I really like your concept. Do you have a similiar income level? As you are splitting costs 50/50.
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Happy to share more details if helpful…
No I earn roughtly 2x more than my partner and have roughtly 7x her wealth BUT I am totally happy with a lifestyle she can afford - otherwhise that wouldn‘t work. I pay in full of unnecessary luxury I want from time to time…
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Isn’t wealth gained before marriage treated separately, not 50/50?
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As you are splitting joint expenses 50/50 (despite you earning twice as much), is your savings rate substantially higher than hers?
How do you manage your accounts?
What if she stops working completely due to having a 2nd child? Your income will be shared 50/50 and your individual savings rate would be identical?
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Yes my savingsrate is much higher then hers, partially due to the income difference and partially because i like minimalism and she likes amazon 
We have split accounts & depots and 1 shared „topf“ with zak for the household expenses.
If she would stop working for a timeframe, I would ship her 50% of my post tax income and she would still contribute 50% to all expenses.
The saving is done individually so both saves what they can/want.
Doing so we have very few discussions about money because we are both equally in charge.
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Interesting thread. What I wonder is everyone speak a lot about finance, but nobody did put a value on taking care of the kids. Taking care of the kids is a 200% job. If you continue to work 100%, even by earning twice as much as her for a 100% job, you will contribute the same in the family. Let me tell you, you will be glad to share 50% of your accumulated earning during marriage, you are much better off than sharing 50% of the time taking care of the kids…
But without kids, just do not marry, too many risks involved. With my wife, we waited until she got pregnant to marry.
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I’ve seen two different types of divorce. One where the woman ruined the man. She got alimony and money for the 2 kids, with amount estabilished by a judge, which ofc are very high. Ticino is the land of women.
A second divorce in Zurich, where the difference was that the woman was “forced” to study and find a job in X months. It was easy for her but still not the same thing as in Ticino.
This seems to be the key point. The alimony seem to be unfair for some of you, but as @TeaGhost perfectly said, the third person (us, or the gov) doesn’t want to pay her just because the man (or both) decided to divorce. So alimony seem fair as long as there is a possibility to “push” a person to find a job, even if in a slightly different sector.
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Interesting thread indeed. Whilst as a mustachian I hear where you are coming from, I do have to disagree overall. You´ve far too focused on the financial side of things, whats the point in marrying at all if you look at your union in those terms?
I simply wouldn´t get married at all if it concerns you that much. I hate to say it, but if you keep that attitude and approach up, you are likely to end up wealthy, but probably alone and eventually a bit miserable.
If you love and trust your partner, and want to celebrate that love - then marry her, but put all this contract and who gets what nonsense behind you.
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In my opinion this whole Mustachian thing is messing up with your priorities (with all due respect). As far as I am concerned a marriage contract should be seen as a tool to protect the other, not you, e.g. if you start a business and fails, at least you can’t lose what is not yours. This is why I have a contract with my wife. But if you start to want to protect yourself against her, you should reassess your entire relationship right now. My philosophy around this is that not everything in life is about money. And if the person has given you the most precious thing in life (kids), the least you can do is secure her future. You’ll probably feel sorry for her and your kids if you separate and she ends up with very little. Your kids standard of living would be impacted by your behavior, is this not more important that being Mustachian about it?
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There’s nothing preventing him from paying more for his wife and/or children than he is legally (contractually) required to. So no need to feel sorry after separation (from a purely financial standpoint).
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I thought the same but once you face the reality of divorce you may change your mind.
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I agree that “marriage” is much more than just the legal aspect of it and the mix of commitment, love, romantic etc. makes it extremely difficult to get understood and aligned.
One partner wants a legal situation which is not stupid and the other partner hears a lack of commitment or love when he tries to discuss it with her.
Even though looking at the probability of a failure (=divorce) which is around 40-50% its IMO very important to really get aligned before signing any agreement with such a high probability to fail.
The result of an alignment should just be that in both outcomes the parties who signed it agree with the consequences. That has nothing todo with greed or mistrust, its just a normal due diligence…
In my case the discussion was not easy either but things where much better afterwards because we where aligned and understood each other + defined rules we both considered fair.
Before that it wasn’t clear to me that she actually wanted to stay in the workforce and keep her financial independence.
