Protecting assets

ok after a long messy divorce, it’s now been final for 4 months. While I am in no way ready to even begin dating much less something more serious, it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that I could end up married again one day. So…

Is there any way to insure that any asset I have prior to marriage will not be merged into “martial assets subject to division” if things went bad again? For instance, my existing 401K funds… if prior to any marriage I totally stopped contributing to “those” funds, and only to a different one during the marriage, would they and all accumumated gains still be considered “mine”? I have had enough “cloudy issues” that went against me to last two lifetimes.

I know you could likely handle that with a pre-nup… but I always suspected asking someone to sign one is basically stating you feel the marriage might fail… not the best way to start off.

Thanks for any info you can give.

Even without a pre-nup any asset that you own prior to a marriage is your separate property and will remain your separate property so long as you do not gift it to the marriage by re-titling an asset jointly, or use separate cash for martial purchases the funds in a retirement account acquired prior to marriage will likewise remain separate.