[throway_bayarea]

Step 1: If your girlfriend is also your best friend then move to step 2.

Step 2: if you both want kids then move to step 3.

Step 3: If you want to protect your assests against your best friend with whom you want to build a family, go ahead and setup a prenup. Though, you might get stuck at that step because you'd put your money or your career first then your wife (best friend and mother of your kids) second. Why not? It's totally possible. Thought, I would NOT recommend a marriage in this case because it doesn't make any sense.

Step 4: let's say you skipped step 3 and made it to step 4. At this stage, you can pop the question, it makes sense.

Congrats.

[Gustomaximus]

Step 2: I would say its more "Do you both agree on wanting kids or not."

Step 2.1: If kids, what is your religions position for our children.

Step 2.2: Ensure sex drives and preferences aligned. Invariably its money or sex that result in marriage break-up so you want to make sure there is a compatibility here.

Step 3: Have to disagree about if you want a pre-nup not recommending a marriage. I would easily admit I'm more practical than romantic, but I see no problem with this conversation. I believe marriages would last longer if people were more practical about discussing these things rather than believing their commitment to each other overrides these realities. In my experience couples often haven't discussed money/religion/children core requirements. For modern relationships, I'd discuss money and assets before you got to marriage as I assume you'd move in together. This is a better point for this conversation and agreement given its more 'trial stage' and with defacto laws in many countries your assets sharing starts at this point.

...anyway I'm 15 years in with my partner with 2 kids and yet to marry. So not sure I fit the social norm.

[throway_bayarea]

I actually was the practical one in the relationship. I brought up the prenup to my wife before we got married because I had some descent cash in my savings after working hard for 10 years. I also wanted to protect a little software company I was running on the side thinking I'd turn it into a big thing one day. The first reaction was pretty bad. Again, she's the romantic one and I'm the practical one so she took a big hit. Not because I wanted to protect my money, she understood that, it was the idea of a potential divorce that made her sad. Especially when you're in a marriage mood :) Again, I'm super practical and I always look for the worst case scenario. Thought, we worked it out, talked about it for a while, I told her about the modern way of getting married and all the BS around it. After reading about prenups online and learned about the process, she told me she would do it. Just because that is what would make me feel happy in the long run. She said if you're happy then I'm happy. That's all I really care about. She made the effort, went out there by herself and found a qualified attorney to setup the paperworks for us. Again, she cried when I first mentioned the prenup in the first place and here she was, running the process for us while I was working long hours. All I had to do was to sign a check in order to secure everything and to move on to the next step (marriage).

I realized how she taught me a lesson. During the whole process all she cared about was me. Not her, not the money or anything else and that made me realized what a true relationship is. I looked at her in the eyes and said "let's get married, forget about feeding attorneys". Money comes and goes but strong relationships are extremely rare. One year after our marriage I quite my full time job in order to focus on my side company. I thought it was time for me to give it a try and to make it big... I went from making $200K/year on a w2 to pretty much $0. She took on a second job to support us and worked long hours to make sure I could continue doing what I loved. I ended up using a lot of my savings because we couldn't afford living in the Bay area with only one income. Long story short, after a few years, my savings is almost gone and my company ended up being a failure. My wife is still there right next to me, she hasn't changed and keeps supporting whatever I do. I could be rich or broke, she doesn't care.

So, make sure to follow the proper steps, money should be out of the scope. Unfortunately, time will tell you if you made the right decision or not. If you're still thinking about a prenup, don't get married... it won't bring anything to your relationship but potential problems.