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My little two cents as I was a trainee lawyer in this field and saw complicated divorce and easy one (amicable divorce).
As I was a trainee lawyer, I would sum up your thought : THE LAW DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOUR PAST OU FUTUR SELF. The Court will only focus on the present and the future of the kids.
This was before recent judgement 
It depends on every case and for what I’ve seen, this is currently not the case anymore. We expect now that each spouses can live by themself despite the fact that it means lower their living standard (we are not in America) and the Court is being fed up about women who wants to live like a princess (or man wanted to live like a king).
And from a juridictional point of view:
Here’s how a civil divorce works:
First, the spouses must live separately for 2 full years from the introduction of “measures to protect the marital union”. The purpose of this procedure is to organize the separation of the union during these two years. Theoretically, the pronouncement (judgment) of this procedure should not exceed 6 months. In practice, however, it can often take 2 years or more, to the point where divorce proceedings are often confused with “measures to protect the marital union”.
Of course, before the “measures to protect the marital union” are pronounced, the court will order “provisional” measures to ensure that Mr. or Mrs. pays a personal maintenance contribution to Mr. or Mrs. and a maintenance contribution for the children. Unless both spouses have similar incomes, one or the other will pay a maintenance contribution to the other.
Second, the divorce! During the divorce process (which can take 2-3-4-5-or more years), the court will analyze whether Mr. or Mrs. has been able to find a new job, increase his or her income, etc. It will analyze the situation at point A and at point B (end of the divorce). In most cases, a contribution for the maintenance of the children will be pronounced (even if there is joint custody, a contribution to the maintenance is possible if the income of one is much higher than that of the other).
With regard to the post-marital maintenance, it will depend on many factor, the salary is of course one them (past, actual and future expectation). It is easy to oblige the husband or the wife to find a better job, to get back to work, and therefore to limit their contribution to maintenance for a period (2-3-4-5 years). The essential factor to take in consideration is the fact that Mr. or Mrs. is able to live with his/her salary by doing some concession (take a smaller apartment, changes his/her expenses, privilege public transport instead of having a car [aka leasing]). Every case is different, and currently there is plenty judgement where there isn’t any post-marital maintenance despite the (huge) difference in term of revenue.
In your case, if during the separation procedure until the end of the divorce you go from 120k to 180k and Mrs. has remained at 60k. Then yes, the chances of paying her a post-marital maintenance are great.
HOWEVER! The child maintenance contribution in will ALWAYS overtake the spouse maintenance contribution. So if your income and expenses don’t allow you to make a contribution for her, she won’t benefit from it! But in reality, she will benefit from the children’s contributions.
In all of this, the law (the court) is not going to take into account the fact that you’ve worked hard to get where you are. That’s not important. What’s important is what happens after the divorce - that the children can grow up comfortably.
A Divorce by joint request or an orrendous divorce will in the end, end up for you to lose a lot of money, even if you manage to stick to your 33/67 strategy. In the end, you won’t be able to rest easy until your children become independent (if you have childrend). And that’s assuming the divorce hasn’t had a drastic effect on their mental health.
The only advice I have for you is not to think about it and, on the contrary, to do everything in your power to avoid ever being in a divorce situation. This is lousy advice from a former law clerk who’s seen a lot of divorce. But unless you get divorced amicably (and even then), the only winners in this story are the lawyers.
A mariage contract only provides psychological “security”. But it’s clear that your wife doesn’t think about that. As far as she’s concerned, she’ll live happily with you and cut back on her work hours to enjoy her kids, her friends, and her husband. The FIRE movement, investments, early retirement? She doesn’t care, especially if she doesn’t understand the concept or doesn’t want to understand it and just wants to live her life.
To sum up what others said: if you are cleary way to much focus on a financial aspect and about the mustachian movement, you are clearly not ready to marry her and maybe this could be the worst move to do for your mental health.
Despite this, if you are someone with strong traditionnal path for living: get a job, get a house, get a spouse and get children. It may be the good opportunity to think about your priority in life and what kind of life you want to enjoy.
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I feel that your way of looking at financial security for yourself is absolutely valid. Your point of view may seem selfish, and you appear a bit cold (no offense), yet as an excessive altruist I can tell you it’s not bad to stand up for yourself. I’ve often ended up in situations where I felt uncomfortable because I wanted to please others.
