I know you're not American but I only know about America. I used to live in California and did when I first went MGTOW so I'll copy from some notes this summer I originally made just for myself. Look for each of the 6 concepts I mentioned here and see if they apply in your region. If nothing else think of this as a general guide and know YMMV.

TLDR is that you can't. You can't protect yourself. No matter how lock tight you think your logic is no lawyer worth their salt will guarantee you perfect protection. TFM did a great video on this but he has a lot of anecdotes from news articles. I feel it illustrated the point well but its still specific to that case. If you'd rather just read the personal research that I did then see below, I spent several hours gathering this together.

Key concepts here screwing men over are

1) Community Property

2) No Fault Divorce

3) Prenups Must Be Fair

4) You can NEVER get out of paying child support

5) if money ends up changing hands for alimony or child support odds are you will pay MORE than she will.

6) Common Law Marriage - Thankfully this doesn't exist in California but it may well exist in Canada or HK.

GREAT WEBSITES

www.CAdivorce.com

http://www.divorcenet.com/states/california

MY PERSONAL NOTES

The reality of legal principles that actually govern marriages in California.

• Community Property State – marriage assets are split 50/50. Almost nothing is set aside as personal property, with almost everything being “marriage” and joint assets. The only exceptions to this are gifts, inheritances, and if the prenup specifically mentioned it like maybe certain real property or something. Without a prenup it actually doesn’t matter whose name is on the property; if it was acquired during the marriage its community property. A prenup CAN protect against this. If you have a house as separate property before the marriage, and your spouse significantly contributed to the value of the house, they would have claim to it without a prenup but you can limit that claim WITH one. Interestingly earnings are community property. This can be limited with a prenup but normally your spouse would get half of what you earn and anything that that half buys (thus you can earn your own money and pay off your own house but they “contributed” their community property portion of your earnings towards the house and they can lay claim to it). This seems like one of the most flexible areas of prenup law supported by this direct quote here “A prenup can regulate all aspects of how separate and community property assets and liabilities are treated. In the case of a financially independent couple with their own resources, a prenup can provide that all income, assets and debts acquired or incurred remain separate property. On the other hand, a couple might agree that all property accumulated during the marriage remain community property but that certain property brought into the marriage, such as family businesses or funds, always remains separate. Since each situation is different, a prenup should be carefully tailored to meet the circumstances of each couple.”

• No Fault Divorce – California, like many other states, is a no fault divorce state. This means that the petitioner of the divorce only cites “irreconcilable differences” and does not have to point to a “fault” in the marriage. This means the divorce can be initiated by anyone for any reason and plays into the community property idea as well. Interestingly enough if you DO want a divorce then there is nothing the other partner can do to stop you, they can only delay the inevitable.

  • No Common Law Marriage – according to the research I’ve read there is no common law marriage in California. This applies even if you live together and present yourself as a married couple as long as you don’t intend on getting married. This is great news but is slightly undermined by a court case from 1976 called Marvin v Marvin discussed below.
  • Stuff - Marvin Claim – this court case says non-marital partners have the right to enforce expressed or implied agreements for support or property sharing in the event of a separation. Such a claim must be brought to court in a civil action. This is sometimes called Palimony and relies on 3 basic principles and some specific issues 1) how long did they live together, 2) did one support the other, 3) did they jointly contribute to buying property. Specific issues cover working for the other or the other’s company, jointly creating things of value, and expressed or implied agreements of shared ownership of property. The expressed or implied warranties, as I’ve learned from legal class, can be very complicated, tricky, and binding indeed.

• Children Custody Mediation – Evidently many California custody battles are fought via mediation. This seems like a bad deal for me as I’m going to assume I would be the better parent of any potential children and mediation seems like it puts both partners on equal footing more than a court. Maybe I’m wrong since it’s a Community Property state but whatever. This sounds like something that can be taken to court and mediation might only apply during temporary custody fights that take place before a court hearing.

• Income - Alimony – sometimes called spousal support, is still real and ongoing. California law (Family Code Section 4336(a)) says that where a marriage is "of long duration," the court "retains jurisdiction" indefinitely after the divorce is completed, unless the spouses agree otherwise. That seems scary as fuck. Especially AFTER a divorce why would the state hold jurisdiction over the decisions of the divorce. I guess that’s a way to enforce alimony payments and stuff but whatever. Any marriage over 10 years in length is automatically considered of long duration but marriages of shorter times can be considered as well. What’s fucked up the most is that its indefinite security for the winning party. Commonly courts will award alimony for half the duration of the marriage.

• Prenups must be fair – This is up for the court to decide during divorce proceedings, not really up to the lawyers and signatories. If a prenuptial agreement is deemed unconscionable then it is invalid. I suppose this is to protect an unsuspecting spouse. Legal resources I’ve read/listened to INSIST that you have independent legal representation, one for each spouse, before signing a prenuptial agreement. Otherwise one spouse could claim ignorance or intoxication or was signing under duress and such claims would invalidate a prenup. One example given in waiving spousal support states that if a complete ban on support was signed, a long term marriage took place, one spouse was significantly wealthier, and such a lack of alimony would leave the other partner destitute the judge “may think twice” about the fairness of that clause and could throw it out. One suggestion to mitigate this is if one spouse is significantly wealthier than the other is to create a modest formula of support based on the income gap and length of the marriage. This would only nip the unfairness in the bud though and not eliminate it, but the ball would be in your court so to speak. If there is a significant difference between what the courts would do with and without the agreement then its likely they will rule on it being fair/unfair. This covers things such as ridiculous provisions as well. A no weight gain clause, frequency of sexual intercourse, and other wild haired ideas will get the prenup thrown out.

  • Other prenup specifics - This extends to oral or written agreements as to the state of the prenup at different times. One woman cited by a news article got her prenup thrown out because she claimed her husband said orally that they would dissolve the prenup once children were born. 3 kids later she divorces, and gets way more control and money than the prenup accounted for. If you get a prenup after the engagement but before the marriage then she can claim coercion. As mentioned earlier without legal representation she can get the prenup thrown out as well.