that I would ever wanna discuss. Do you have any idea what this is? ⁓ no, I I always show up here and you always surprise me with the craziest shit. Big surprise. I'm gonna read the title to you. Revision of prenuptial agreement. And by the end of today, we can figure out to sign this or what? Before we start, I want everybody to know that I produced that. My legal team produced that. It's not printed it and put on my desk. It wasn't produced by her. And I produced that by her request because one, I mean, my wife, like my wife is amazing. She's the most unbelievable, most beautiful thing in the world. And what's really beautiful about my wife is that you never know what the fuck you're getting. Uncertainty. I know you like uncertainty. Uncertainty, yeah, yeah, yeah. She wakes up one day and she says, we need to kind of change that. It's really bothering me. It's been bothering me from the day one. It's a very Painful memory for me. First, let's talk about what happened that you wanted to have a print up agreement. How I felt about it. I'm shaking still talking about it, by the way. It's been almost a decade. Then we talk about how I felt about it, then talk about what happened and how it affected us or not, and talk about how we feel about it today and why I requested it and why you agreed and printed this. So let's go. You want me to start this? No, I'm going to start. You just you just sit there. I figured that I'm just gonna sit here anyway, but go ahead and I'll share my thought process behind it. And then what we actually produced. Because when you say the word prenup. Okay, a financial agreement. A financial agreement that was signed before getting married. AKA prenup. Well, when you say prenup, it's got a very negative tone to this. Why? No, a lot of people sign a prenup. They do, but this is not their typical prenup. In fact, my lawyers thought I was fucking nuts. Okay, how about we go backwards? We'll talk about all that. What happened that you thought we should sign a financial agreement before getting married, aka prenup? Multiple number of reasons. One was my personal psychology of a not believing in marriage. B being so skeptical about marriage, especially how I grew up with my family and my mom and dad fighting all the time. I just like ⁓ but I loved you. And then our age difference and me wanting to down deep inside, somehow sabotaging our relationship because I've done that throughout my life. And when it came down to really doing the prenuptial agreement, it was like now that I think back of it, it was One way to see if I can get out of this marriage thing. Right. And but I loved you and I wanted the best for us. And I didn't want it to feel like that. I didn't want you to be upset because you were so upset about it. I was very upset about it. And also we had just met each other, we've known each other for five months. We had a huge age gap. Twenty two years. Twenty two years age difference. I'm a lot more in my heart now than I was ten years ago. And I was up here like thinking okay, well this makes sense and this makes sense and this makes sense. And What if this happens and I gotta protect myself and blah blah blah. All those things that went through my head. And I think your family had some to do with it too. Because I've seen it in the other people, other family members getting married later on during this ten years that we've been married, and then I've heard from other ⁓ family members telling them, ⁓ do you have a prenup? Make sure you have a prenub? I don't remember exactly. I I I don't know what the conversation was with my family, but one doctor friend of mine went through five divorces and my tiny was seventy five. At that point you would why would you get married anymore? At seventy five he he was like broke. You know, and as a great cardiologist and another cardiologist friend of mine, you know, just like so I've seen it happen over and over to doctors. So I don't think it was as much my family. Maybe maybe there might have been. ⁓ certainly not my mom. ⁓ you know my mom was dying at the time. And I think she saw things she might have if she wasn't dying. But then at the time I think she saw the world differently. She saw you and she loved you. She just knew and she tried to talk me off the whole prenup thing. ⁓ actually. I don't remember the rest of my family and I don't know if they were that involved. I Usually don't let people get They were all shocked anyways that we were gonna get married. Right, right. But for me it was the shock factor, first of all, because we had talked about it before. You said normally I would want a prenup, but with you I don't. So I was like, Okay, we're not doing a prenup and then like two months before the wedding, you brought it up. And you're like, How about we do a prenup? And I'm like, I thought we were not doing a prenup and you're like, Well, let's do it. Just just So we have it. Hopefully nothing happens between us and we stay married forever. But then if just let's just have it. I don't recall any of that shit. I do. I'm sure you do. I recall everything. Yeah. You know, I was oscillating with honestly between my heart and my brain in a back and forth. Then we had the biggest fight that we ever had. We were in Vegas and I woke up one day and I went to the mountains to the Red Rock and I had a hike and I came back and I packed my stuff and I drove myself to LA because I didn't know what to do and just left. And you were so mad that I walked away from