A Weight-Based Alimony Clause Shows How Specific Prenups Can Get

James Sexton’s most striking example of an enforceable prenup clause tied alimony to a spouse’s weight: for every 10 pounds she gained during the marriage, she would lose $50,000 in alimony per year. Rick Glassman calculated that 50 pounds would mean a quarter-million dollars; Sexton clarified that the reduction applied each year, not just once. The clause did not simply make a one-time adjustment at divorce. As Sexton described it, weight gain changed the amount of support due year after year.

The group turned the premise into a joke about weight-based rewards in the opposite direction, then flipped it around to imagine the consequences of a spouse losing weight. The banter did not settle what a couple ought to do about appearance or attraction. It did make the clause’s unusual feature plain: it translated a physical change during a marriage into a continuing financial consequence after it.

Sexton also described requests made during prenup negotiations, including specific monthly personal-care budgets for cosmetic expenses. When Matt McCusker asked whether a woman could make demands even if the man was bringing more money into the marriage, Sexton said yes. A prenup negotiation, he argued, should be a conversation about what both people need—not simply a set of terms dictated by whoever has more wealth.

The example prompted a broader question from Chris Williamson: if a partner’s weight changes attraction, should the other person say so, and when? That question is not itself a prenup term, but it reaches the same problem from another direction: what changes inside a relationship, what each person expects, and whether those expectations are spoken aloud or left implicit.

James Sexton described a prenup as a way to decide together what would happen if the marriage ended in divorce. The person bringing a prenup is usually the one with more money, he said, and women are not generally the ones initiating them unless, for example, they come from family money. But the person with less wealth can still say what would make the arrangement feel fair and safe.

Sexton’s standard is neither an automatic half of everything nor nothing. If a wealthier person hears that their partner should receive half of everything, Sexton said, they may not see that as fair; but saying the partner should receive nothing is not fair either. A spouse may make choices and sacrifices that diminish their long-term economic capacity while supporting the other person. The question is what that person would need if the marriage ended.

He framed the discussion as part of loving someone: wanting to protect their heart “even from me.” A couple should be able to talk about what they owe each other if the marriage ends in divorce rather than death. For Sexton, financial safety is reciprocal. One person should not fear being taken for everything; the other should not fear being left in the lurch after contributing to the marriage.

That makes the requests themselves part of the negotiation, rather than evidence that one person has misunderstood the purpose of a prenup. Sexton’s example of a personal-care allowance was one kind of request; the broader question was what each person would need to feel secure. He did not offer one arrangement as suitable for every couple. The couple has to say what contributions, risks and future needs matter to them.

That conversation, in his account, has to take account of more than the assets each person brings in at the start. Sexton specifically pointed to the possibility that one spouse’s choices may reduce their long-term economic capacity while they support the other. The source does not prescribe how to calculate that contribution or what dollar amount would be appropriate. Instead, it puts the question to the couple: if the marriage ends, what would be fair to the person who made those sacrifices, and what would allow the other person to feel protected from an unfair financial claim?

A prenup can therefore include requests about the marriage itself as well as what happens at its end. The personal-care budget Sexton mentioned was for spending during the marriage. The weight clause, by contrast, linked a change during the marriage to alimony. These examples differ in what they govern, but both show why a negotiation requires the parties to put specific expectations on the table. Sexton’s point was not that every request should be accepted. It was that both people should be able to say what they need and discuss what they owe each other.

James Sexton said prenups have been around for a long time and have been enforceable “in a real way” since the 1960s, but became much more common among the general population only around 20 years ago. He attributed that change to people recognizing how often marriages fail and asking whether the rules governing a separation should be written by the government or agreed on by the couple.

To illustrate how much attitudes can depend on the perceived likelihood of divorce, he cited a claim about England in the 1890s: in one year, the total number of divorces was around five. When a risk seems vanishingly remote, he argued, people have less reason to arrange protection against it. Separations were not unknown, though. Sexton recalled the figure of someone who “went out for milk and never came back,” describing people who left without formally ending the marriage.

