The One Decision That Can Undo a Decade of Wealth Building

A prenuptial agreement is not a bet against your marriage. It’s not a signal that you’re planning to leave. And it’s definitely not an insult to your partner.

“A prenup is not whether or not you trust the other person,” says Marck Joseph, Esq., one of only 280 board-certified family law attorneys in the state of Florida. “It’s whether or not you trust the government.”

That reframe changes everything. And for Black professionals building wealth, accumulating property, and launching businesses, it might be the most important financial conversation you have before saying “I do.”

Family law is ruled under a States laws. Take Florida for example, in July 2023, Florida made the biggest change to its family law statues: the complete elimination of permanent alimony.

Gone.

People who got married in 2010, 2015, even 2020, made financial decisions based on the assumption that permanent alimony existed as a safety net. Some spouses stepped away from careers to raise children, managing the home while their partner’s income grew. They assumed the law would recognize that sacrifice.

“You might have got married well before then,” Joseph explains, “and while you would have qualified for alimony under the previous law, now you don’t. So now what are you about to do?”

This is the core argument for a prenup: without one, your divorce outcome is determined by whatever the law happens to be on the day you file for divorce. Not the day you got married. Not the day you made your financial plan together. The day it ends.

A prenup freezes your terms. It says: regardless of what legislators do next, here’s what we agreed to.

The data tells a stark story. Only 31% of Black Americans are currently married, compared to 48% of all Americans. Among Black women over 25, 49% have never married, up from 37% in 1990.

Black professionals who do choose marriage are often entering it later, with more assets, more business interests, and more to protect. They’re also more likely to be the first generation in their family building significant wealth, which means there’s no inherited playbook for how to protect it.

Joseph puts prenups in the same category as other wealth preservation tools: “A prenup is no different than a will, no different than insurance, car insurance, home insurance. You do want to have something that helps protect, or at least you can know what’s going to happen.”

You insure your car. You insure your house. You insure your health. The single largest financial partnership of your life? That deserves protection too.

Here’s where it gets structural.

Joseph advises every person close to him with this framework: “I tell them straight up: if you don’t have a prenup, there’s money you’re not getting. There’s access to things you’re not getting.”

This isn’t hypothetical. Families with generational wealth regularly condition inheritance on prenuptial agreements. The logic is simple: your grandparents built it. Your parents grew it. If your child marries poorly and divorces without a prenup, half of that legacy can walk out the door through equitable distribution.

“You built all this and now you might lose it because your grandson made a bad decision in terms of who they married,” Joseph says. “You’re about to lose a portion of wealth that was supposed to transfer.”

A prenup isn’t just protecting you. It’s protecting the people who built before you and the ones who’ll build after you.

This isn’t a napkin agreement. Joseph is clear that the document itself is only part of the process:

Full financial disclosure. Both parties must lay their finances completely bare. Hidden assets or incomplete disclosure is one of the primary ways prenups get voided later.

Independent legal counsel. Each person hires their own attorney. This isn’t optional. It’s what prevents a “duress” or “coercion” challenge down the road.

A signing ceremony. Joseph’s firm records and transcribes the signing. It documents that both parties had the opportunity to ask questions, understood the terms, and signed voluntarily. No one can later claim they were blindsided.

“Getting a prenup is a whole process that people try to ignore,” he says. “But the process is what makes it hold up.”

Yes. But it’s harder than people think.

The legal grounds are typically fraud, duress, or coercion. In practice, that means: one party hid significant assets during disclosure, someone was forced to sign under pressure (like the night before the wedding), or one party didn’t have legal representation.

When the process is done correctly (full disclosure, independent counsel, proper documentation, reasonable timing), prenups are extremely difficult to challenge. “People sign prenups, and generally they want to stick by them,” Joseph notes, “especially because they want to not have the headache.”

This is where most people stall. Joseph’s practical advice:

Let someone else be the villain. “Tell them: ‘My dad says if I don’t have a prenup, there’s money I’m not getting.’ If they want to see the paperwork, have your parents draft something saying this is conditioned on having a prenup. Let mom and dad be the enemy.”

Frame it as insurance, not distrust. You’re not planning to fail. You’re refusing to leave the biggest financial decision of your life to a system that changes its rules without asking.

Consult before you get engaged. “Some people literally consult with me before they get married just to have an idea. They’re like, ‘Before I do this, I need to understand the law of this if it doesn’t work out.'” That’s not pessimism. That’s professionalism.

Joseph references the Tyreek Hill divorce (he knows the attorneys and judge personally). The temporary order alone included substantial child support, alimony, exclusive use of the home, and approximately half a million dollars in legal and expert fees. And that was the reduced amount.

“People don’t tend to know what the divorce process includes until they’re in it,” Joseph says. “And that is the worst time to find out.”

For self-employed professionals and business owners, every bank account, crypto wallet, stock position, and business deduction gets put under a microscope. The court can add back personal benefits you’ve been running through your business. Your company car, your deductions, your cash: all exposed.

A prenup doesn’t eliminate all of this. But it narrows the battlefield dramatically. It pre-decides the hardest questions while both parties still like each other.

Marriage remains one of the most powerful wealth-building tools available. The tax benefits, insurance access, estate protections, and combined financial leverage are real and significant.

But entering that partnership without defining the terms is like building a business on a handshake. It works perfectly until it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t, the cost isn’t just financial. It’s generational.

As Joseph frames it: “Anyone serious about building wealth and preserving wealth, a prenup operates at the wealth preservation level.”