In Laws Made Me Sign a Prenup Becuz They Thought I Was Poor. Now That I'm Worth 5x More Than Them...

In-laws made me sign a prenup because they thought I was poor. Now that I'm worth five times more than them, they want to dissolve it and are trying to force my wife to divorce me. Eight years ago, my wife and I got married, but before that, my in-laws decided to make me sign a prenup, and I found that a bit insulting at the time because they had made it quite clear to me that I was not really welcome in their family.

So, making me sign the prenup just felt like even more of a slap in the face. I had been working in sales when I met my wife, but after having been with her for one year, I decided to quit my job and start my own electronics brand. We were both 27 at the time, and by the time I finally got around to officially starting my business, I was almost 28.

My wife had been supportive of me throughout the process, and she was the happiest when I finally got to start working on my dream business. Her parents, however, were not that happy because they thought that I was living off of her money, which was true to a certain extent. She was definitely supporting me because I didn't have a steady income, but it's not like I was completely relying on her.

Anyway, at 29, I decided to propose to her, and we got married within a year. A couple of months before our wedding, her parents came to me and told me that I needed to sign a prenup that stated that in the case of a divorce, all our assets and money would be kept separate, and I could not stake a claim to anything that was hers, and vice versa. In the case of a divorce, I would also have to repay my wife and my in-laws for having supported me while I was working on my business, since they had occasionally sent money to my wife to help us out while we were living together, and it was a reminder that I was indebted to them, which I thought was kind of unnecessary at that point in time.

I'm pretty sure that they included the second part of the clause that even my wife would not be able to stake a claim to anything that was mine, so it would all be fair. The agreement even stated that if we decided to have a joint account, the money from that would also be divided on the basis of who had contributed more, because my in-laws had just assumed that throughout our marriage, my wife would be supporting me. When they approached me with it, they had told me that signing off on that would be the only way for them to feel safe about accepting me as their son-in-law.

It was quite insulting for several reasons. Firstly, because they had just assumed that I would always rely on my wife and would never be able to make something of myself, which was an unfair assumption in itself, because I was already working quite hard at the time to get my business going so that I wouldn't be a burden on my wife or anybody else. Secondly, even before I quit my job to start my own business, they had never liked me; they had a problem with me right from the beginning, from the first time that my wife had brought me to her house to introduce me to her parents because they did not think that I was good enough to be dating their daughter.

By "good," I actually just mean "rich. " For context, my in-laws have a real estate firm and have been doing quite well ever since they started. They come from financially well-off backgrounds themselves, so all of them have grown up comfortably.

My parents had normal jobs, though my dad was a high school football coach and my mom was the manager at a nearby coffee shop. So, I didn't exactly have to struggle with money growing up, but I definitely did not have the kind of money that my in-laws did. And right from the beginning, they used to look down on me.

It was the usual snarky remarks, mean comments disguised as jokes, and just an insufferable and weird attitude around me in general. I never said a word about it, even though my wife got quite worked up about their behavior, because I did not want them to know that they had managed to get under my skin. I believe that the best way to deal with them was by not paying any heed to them because I knew that my wife loved me and I loved her, and that was good enough for both of us.

I did not need them to approve of us. So even when they approached me with the prenup, I felt a bit insulted, but I signed it. When they took it to my wife, she was quite offended, but I had discussed it with her beforehand, and she signed it as well without any complaint.

Both of us knew exactly what they were trying to accomplish; they were just trying to play mind games with me and insult me right before the wedding so that I would maybe back off or something, and they would be able to accomplish what they had set out to do right from the beginning: sideline me and somehow get their daughter to be with somebody more appropriate by their standards. Unfortunately for them, they haven't been able to do that so far, and they won't be able to do that ever because my wife and I are always going to be on one team. That was several years ago, and since then, I have made a lot of progress in my career.

My business grew, and. . .

I kept working at it, and in the last two years, it took off exponentially and started doing better than it ever had. All of a sudden, I guess the social media marketing and all the hard work that I had put into my company had started to finally pay off. Whatever it was, something had worked in our favor greatly, and as of now, I'm worth almost five times more than what my in-laws are.

So now, of course, they wanted to discuss the prenup—all of a sudden. They came to visit us a couple of days back, and we were all having dinner together. But after dinner, once our son was in bed, they got us both to sit down together and told us that they had been giving it a lot of thought and now they finally thought that it was time to speak to their lawyers and have the prenup dissolved.

My wife looked surprised, and even I was pretty taken aback for an instant, but then I decided to decline. I told them to their faces that I did not think that it was necessary since they themselves had claimed that the prenup was the only way they would feel safe with accepting me as their son-in-law, and I did not want them to lose the safety net. I was obviously being sarcastic, and I guess they picked up on that, even though I tried to sound as sincere as I possibly could.