an argument like that. Cause you were like, we stay and solve it. And I'm like, I don't wanna break what's between us because I'm emotional and you are insisting on this thing. Let's just so I left. To me, the way I grew up I don't think I've ever put myself in any situation that I thought I need to protect myself. I just don't have a layer of protection that I carry around with me. I grew up in a Sufi family and the number one belief that was ingrained in my brain and in my soul growing up was that all is well and it always will be. And even when my dad passed away. My mom kept saying this this saying is a it's a poem from Sadi, one of the biggest Persian poets. If the divine in its wisdom closes a door, out of mercy and grace opens another. And my mom kept saying this every time a door opened, and she didn't say another door opened. She always said one door closed and a thousand other ones opened. And I kept seeing that over and over because things would come our way that we never thought about it. The way we carried through the most difficult time of our life was through all these doors and opened that we never accounted for it and we never thought it would. So it really helped with everything with our life. So in my brain, I never planned that if things don't work out, how am I going to protect myself? I mean, I picked up a backpack. And moved to the US with 100 bucks, 150. Never thought, I don't know anybody here. Where am I gonna sleep the first night? I mean, I thought about on the airplane too late a little bit. But or when we got married, I had many logical reasons to not marry you. Our age difference, you had a child on the way, so there were many, many reasons for me to say. Excuse me. Let me protect myself. Like I I thought if there is a need for protection, maybe I need more protection than you do. Because I'm throwing myself into this. You have your life, an established life. I'm just beginning to establish my life here. And I'm much younger. I you're seasoned. Even in the legal system, you're way more involved and mature than me. And you have a child on the way, God knows what's gonna happen when the kid is born. So if it comes to being in the brain and logical thinking, I shouldn't even be here. And I was talking to my mom, and my mom is like, Well, maybe a part of him thinks that maybe you are marrying him for money and he grew up in LA and there is a culture. So maybe that's what he thinks. And you know you're not, and I know you're not, so why would you not sign it? So your mom called me and she was so sick, she was at a hospital, and I went and I drove her to the hospital and was driving her back and she talked to me, she's like, Look, I know my son, he will always take care of you no matter what, and that's just who he is, and he takes care of people, and you're his wife, and I know how much he loves you, and there's no way that he would do you any harm. So just sign it. Don't give him a reason to walk away. That's what she told. She was right. And she was right. And I was like, ⁓ maybe that's what it is. He's looking for a reason to walk away. Your mom was right. I grew up in LA. Mm-hmm. Like a fifty percent divorce rate is is just like, no offense to anybody who lives in LA. But I grew up in LA. And I grew up with this thing. And then I I've lived all over the world. And every time I moved away, and I will come back, I'm like, ⁓ my God, this is like This this city's plastic. Like the reality is bent here. It's not real. You don't even know that you're falling into that system, right? But the main underlying reason, to be honest with you, was th this sabotage that my mom was talking about, and my mom was right, was really my fear. You know? But even of that, my lawyer during this process could not believe because I was actually giving you a bunch of money. If we did divorce. Yeah. You know, and he's like, What the fuck are you doing? The whole reason we're doing this is for you not to pay. Basically we made a document in the room with these two big big time lawyers that if we ever get divorced, none of your businesses or my business would get affected at all. Yeah. But there is a financial agreement into it that if we are be married for a year, this is how much I get paid. Upfront and this is how much I get paid. Like what do we call it? Alimony like per month. Or if if it's five years, this is what happens. If it's ten years, if it's fifteen years, and I mean the fifteen years was the most painful for me. I'm like, we're sitting here and talking about fifteen years from now that I've built a life with you, what's gonna happen? Are you kidding me? I think that's when I walked away. We were talking about our divorce before getting married. And that's that's rough. But it wasn't a real prenup. Like my lawyer ke kept taking me to the other room. It's like listen, the reason that people do prenops so you know, you don't pay any of this stuff if she walks away. Right? And I'm like, Yeah, I know, but y you know, well, she's not like that and I love her and all this stuff. It's just like it was crazy and spent all that money on this fucking stupid lawyers. Yeah. And a really bad memory. And a really bad memory. And you know, for me it was hard because I was the same between brain and the heart, going back and forth. And for me, I knew if I get to my brain and want to be logical, it would be easy for me to walk away from everything. Because the logic would say, danger, right? Don't do this, you know? But