Gold Diggers

Post Reply New Topic

It's hard to say in terms of finance.
I likely came out ahead, but that's not because of the agreements.
It was because those were my assets anyway.
Both men would have lost the case whether we had agreements or not.

Beyond financial though, you have to consider the effect on my mental health.
The agreements added months (actually years) to the court process, unnecessarily.
That affected my mental health, my job performance at work, and my children's lives.

You can't get those years back.

It sounds more like poor legal advice before coming to these agreements rather than the agreements themselves. I guess it depends on what the assets you want protecting and the legals of the relationship itself. Premarital assets are almost always protected regardless. If I married a woman when I was 50 and she wanted a house I bought when I was 21 it would be a Jerry can and insurance job.

Partners are clutching at straws in the hopes of getting assets obtained before marriage.

Gold diggers worry me personally too. I've done fair amount to obtain a decent net worth for my age. That combined with autism makes me a prime target for gold diggers. I would get extremely nasty with a gold dogger if push comes to shove and go far beyond arguing in court.

Your problem was not with those agreements, but with who you married.

I am an autistic lawyer. I make cost/benefit analyses every day.

I can commiserate. Divorce is horrible. My ex=wife, who asked for the divorce, got one in our state of residence, New Jersey. New Jersey is notoriously rough on husbands in divorce, and at the time I was suffering major depression and just wanted it all to go away, so I caved to everything.

My money was also inherited.
I can't remember all the legal lingo but I inherited money when I was ten. It was held in trust to me until my 23rd birthday.
I happened to get married a month before that birthday. My husband tried to argue that I got the money after marriage, so it should be split 50-50. My lawyer had to argue that I got it before marriage (when I was ten). The saving grace was that my father had accessed the money on my behalf prior to the marriage, to pay for my University education. I had also put a considerable downpayment on a house (prior to marriage).

That showed that the money wasn't lying dormant in my account since childhood, only to be opened on my birthday post-marriage. It was an active account because my father and I had accessed the dividends all along.

There's a term in court about what you bring to the marriage being your own. I forget the word. Everything after marriage is supposed to be divided 50-50 assuming there are no exceptional circumstances (e.g., my husband being gay and marrying me under false pretences, the fact my relationship with the second man was platonic and he didn't work or contribute).

I'm sorry to hear that. Where I live they are notorious for forcing parents to do 50-50 custody of children, even when there is a history of abuse or when it's not in the children's best interest.

My ex is still suing me 25 years after our divorce. He's brought at least ten different motions to change, that I can recall. The latest buffoonery was when he decided to sue my daughter directly, when she was 22.

All of this acrimony might have been avoided if I didn't have the stupid (useless) prenup which pit lawyer vs. lawyer in the early days of our divorce. If the case had been heard on its merits alone, using case law for the division of assets, I don't think it would have felt as personal or made him go so insane.

Yes, true.

Perhaps a normal person would honour the agreement they signed and move on.

I managed to find two psychos who insisted they were wronged.

My agreements were both written by lawyers. In each case the other person and I had hours of independent legal counsel prior to signing. The agreements were both about 20 pages long, written in legal lingo and covering every possible scenario: What if one person wins the lottery? What if one person inherits money unexpectedly or loses their job? What if the marriage is dissolved? What if there is a material change in circumstance? What if one partner dies immediately before the other in a car crash? (e.g., This was also covered in our Wills).


These documents were prepared in triplicate. We signed and initialed every page of the three documents, as did our respective lawyers and several legal witnesses / notaries. We also had to sign and attest that we were of sound mind and body, swearing on oath that we understood the agreement and we would not be able to challenge it once signed.

They were both allowed to be challenged.

I was told "A person can challenge the Constitution if they want to. They can challenge any contract."

In the case of my second person, he got to challenge it for free on taxpayers' money.

Actually, my husband challenged it for "free" too -- because he stole my money from the Line of Credit when he left and used it to pay all his lawyers' fees. That money was secured against the house that I eventually got to keep, meaning I had to pay it all back to keep the title.

Autistic lawyer,.... now that's very unsual.

There are a few autistic lawyers on here.
It's not uncommon at all, considering we like rules.

I'll bet autistic persons are overrepresented among lawyers in the US. Certainly they are in BigLaw in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago etc. where new lawyers are asked primarily to bill long hours doing mindless but important tasks; autistic folks are valued for attention to detail and tunnel vision. I spent 25 years in BigLaw in New York City.

Thing is there are very, very few lawyers who are publicly out as autistic. I am not, and i am on the board of an autistic services organization (with the full knowledge and approval of my firm)*. Google lawyers and autism or autistic lawyers (under the latter you'll find lawyers who defend autistic persons or help them and their families to get services).

I am 62, I am at the top of my profession in my mid sized city, and I still cannot trust that my clients or my firm would understand my autism. I'm willing to bet a lot of fellow attorneys and some clients would not be the least bit surprised to learn this about me; as I said when I first learned my diagnosis, "That explains a lot."


* I am out to the organization, which is one of the reasons I am on the board.

I studied Law, but knew I didn't have the verbal and social skill for law school or practising in court.
Being a paper pusher or public policy advisor / lackey didn't float my boat.

Congrats on surviving as long as you have.

Before I went to law school the only thing I knew about being a lawyer was what I knew from watching Perry Mason. I didn't even personally know any lawyers or kids whose dads or moms were lawyers.

I became a bankruptcy lawyer and commercial litigator out of law school (my first job was with the best firm in the business) because I felt I wouldn't be a real lawyer unless I went to court. Now I spend little time in court and do mostly corporate finance work.

I bet you underestimate your own verbal and social skills.

Texas pre-nups are generally viewed as valid under the Texas Family Code.I will have the South Dakota and Offshore Trusts to further protect me if the prenup does not work.

Well, the discussion's getting interesting and yes the large amount of replies on this thread came as a big surprise to me. It's nice to see how much of an interest the community here has in the Gold Diggers concept. Let me tell you a little more, perhaps even things you didnt really know before.

Well basically, Gold diggers when referring to women are mostly traits you might not always be able to see / identify on a woman, but men can be gold diggers too, but as a man myself I find it easier to talk about female gold diggers much more easily. I dont do that as in to imply there arent any male gold diggers, its just easier for me, is all. So women can be gold diggers, the signs for that are usually more visible at the beginning of a relationship, but can appear later on as well, or even after marriage. The problem is even women who dont care about money much, they eventually care about it to some extent, and will ask financial questions at some point anyways. This isnt as a big problem as women who ask financial questions right at the beginning of a relationship. If that happens, you can stop right there and not let it get worse, but the question is how many men are out there who dont MIND dating a gold digger, or even marrying a gold digger? I'd guess not many are like that, but they do exist for sure. If they are very rich, they would probably not mind as long as they get all the love / sex they wanted from a woman. The problem with such relationship is the woman falls in love with a man's money, not with the man himself. She eventually can and probably will fall in love with the man, but thats only because of the money initially, otherwise it would never happen. I guess its kinda complicated and depends on alot of things, but the reality is, even women who arent really considered gold diggers, become gold diggers in the end if the man is rich, but they might not care about money as much as other, more intense gold diggers who are like that from the beginning of a relationship. Reality is sad, as there are more gold diggers than non-gold diggers, but in the end all you gotta do is probably just find the person you love the most and can connect to the most, and as long as they dont make a big deal out of your financial situation, I think you might be okay.

This is rubbish.

I'm intimidated by men with money. I'd never want to marry a rich man. In fact, my partner is quite wealthy and it's one of the reasons I don't want to get married.

Why do you insist women are attracted to money, and especially that autistic women like men's money?