They told me that several years had passed since then and we had a son together now, so they no longer had any reason to have any doubts about me. But I still declined, and I told them that I was not open to discussing this anymore. When I said that, they started to get agitated and told me that it was their idea to have the prenup in the first place, so now I should respect whatever they say and have it dissolved, since they don't think it's necessary anymore.

And because they are older and more experienced, they think that we should take their advice to avoid any bitterness in the future. Honestly, I had no idea what they were even talking about, but after some bickering, I told them that I had no interest in talking about the prenup anymore, and since my wife and I had no plans of getting divorced anytime soon, they should drop it as well. But they simply refused to let it go until it turned into a fight, and all the drama that we had been sweeping under the rug for so many years started coming out.

I finally brought up how they had only designed the prenup and brought it to me because they wanted to humiliate me and remind me that I was not in the same tax bracket as them. Now that I had surpassed them, they suddenly wanted to pretend as if none of that had ever happened. Their point was that they only wanted their daughter's future to be secure because, in case I turned out to be a gold-digging husband who was going to leech off of her for as long as we were married, they wanted her to at least have a safety net in the form of that prenup.

They were just looking out for their daughter. So that went on for a while, and after some time, I was too tired to keep arguing with them anymore. I decided to tell them that I was done and wanted them to leave.

I thought I was being perfectly reasonable by asking them to leave because we were getting too loud and my son was asleep, so I did not want to wake him up. Besides, it was quite late at night at the time, so I just wanted them to go away, and then I would be able to get some sleep and take my mind off this. However, they took offense at that, and they told me that the only reason I had even been able to get to the place that I am today was because of the support that their daughter and they had given me.

There, I would beg to differ because they had never supported me; they had only ever supported their daughter. I know that in the beginning I had mentioned that they would occasionally send money to us while I was still working on my business, and I'm really grateful to them for that, but that was not for me; that was for their daughter. We could have easily survived without their help as well because I did have some savings of my own.

The only times that they would send money was when my wife would ask them for it, and that money was specifically for her own purpose because sometimes she would run short after all the household expenses for us. I had offered to dip into my savings several times, but she told me not to because her parents had the money, and she knew it. As long as they were sending it to her, they would not have an issue with it.

So technically, they did support us, but they only did it for the sake of their daughter. They never had any faith in me, and as for supporting me emotionally—let's not even go there. They had never made me feel like a part of the family, and they had no right to tell me that I wouldn't have gotten to the place that I am in today without their support.

I think I could have easily done it, and they had no role to play in it, so they had no right to be throwing it in my face like that. When I said that to them, they started yelling at me even louder, and the fight escalated. Just got worse because they thought that I was being grateful by telling them that they did not have anything to do with my success.

After one point, they turned to my wife and told her that she needed to make a choice now because they had tried to support our relationship for as long as they could, but this was getting out of hand since I refused to acknowledge their contributions at all. Somehow, my wife managed to convince them to leave, and since then, we haven't spoken. She has stayed in touch with her parents and has been trying to get them to apologize, even though I've told her that I don't really need an apology; I just want them to stay away from me.

They can interact freely and even have the same kind of relationship with our son, but all I want from them is to give me space because I really don't feel like I'm interested in repairing my relationship with them right now, especially after everything that went down the other day. Since the fight had been a long time coming, I’m honestly surprised that we were able to avoid the kind of emotional confrontation for so many years. But anyway, now it’s done and dusted, and I just want to stay away from them.

However, I recently learned from my wife that while she was trying to convince them to apologize to me for all the things that they said and for treating me badly all these years, they were trying to brainwash her into divorcing me. Last evening, she came to me with her phone and showed me a bunch of messages. She seemed pretty upset because she had been trying really hard to get things back to normal since my son really loves his grandparents, and she just didn’t want things to get weird with the family, and neither did I, to be honest.

But after reading those messages, I'm not so sure anymore because they were refusing to acknowledge the fact that they had ever treated me badly and were acting as if they had every right to treat me the way that they did, even if it was humiliating for me. Not only were they defending their own behavior, but they were also accusing me of being ungrateful for support, which again, I don’t think there was any. They think that that’s the reason why my wife should start rethinking her marriage to me and consider a divorce right now before it gets too late because I clearly don’t love her enough to respect her family.

Since I don’t want to dissolve the prenup, I’m also obviously suspicious of her now that I have some money of my own. It’s all rubbish that they are trying to feed to her so that she gets brainwashed into divorcing me, but she isn’t buying any of it. She’s just exhausted trying to talk sense into them, but the only thing that she does think they have a point speaking for is the fact that they have, even if somewhat unwillingly, supported us a little bit financially in our early days when I was working on my business and she was taking care of all the expenses.

