The Belle Burden Effect: Why More Couples Are Adding a "Children Exception" to Their Prenups

A story about a prenup

Most people read Belle Burden's best-selling memoir Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage as the story of a marriage coming apart. We read it as the story of a prenup, and how an agreement signed in good faith can look completely different twenty years later.

Since her book came out, couples have been rethinking what they sign. In prenups and postnups created with Neptune this year, fewer couples are waiving spousal support outright, and more than half now include a "children exception."

Neptune CEO Sol Lee sat down with family law attorneys David Gross and Josie Marino to walk through what went wrong for the author, what Neptune couples are doing differently, and what every couple can learn from it.

The prenup Belle Burden signed

Belle Burden came from significant family wealth, so when she got married her mother insisted on a prenup. Her lawyer suggested splitting marital property 50/50. However, her fiancé asked for title control instead: whoever's name is on an asset owns it, and anything in both names is shared.

Neither attorney found that alarming on its own. "Somebody with generational wealth, looking to protect it, makes sense to me so far," David said. Josie agreed: "I'm not offended by the title control structure. I'd just want to know more about what happened during the marriage."

A divorce twenty years later

Over the next twenty years, Belle stepped back from her career to raise their three children. She used her trust money to buy their Manhattan apartment and Martha's Vineyard house, and put both names on each title. As Josie explained, under title control, "anything in her husband's name goes to him, anything in Belle's name goes to her, and anything joint is shared." Her husband, who worked for a hedge fund, kept his earnings in an account in his name alone, so they stayed his.

At the start of the Covid lockdown, a stranger called to tell Belle that his wife and her husband were having an affair. Soon after, her husband asked for a divorce. What followed was a fight that lasted until the day they were due in court. In the end, Belle kept the homes she had paid for but he kept everything he earned.

The person who wanted the prenup for protection was the one left exposed.

On the surface, it reads like a society-page scandal. Take away the zeros, though, and it's one of the most common stories in family law.

The Belle Burden effect

Belle's story turns on a moment most couples can picture: one partner steps back from work to raise children, under terms written before anyone knew that would happen. More couples are now planning ahead for that moment.

In the prenups and postnups lawyers created with Neptune, fewer couples are waiving spousal support outright: 18% so far in 2026, down from 22% last year. Instead, about two thirds now write their own terms, and most of those work as "waived, unless..." Support is off the table by default, but it starts if the couple has children, or if one spouse becomes seriously ill or disabled.

The "children exception" is growing fastest. It now appears in over half of this year's agreements, up from about a third in 2025. Couples are also writing in exceptions for caring for a family member, stepping back from work, and staying married past a set number of years.

The time to plan for a career pause is before it happens, while you're both still writing the terms together.

Here's what the attorneys recommend:

Lesson 1: Protect future you

Terms that seem fair at signing can work very differently once life happens. David described a pattern he sees again and again: "If one of you is working and carrying the household, every dollar they save is only for them. The other isn't saving anything. That one pile gets huge, the other stays flat, and that's a big problem at the end of a divorce."

Good attorneys play these scenarios out for couples before anyone signs:

• What happens to spousal support if one of you steps back to raise children?
• Should support have a floor, or a formula tied to the length of the marriage?
• How do you make up for years without retirement contributions?
• What if one of you gets sick, or needs to care for a family member?
• What if someone inherits money, or a family trust starts paying out?

"You can't only look at the circumstances today," David said. "You have to talk about the future."

Lesson 2: Know what you signed

Josie saw two mistakes in Belle's story. The first was not understanding how the terms would interact with plans for the family, like stepping away from a career. The second was treating the prenup as a box to check. "Sometimes people think, let's just rush to the finish line, sign the prenup, check it off our list and live happily ever after," she said. But the events of a marriage are exactly what make understanding the agreement so important.

Belle has said as much herself. "The more this went on, the more I convinced myself that I couldn't understand the finances, which is absurd, as I'm a corporate lawyer," she told the Los Angeles Times.

Lesson 3: Revisit your plan as life changes

Things change, David said. "People inherit money. People need to relocate. People get laid off and lose their jobs. All of those are conversations that can tell you maybe this term doesn't make sense anymore."

Some prenups build this in. Josie noted that some agreements require couples to sit down, say every fifth anniversary, and review the terms together. If something no longer fits, couples can amend the agreement or sign a postnup that updates or replaces the old terms. No state sets a deadline for a postnup, but both spouses have to agree to it, and it's easier while records are clear.

Even when one partner isn't acting in good faith, David said, the conversation itself can be a wake-up call. "Maybe that conversation turns on the lightbulb, and she says, wait a minute, this isn't going the way I thought."

Lesson 4: Talk about big purchases together

If one partner is putting separate money into a home, talk about how it's titled first. In Belle's case, the title decided everything, and in many states, putting both names on a deed is one of the most common ways separate money becomes shared. "I know that's an awkward conversation," David said. "But if you start the groundwork at the prenup, it's easier and more natural than bringing it up out of nowhere."

What real love looks like

As both attorneys said, the person you marry is not the person you divorce. People change, and circumstances change with them. A prenup works best when it's the start of an ongoing conversation about money, not a document you sign and forget.

Real love talks about money. Not once, but as your life keeps changing. Start that conversation with Neptune.

Neptune is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. David Gross and Josie Marino are independent attorneys.