The gold-digger's guide to avoiding a pre-nup.

For the writer's workshop this week, I was emailed the following prompts:

1.) Prenuptial Agreement...Yay or Nay? Explain.
2.) You're not always right…no you're not…no you're not…no you're not….tell us about a time you were wrong.
3.) Describe the last thing that made you laugh really hard.
4.) A letter to your future teen.
5.) Valentine's Day is coming...share a favorite Valentine's tradition.

Let's look at #5.  Fave tradition is pretending like I don't care about Valentine's Day without being a bitter black-wearer, and trying to schedule fun single-girl activities but not ever finalizing anything.  Number 4: I don't think I have the forethought for that right now.  I'm barely out of my teen years myself, and the idea of having kids freaks me out enough already.  Let's not make them teenagers.  Three:  My students make me laugh really hard.  Unfortunately, they aren't like the kids last year who gave me story after story of side-splitting anecdotes; these are just innocently, adorably hilarious children, so you kind of have to know them to appreciate them.  Two:  I don't remember the last time I was wrong.  And I'm not trying to be funny, and I'm not trying to be cocky.  I just really have no idea.

That brings us to shiny numero uno.  Since I have all kinds of experience with men, money, legal proceedings, manipulation, Kanye West, alchemy, marriage, and general tomfoolery, let me tell you about the magical pre-nuptial agreement.

Ladies, the pre-nup is a ploy.  It's a way for a man to try and get what is his without recognizing that you were part of getting it for him.  Who cooked the dinner, the maid?  Possibly.  But who told her what he likes to eat?  YOU did!  Who designed the beautiful interior of your decadent home?  The interior designer, of course!  But who acted as the liaison between his tastes and her fancies, his checking account and her manicured, money-grubbing hands?  Why, YOU, who else?

A man likes to think that, when he's the breadwinner, he's the one who's in charge of everything.  He pays for everything, yes, no one questions that.  But you are the one who keeps everything in order.  You have a special set of skills, ladies.  You are able to run a household without ever doing a bit of the work, and you've grown talented at delegation of menial tasks.  This isn't a skill set you can take just anywhere, and your husband provided the environment in which those skills were cultivated.  He obligated you to become accustomed to that way of life just as though you were enrolled in a degree program in household management.  Aren't you entitled to work in the field in which you've earned your degree?

The man doesn't think so.

That pre-nup is like providing you with a GED when you really have earned your bachelor's.  You are skilled in maintaining your way of life, and you should be allowed to do so whether he is still your husband or not.  He made you who you are; don't let him keep you from being who you are meant to be.  You deserve to keep your clothing tastes, your cars, your jewelry, your housing arrangements, your STATION!  You've earned it!!

So, ladies, fight the pre-nup.  It doesn't matter that he made all kinds of money working long hours and you stayed at home looking after domestic aides and fabric samples.  You were both being productive the whole time.  You shared the work, and you ought to be able to share the wealth.

Stand up for yourselves and your talents.  Sign on the line and you won't get a dime.