However, I don't feel like acknowledging that because it was clearly only because they did not want to say no to their daughter; it had nothing to do with me. If my wife had allowed me to, I would have used my savings to contribute during that time, and we wouldn't have had to rely on them at all. Besides, they had always made sure that I never felt accepted into the family and treated me like I was with my wife only for the money, so it’s not like I did not have to face the consequences of that.

So, I’d rather refuse to be thankful to my in-laws for having supported my wife and me when I was just starting out with my company. I don’t actually have an issue with dissolving the prenup; I just have an issue with the timing of it all because recently, my wife and I just made some big purchases for the both of us, but they are under my name. It’s not a big deal for her, and neither is it for me because I know that we love each other and we’re going to make it work no matter how much we fight.

In fact, we are not even fighting right now; just her opinion that she has placed, and I’m considering it. I’m not even outright rejecting it; divorce is definitely not on the table for us. But I guess my in-laws have been doing some thinking of their own, and that is why they made the situation at this time.

It’s just the timing that got to me, because even now they haven’t stopped suspecting me. They think that they care about my wife and always have their daughter's best interests at heart, but I don’t, which is why they always have to put me down. It’s very obvious that even now, they really haven’t accepted me as part of the family, and that’s what I have an issue with.

As for how much they supported us financially in the beginning, I haven’t repaid them, but if they ask for it, then I have no qualms about paying it all back to them. The only reason I haven’t offered it myself yet is because I did not think that I owed them that. As soon as my business started making money, my wife did not have to spend a single dollar out of her own pockets.

I’ve taken great care, and at this point in time, I think we can call it even. Whatever money they had contributed had been for their daughter, so it had always been given to her directly. I had no part to play in it, and my wife hasn't had to spend much from some personal expenses since my business started making money.

So, I think my debt has been repaired in that way. But even after that, if my in-laws think that I should pay them back now, I would gladly do it if that gets them off my back. Update One: Hi everyone!

So, it has been a week since that fight that I had with my in-laws, and from what I have read so far, people have mixed opinions on my situation. But I have made up my mind: I'm going to return all the money. I do have an arbitrary figure, and I'm doing well for myself now, so I don't want to owe them anything.

Neither do I want to constantly feel like I'm indebted to them forever, and I need to worship the ground that they walk on because of that. I want to be able to stand up for myself without having them throw this in my face, and the only way to deal with this problem is by paying them back all the money that they claim to have supported us by contributing in our initial days. I discussed this idea with my wife, and she thinks it's good enough, since her parents have not stopped trying to brainwash her into filing for a divorce from me because they think that I have disrespected them several times, even though they have never taken into account the fact that they have also disrespected me and even my family on several occasions.

If they can't handle it when I am treating them the same way that they have treated me and my family for years, I don't think they had the right to be dishing it out in the first place either. Besides, I think I was quite polite with them in the beginning before the argument started, and they started bringing up personal stuff and going below the belt. But with them, they have always been outright against me and have never even pretended that they like me or my family.

So, I think the way that I behaved with them was quite reasonable after spending so many years suppressing my feelings and trying my best to be respectful to them. Now, by paying back the money, I will owe them absolutely nothing since they have never supported me emotionally or even pretended like they accept me, and both my wife and I are really exhausted trying to deal with the situation at hand. So, we are hoping that writing them a check will solve all our problems.

Usually, that's not the way I go in relationships since I know that throwing money at something will not solve the problem. But with them, I think that's the way to go because they are literally that materialistic and selfish. I can't imagine any other parents in the world trying to ruin their own daughter's marriage, especially when a kid is involved, because they think that their own ego is bigger and more important than everything else.

It just speaks volumes about how much they actually care for her and how much they like to pretend that they have her best interests at heart. But the reality is that the only thing they care about is their image, their ego, and themselves. Update Two: So, earlier today, my wife spoke to her parents and told them that I was ready to write them a check and end this whole situation because it was getting exhausting to deal with, even for her.

And since all of this had started because of the money, maybe writing them a check to repay them for everything that they had done for us in the past is going to fix things. But of course, that did not fix anything, and they got offended at the suggestion itself that they could be bought out. They told my wife that this was not about the money, which is strange because, from the way they were behaving the other day while we were fighting, it felt like it was all about the money.

However, now all of a sudden, it's about the respect that I have never shown them, which is insane because I can literally claim the same thing for them. My wife and I don't even know what they are talking about because I have always behaved very politely and civilly with them. It's they who have always had an attitude with me.

I have literally never disrespected them, but they think that this one incident of me refusing to acknowledge and be thankful for the fact that they had supported us a little bit in the beginning is equal to years and years of them taking advantage of my love for their daughter and constantly trying to instigate me or my family members by being as disrespectful as they possibly can. It is not the same thing at all. And at this point, even my wife agrees that they didn't support me as much as they're claiming they did.

