00:00Talk to us about financial decisions and your mistakes.
00:03When my ex-husband and I were engaged, my family insisted that I sign a prenup.
00:09It said that anything we brought into the marriage would remain ours,
00:12but anything earned during the marriage would be split 50-50 if we divorced.
00:17My then-fiancé asked me to change that to say that nothing would be shared
00:22unless we affirmatively decided to put it in joint name.
00:26I had money that was in trust.
00:28I used the money to buy our apartment and then I put it in joint name
00:32because I believe that's what you do when you're married.
00:35Meanwhile, my husband started earning a lot of money.
00:39I was not aware of how much and he kept it all in his name.
00:44He never put my name on any of his assets.
00:46When we divorced, I was in the position of having put the bulk of my assets in joint name
00:53so he could claim 50% of it.
00:55And I had no entitlement to anything that he had earned.
00:59My biggest mistake was just not being aware.
01:01I am a former corporate lawyer.
01:04I'm well-educated, but I convinced myself that he was much better able to handle everything.
01:09And I paid our bills online, but I really lost touch with the big picture.
01:14And I convinced myself over those years that I really couldn't understand it,
01:18which is just not true.
01:20We can all understand it.
01:21And what we can all learn from you.
01:23It really comes down to paying attention, talking to your partner,
01:28understanding on a regular basis what your assets are, what the income is,
01:33whose name is on what.
01:34Are you keeping everything separate?
01:35Are you sharing and everything?
01:37You can do it a variety of different ways, but you have to know,
01:40no matter how happily married you are,
01:42you have to know what will happen to you if you divorce.
01:45So was your divorce, financially speaking, very difficult to come to terms with
01:49regarding what you were going to keep, what he was going to keep,
01:54what was going on, and what was his proposal?
01:57It was very difficult because he pushed to have,
02:02and was successful in having our prenup enforced,
02:05which means that he could claim half of both of my homes,
02:10which felt very difficult because I was trying to keep my children's lives stable.
02:16It also felt very punitive because he was making all this money,
02:21yet he was going to take from me what had been mine.
02:24So it was very difficult, and it went up right to the edge of us starting the trial process,
02:30which was his threat to take both those things.
02:33At the last minute, he agreed that I could keep both homes,
02:38and he pays child support, but I did not have any form of settlement from him of his assets,
02:46which I have, you know, I am fine.
02:49I am in a much better position than most women,
02:52but what's hard about it is, and I write about this in the book,
02:56is that he really saw no value to my contributions to his career over those 20 years.
03:03He really thought that my assets were our assets, and his assets were his.
03:09That's, I think, what he felt, and that was really hurtful.
03:13It's a book that we all need to read.
03:14Please go and buy it as soon as possible.
03:17Share knowledge, because you never know when somebody else's experience will change somebody else's life.
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