then I didn't want to get there. Like I didn't want to think about it logically. A lot of people tried to make me think about it logically. Like he has a kid on the way, his ex is pregnant, you don't know what's gonna happen. And don't marry this guy. And I'm like, ⁓ you don't know. I know. In my heart, I know. And I was right. And I still think like it was hard for me to sit in that room and you kept telling me, well, I love you, but you're a very logical person. You're an engineer. Bring that part on. And I'm like, I don't want to bring that part on because the engineer is gonna change everything that we're doing. First of all, thank you so much for being in your heart and dealing with my crazy ass. And nothing has changed. Not much. Even now it's kinda interesting we're talking about this because I was working with my spiritual coach today and I'm really you know, I've done a lot of training, ⁓ especially the past three years. I've been very involved with the Tony Robbins world, which is a big warrior. Let's get this thing done. And I really wanted to move into my wizard. So warrior is basically trying to make things happen. Yes. And wizard is creation. Manifestation creation belief. Wizard will pull things towards That's right. Warrior will go get it. We're talking about how keep moving and it's really hard for me because by nature I'm a type a you know warrior kind of person to letting go of your ego, letting go of the belief that you are the one that's gonna help a lot of people and contr letting go of control, which is extremely Extremely difficult for me. So, with you to this day, I play a lot of roles every every day that I'm supposed to deliver and supposed to protect. I'm supposed to do all this warrior stuff. And you've been really always in your heart. And and to this day, you always take me down to my heart level when I'm really up here. And then I'm so happy that your nature has been consistent from the beginning till now. And even though You started as my engineer, rock climber, non fufu girl who's become a lot more foo foo and I called you what today? Princess. More of a princess than I've always been a princess. Yeah, I know. Who said the princess can't rock climb? Now you become a queen. ⁓ See that people? That's how you change. That's how you change the conversation. Yeah. So I I don't think we would have been here if you were not that wise, Sufi. connected to your heart and your belief that is now kind of ushering me into getting a lot more like that as well. So how do you feel about it's been almost a decade that we did that crazy ⁓ financial agreement before marriage, aka brain up how do you feel about it now, today? 'Cause for me not much has changed. I feel the same way that I did when I signed it that I do today and I felt that if we're really in it and if down deep deep deep inside in your heart in my heart we feel that this is the right thing to do then that's it there's no little leaving a door open a little bit so we can exit easier. Having gone through it, signed a prenup before we got married, a decade later, revoking it, do you think people should sign prenuptial agreement before getting married. Yes. Why? ⁓ yes, because of my belief. I disagree, by the way. I would say a hard no. But to you to you say first, why yes. I'm not talking good about myself, but I've done a lot, a lot of work to move from that warrior cerebral kind of a guy to more of a and as a doctor, it was and grown up with doctors all my life, ⁓ you know, ⁓ to to be more cerebral. Now now really, in reality I'm much more of a right sided brain kind of guy. I started like that, but I've transferred it to to my to my left side, which is logical, analytical, and all that kinda. So I've become a lot more analytical. And I think a lot of men have that energy, right? And ⁓ so to me, neutralizing that upfront, it's allowed me to really connect more and not worry about this this this other thing that could possibly live out there, right? So you basically say instead of having a lingering fear in the back of your mind for years and wondering what if something happens, I have to protect myself. I'm not protected, just taking that whole thing out altogether. Yeah, and to be honest with I don't recommend them doing the way I did. I actually did not have a prenup. It was like me paying you more money. That was actually coming meeting in the middle, right? Because what was Important for you was that if anything happens between us, your businesses that you worked so hard to build won't be affected. And what mattered for me was that the lawyer asked me, What do you want? I was like, I just want to make sure me and my kids don't financially suffer if something happens between us. And I don't want to feel like I spent all my life and my youth building a life with you and then something happens for some reason and I'm left with like nothing and my kids end up suffering when they're with me because of that. I'm an engineer and now I don't work. My skills are not up to date anymore. If I want to go and get an engineering job, I can't. It's gonna be way more difficult after 10 years of raising kids, which is a huge contribution to a household. And then I have to live in fear that, ⁓ what if something happens between us and I'm not even working, let me have a job which is then not in agreement with how we want to raise our kids, for example, right? That's just one one argument against it. So we kind of met in the middle, which was if we get a