He also cautioned against treating one divorce-rate figure as a clean measure of whether marriages work. People debate whether the rate is 46 or 50 percent, he said, but calculations can include second and third marriages, which have higher divorce rates. The group joked about a person’s divorce “stats” rising through repeated marriages and divorces; Sexton’s point was that counting divorces per person is not the same as counting divorces per marriage.

More fundamentally, a marriage can be over without a divorce decree. Some people separate physically and never complete the paperwork. Others remain together unhappily because they do not want to divide their assets or lose time with their children. Divorce records capture marriages that formally “catastrophically fail,” in Sexton’s phrase, but not every marriage that has effectively ended.

That distinction complicates any attempt to use the formal divorce rate as a complete measure of how marriages are going. A couple may have separated in practice without legally ending the marriage; another may stay together despite being unhappy. In Sexton’s account, the recorded event is not the whole story of whether a relationship has continued to work. The group’s joking explanation of rates above 100 percent also helped distinguish the units being counted: the number of divorces per person can rise when people marry and divorce more than once, and is not the same as the share of marriages that end in divorce.

This is part of the case for deciding in advance what the parties think is fair if the relationship no longer continues. The point is not that every marriage will end in a formal divorce, or that a prenup prevents one. It is that the end of a marriage can take different forms, and couples can choose to discuss what they would owe each other before they have to make those decisions in the middle of a separation.

When Chris Williamson asked whether someone should tell a partner that weight gain has made them less attracted to them, Sexton’s answer was direct: “You have an obligation to say it.” Rick Glassman agreed that partners can help hold each other accountable, provided the conversation is tactful and understood as looking out for the other person’s interests rather than shaming them. Williamson challenged the softer version: if attraction has in fact gone, saying “I’m still attracted to you” would be a lie.

Sexton’s larger point was not to wait until a change has become difficult to discuss. The people who end up sitting across from him, he said, often failed to name changes as they happened. Couples should notice and talk about what is shifting: perhaps they are having less sex, their sex drives have changed, children have altered their routines, or one person no longer feels good about their body.

Naming the change does not dictate what the couple must do. They may both be comfortable with it. Sexton gave the example of a partner who has gained weight and is not stressed about exercise, perhaps wanting a break from it. The other person’s job in that conversation is not automatically to demand a change; the couple first has to establish what is happening and whether they are both comfortable with it.

The distinction is not between a couple that changes and one that does not; Sexton expects change. It is between partners who make their changing expectations explicit and partners who let assumptions accumulate. The same principle applies to the weight example: the question is not only whether attraction has changed, but whether both people know that it has and can discuss what that means for them.

That offers a different answer to Williamson’s example than waiting to raise the issue after 50 pounds. Sexton said he would bring it up earlier, as a question about what is changing and whether it could affect the relationship over time. His examples—sex, children, body image, and exercise—are not a checklist of problems with prescribed solutions. They illustrate the kinds of shifts that can become consequential if neither person names them.

A baseball clip shown during the discussion featured a woman carrying a baby and food trays while the man beside her remained seated, using his phone. The group reacted to the visible contrast: she was managing the child and the food, while he asked whether she had forgotten something and later complained about his meal. The scene brought expectations about care and responsibility into a discussion already concerned with what partners ask of each other.

James Sexton said he sometimes sees women carrying children’s gear when he flies. Rick Glassman said he offers to help and is often turned down, while also describing how difficult it can be to travel with a child and a great deal of equipment. Their exchange leaves room for both parts of the situation: the burden can look uneven from the outside, and an offer of help is not always accepted.

Sexton connected the clip to his experience on the New York subway. Raised to offer his seat to women and to older or infirm passengers, he said that when he offers his seat to a young woman, the response is often strongly positive or strongly negative. He still sees something romantic in that kind of chivalry, while noting that people receive the gesture differently.

The story sits beside the prenup discussion because it turns on expectations that can be shared by one person and rejected by another. Sexton was raised with a particular idea of what a man should offer; the reactions he described show that the same gesture does not mean the same thing to everyone. In the baseball clip, the question was who takes responsibility for a child and the practical work around them. In the prenup discussion, the question was what each person needs to feel safe and treated fairly. Across both, the useful step is not to assume that partners have identical expectations, but to make those expectations discussable.