Second thoughts on 2nd Marriage

[Can't Screw-up again]

Let me say to start off that since no one on this forum here has any idea of who I am, I list facts here to get honest opinions from people, and not to brag.

 

I am a 50 yr old male. Once married. I worked many many years for many many hours each week, obtaining alot of education, relatively late in life. I got married late in life, which lasted nearly 10 years. During the last 5 years of marriage, my business took off allowing me to finally get out of debt and start to earn a very good income.

 

After many years of helping my Ex-wife with her family issues, I discovered how unbelievable selfish she was when I had quite a small request of help from her for my family. This led to our divorce. After the divorce I was left with no personal savings, no retirement savings, although my business was intact, and I kept my home with some equity.

 

When I started dating again I was of course wary about financial issues since I was in my late 40's with no savings, although I had a good income in the 400K range. I decided that I simply could not risk another divorce and being left destitute after working so hard so long. I decided that I needed a premarital agreement allowing me to keep about 120K each year in retirement savings which would me mine alone in the event of a divorce. This would leave an income of approximately 275K per year to be shared. Also all assets obtained during the marriage, further equity in the house (after marriage) would be shared.

 

I met a beautiful woman about 1 year ago. After 4 months of dating when our relationship had progressed, I told her of my desire for a prenuptial, and she agreed without much discussion, further stating that money was not important to her, and she would be willing to work and let me stay at home if I wanted. This did not seem like a good option since she made about 50K per year as a store manager.

 

To make a long story short, we have been involved in negotiations for the past 6 months involving my lawyer, and her lawyer, She has continually wavered on her consent to sign the prenuptial even though I have pointed out to her that I asked her about this early in our relationship, the prenuptial agreement is actually more favorable to her than I originally proposed (provides for one-year of support in addition to sharing joint assets), and she agreed to it early in our relationship. She has accused me of not trusting her.

 

I point out that if she had a problem with signing an agreement, she should have said this when I first proposed it. I feel that with the circumstances I have (starting at nearly age 50 with no retirement savings) it is understandable why I would want such an agreement, and the resulting joint income (which would amount to over 300K with my current business income) will provide more than enough money for a very nice lifestyle.

 

I am beginning to feel like her statements about money not being important to her do not seem to be true. After all, she only currently makes 50K. She can anticipate a joint income of around 300K if we are married. She wants me to save less than the 120K stipulated in the prenup. For someone making 50K, going to 300K seems like a pretty good deal, and trying to get more just appears greedy to me. The 300K income is based on alot of hard work and sweat on my part before I ever met her. Once again, this agreement was proposed to her many months ago, she agreed to it, it is, if anything, more favorable to her than what I proposed originally.

 

Obviously prenuptials are not a very romantic thing to discuss in a relationship. Still I have been through a marriage where I never ever dreamed I would get divorced because I was devoted to my marriage, and such experience makes you realize that people can change. What do others think about this situation?