divorce, you get to keep all your businesses, nobody will touch it. And I get paid like millions of dollars up front. Yeah. That was our agreement. She's gonna get millions of dollars, which I didn't have at the time. And on top of that, the business is one of the reasons because I had partners. Yeah. My partner's like, hey, you know, we're just building this startup business and then this is a high risk situation. This chick's like twenty, whatever is younger than you, and blah, blah, blah. You know him for five months. What are you doing? ⁓ and don't put the company in danger. So that was actually that was another another por portion of it. But would I do it again for the reason I said is yes. First of all, I've learned in the past ten years anything could happen, right? And money will come and go. And my relationship with money has changed. And I really liked you and loved you and connected with you. Now every day I fall in love with you more. Every day I realize who you are. Every day I realize the the mother you are to my children and realize how much better I am today because of you. I have this cosmic connection that I've never felt before. I love you for the right reasons. I don't give a shit. I actually own nothing now, by the way, with or without this printap. I have nothing. It's all under a trust. You, the recipient of the trust, as it is. So you ask me, I have my lawyer, draw this up, write it up, make it simple, sign it, done. Give it to me. So it doesn't bother you anymore. Alright. Haven't read it by the Haven Read No. That's how it is. I get docusigns and I see your signature on it, so I just click sign. Thirty. Thirty twenty six. We gotta notarize so I can have just sign in and I'll have ⁓ my staff notarized. Boom. feel better. You do? Yeah. Really? It was a negative emotion that was stuck in me. It was painful for me and I don't want something that caused pain for me to be in our life. I want you to never feel any pain. I lo I love you. Your pain is ten times greater for me whenever you have pain. I I cannot imagine you when you get sick, it I get sick, I get discombobulated. When when you had this procedure that you had, ⁓ just like You're crying again. So your well being is is important to me and none of this shit matters to me and I love you. I was just gonna say I'm gonna go file for divorce. Now I can't say it because you're crying. ⁓ just so everybody knows the difference between men and women, I never fucking thought twice about it. I just signed it, I don't give it, you know, gone. And for the ten years she's been like, ⁓ it bothers me. Don't ruin what the beautiful pride, tears and all that stuff that you did. One more thing. If there's anybody out there that's just getting married and want to sign a print up or disagreeing on it, I would say don't. I just say don't. And I've told everybody, I'm like, if you're in it, you're in it, do not think twice. And whatever, however it goes, it goes. You know, it's just it will things will turn out fine. All will be well. No matter what. I would say if you really Your marriage might fall apart because of it. I volunteer my time and energy to talk to both of you guys or whoever you are. We have two opposing thought processes and I think they're both very valid, right? And we're here to learn. Maybe maybe maybe we'll get somebody else's point of view and I wanna sign a prenup again. Sign it now. But ⁓ and I hate for people who actually love each other to f fall apart because of a a stupid document. religion. Or religion or or or or age or you know, whatever. I mean, some people think we're crazy about our age difference and it's really working for us and maybe it would not work for other people, or maybe a religion, or you know, like Jews have called and said, ⁓ my god, how can you raise children with a Muslim woman? She the your kids are not Jewish. I'm like, Well, we have Shabbat dinner and we go to high holidays and we celebrate stuff with you know, so whatever you wanna call it, you call it. And some traditional, very not traditional, but ⁓ more extremist Islamic people think I shouldn't be alive because I married a Jew. Yeah, yeah. So my point of view is I'll be very clear about it. I would say a lot of people have asked me and I said if you feel in your heart that this is the right marriage, then why do you need a prenup? Just do it. And I and I still say it, but if we went ten years back and you again asked me, I would sign it again. I would. If if it would if it's something that would make the relationship fall apart, I would sign it. But I think it would be good to be cognizant of the other person's emotions, everybody's emotions, right? The fears that come with not signing it and all the insecurities that come up with signing it. So it would be good to bring it all on the table. We actually did when we went to a therapist and discussed all this before I got to a point that I was like, Okay, we'll sign it. And she said find a middle ground. So we did find a middle ground. Yeah. So it wasn't really a hardcore prenup. But then I think that that really helped to bring all the feelings out and put it on the table and discuss it rather than pointing fingers or being upset or holding the feelings for so long. Like I did. Somebody that I know ⁓ who's very dear to me, is going through a divorce right now. They've been together for a very short time. And luckily he did have a prenob. So anyhow, I see it in a different point of view and ⁓ Here we are. Chow.