Poor Little Rich Women

I get it, there is a disparity between what the husbands use at their own disposal and what they provide to their wives under the prenup. This is different than the "common property" approach which most states use to say what comes into the marriage contract (of which the State is the primary party to) is equally owned by both husband and wife.

Beyond just the contractual agreement that the wife agrees to have some certain or calculated amount less at her daily disposal, it's strange to me that a husband would provide more to himself than his wife, just like a CEO pays himself more than he pays his employees who are not in a partnership, but in a marriage, you would expect an equal partnership regardless of how well or badly the breadwinner does, or how industrious of a wife/mother is in the home.

By the way, I grew up around this sort of stuff though my parents' wealth is an order of magnitude smaller than the type contemplated in this article. A couple in my family has a similar type of dollars and agreement with her husband. It is the cause of much distress for the wife. Of course you could say she can leave at any time, or made a bad "business" decision, but there are real issues that a subservient wife with no recent job experience goes through, especially when a "loving" relationship is involved. She thought he would be kinder and more generous to her, especially considering how well his business has done over the years. I will point out that the child grew up to be an under-achiever so perhaps she didn't live up to the contract. I don't know.

As an example of the disparity at their household in one of the richest towns in the US: he purchased satellite equipment for a hobby at the cost of $2M. She has no such hobbies and gets an allowance of $200/week which covers groceries and home/yard care, which of course she manage as the house wife. The leftover is her walking around money. He takes exotic vacations with his buddies but she has to request approval to visit her friends. She took a recent vacation and stressed that while her girlfriend wanted to stay at a fancy hotel, she was trying to figure out if she could swing it or have to stay at the Comfort Inn (Boohoo, I know, I earn and pay for my own crap myself and of course am envious of the rest of her lifestyle.)

I have witnessed myself his sex drive taking lead and her cutting an evening short with guests to pleasure him. I could only wonder.

In this case, I think the husband is an asshole, but it goes to show how these sorts of relationships can turn out/not evolve the way you might expect over the years. I once jokingly called her a "gold digger" as she was complaining about her issues which seem sort of ludicrous considering my own reality. She was genuinely hurt and said "That's what [the husband] calls me and it's not true. I really admire him and gave up my [posh]career to have a life with him."

As another completely different example, a girl I went to high school with told me her father left $2,000 cash on the kitchen table each morning for the mother and two daughters to use that day. She seemed like everything was wonderful and had stories of being bribed with horses and travel to get good grades.

/r/TrueReddit Thread Parent Link - nytimes.com