I don’t think that there is a Standard Model of Marriage that you have to conform to. Values about and the importance of money is highly individual. You are free to try and negotiate to get what is important to you.
Values vary. There are lots of women that would agree to a marriage contract. Your partner is not one of them. Maybe you haven’t explained them to her in a way that she can understand. Or she hasn’t made her point in a way that you can accept.
In any case, if you can’t reach an agreement, either you relent because of all the things you still have in common. Or you move on.
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Real bad divorces are the one where both parents barely earn enough to live decently, and with a divorce they are screwed. Ironically, I find that the people giving more importance to a marriage contract are the rich ones, whose life would not fundamentally change with a divorce.
I think you give too much importance to money. Money is not the limiting factor in your life anymore.
In your financial situation, the worst thing that can happen is that you will FIRE later, or that you won’t afford some luxuries later in life.
That should not be considered a big risk compared to losing the love of your life and parenting your kids though a divorce.
The key point you should focus on now is if you trust your future wife to be your wife and mother of your kids. You are living only one life, divorcing is a sure way to greatly worsening it. Try to take all measures to avoid it.
Thanks to your dedication to your career and your good choices, you already almost eliminated the money risk in your life. Don’t focus on it more than necessary.
We do contracts to protect each other against misbehavior of other people in a business relationship. I may be idealistic, but I find it very sad to think about your marriage in these terms.
(Of course all of this is just my opinion)
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We should invite divorcees to this discussion.
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Trust me you don’t want to hear them 
My parents got divorced and I can say that even though my father had a comfortable salary, the financial impact was enormous, between the alimony he had to pay for many years and the transfer of part of his 2nd pillar, savings and house to my mother. As he felt guilty for the divorce, he didn’t really fight against the request of my mother’s lawyers, so she got a max out of him.
He couldn’t really enjoy his money most of the years as the financial pressure was important, he couldn’t buy his dream car, or have any crazy plan because of that. Now that he is retired, his pension is really not what he could have expected, again he will not be able to do crazy things and that will be so until the rest of his life.
On the other end, this wealth transfer helped a lot my mother. It allowed her to buy a flat of her own and to keep working at 80% until the end of her career. And now that she is retired, because of the transfer of the 2nd pillar of my father, she had too much money in it and they just gave her back some money cash.
In no way am I saying that my mother should feel lucky or privileged because of the divorce, the psychological impact and damages were huge and all the money in the world couldn’t repair that. But if we look only at the financial side, for sure the pressure was mostly on my father. He had to be able to provide for the alimony and so on. At the time of the divorce, the court based the alimony on an estimated salary that my father should be able to earn, so he lost a lot in term of work flexibility. If my father decided to change his career sector and go in field that pays less, lost his job or reduced is working % etc…, that would be his decision and shouldn’t impact the alimony.
Honestly, from what I could see from my parents, it doesn’t encourage me to get married as I believe you can live happy and prove that you love and are committed to your partner without being married.
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Is both pillar split 50/50 only what has been accrued during marriage or from marriage until retirement?
Also was sole house ownership “given” to your mother, while you father should rent/save for new Re from his pocket?
Did your father have to support your mother financially even she worked 80% or salary difference was big?
I assume alimony for the kids only? But even then, it seems strange they just take fixed % from your current salary, instead evaluating how much kids costs.
I don’t have all the insights and exact split of the divorce settlement but I know that my father was really generous with my mother and gave pretty much everything that she asked for. He was fed up with the lawyers fight and wanted to end it as soon as possible and in a way it was his way to protect us from the divorce drama as my mother was getting what she asked for and she was not trying to make us hate our dad or so.
For the alimony, it was for my brother, me and my mother as well. He had to pay until we were both 25, and for my mother it was until she retired.
I don’t think my father is the best example as he gave way too much, as he faulted and we were staying with our mother which had a normal job, he felt like it was the price to pay for his mistakes, he wanted the best for us and to take his responsibilities. Plus, in the past divorce were not as common as today so I guess he was not fully informed and didn’t realize the consequences of certain things he accepted. He was expecting his career to go up and up and up but it actually stalled so he couldn’t create any additional income to compensate the divorce cost.