On top of that, I've already said that I'm going to pay them back, so I won't owe them anything. We don't see where the problem is. If this is going to be about respect instead of money, I really don't think that I owe anything to them for reasons that I have already mentioned.

Thankfully, they are not speaking to me at the moment; they are only interacting with their daughter, and my wife is completely on my side. They are still trying to brainwash her into filing for a divorce, and now they've started telling her that she needs to start taking our son under her wing and stuff. I really can't imagine resuming a normal relationship with them after all of this.

It's just pathetic that ruining our marriage won't. . .

Be enough for them. They need my wife to file for custody because of their own ego. I mean, I think this is reason enough for me not to respect them at all because this is the kind of treatment that I have been receiving ever since I met my wife.

Update: It has been slightly over two weeks since that fight that I had with my in-laws, and for the past couple of days, my wife has not been responding to them because she thinks it's a lost battle. She had tried her best to explain to her parents why they were wrong, but they kept telling her to file for a divorce, and she got tired of trying to fix the situation all by herself. They had made it clear that they were not interested in fixing things anymore, so she had stopped replying to them.

That's why they decided to show up at our house today. I was the one who opened the door to them, and they ignored me, walking straight in and calling for my wife. At this point, I’m not even surprised that they are acting like this.

After accusing me of being disrespectful to them, they are just hypocrites, and they will always be just like this. Anyway, I didn't even say anything; I just kept waiting for my wife to come out. After a while, when she did, she immediately told her parents that she was not interested in speaking to them unless they were ready to acknowledge our side of things.

They started telling her that they were only there to confront her about her behavior because she was going the same way that I did, becoming increasingly disrespectful to them as well. “If I was indebted to them, so was she, and she shouldn’t forget that. ” When her parents made that statement, she immediately lost her temper and started shouting at them—and rightfully so.

She was their daughter; she hadn't asked them to do anything for her. They had just done things for her, and now they did not have the right to hold it against her since it had all been done of their free will. If they had wished, they could have easily declined, and we could have still made it work without their help.

It's not like other parents don't do stuff like this for their kids, but they do it out of love, not because they want to throw it in their faces later like my in-laws. As for gratitude, we had tried our best to be grateful to them and show them respect in spite of their ridiculous behavior with me and my family over the past years. Even then, we hadn't said anything and had quietly put up with it because we did not want to create any drama and wanted to be respectful of them so that the peace of the family was maintained.

But at this point, it was impossible not to stand up against them. Now they have to realize that they cannot constantly demand to be respected; sometimes they have to earn it, and this is one of those times. So my wife ended up arguing with them for quite some time, but I said nothing and just stood in the corner because I did not want to interact with them at all.

After some time, my wife started getting agitated, so I went to her side to help calm her down. My in-laws started freaking out at me, blaming me for all of this because apparently, it had all started because of my refusal to dissolve the prenup. I had to correct them; I told them that this had not started because of that.

This had started when they decided that they were going to treat me badly just because I was not from the same circle of rich kids that they had expected their daughter to pick from while choosing a life partner. That’s what they were really mad about for all these years, and that’s why they had always treated me badly. But I had put up with it simply because I did not want to make a whole thing out of it.

However, they couldn’t get away with it all the time, and they needed to realize that, which is why I had refused to dissolve the prenup—because they need to know that I am not going to be a puppet for them and do as they say. Things got even more heated after that since now I was also involved, but I did not let them get to me and kept my cool. They kept shouting at me, saying horrible things and cursing me out to make me mad, but I just refused to let them get under my skin because I knew that that's exactly what they wanted, and that made them even more upset.

Then they finally realized that they wouldn’t be able to get to me, and they told my wife that she needed to seriously choose between her family and me. She declared that she was going to choose her family, which meant that she was going to choose her husband and her son. She told her parents to get out of her house and that they were going to be receiving the check soon.

After that, we would be done and dusted. Her parents were shocked because they obviously had not expected this reaction from her. They had probably just believed that they were going to get another chance because that's what usually happens.

But, honestly, my wife and I have had enough. When they tried to argue after that, my wife told them that she was going to call the police and have them arrested if they did not leave immediately, and they finally left after that. We blocked them everywhere, and we are finally going to cut them out of our lives.

It's going to be hard to explain to our son why he can't see his grandparents anymore, but it's fine; he has another set of grandparents who love him just as much. Maybe in the future, we will be able to reconcile, but for now, this has to be done. We had tried really hard to make things work with them, but unfortunately, they only want things to work on their terms, and that's not going to be possible anymore.

I am honestly glad that I took a stand for myself, and so did my wife. Some things had to be addressed, and we are very happy that we've dealt with the situation now.