u/nyiajthiabkub

My husband and I have a combined net worth of about $3.5 million, although we do have some debt outside our mortgages.
My husband is 70 and I’m significantly younger. He spends quite a bit on nice dinners ($250-$1000+) a couple times a week, expensive trips and hotels ($20,000), again a couple of these a year, etc., mostly things he chooses for us to enjoy together. His philosophy is that he worked hard for his money, doesn’t know how much time he has left, and wants to enjoy it. I understand and agree with that to a point.
My concern is that our timelines are very different. I could potentially have decades ahead of me after he’s gone, and I also worry about future illness or long-term-care expenses. Sometimes I’m so worried about how much we’re spending that I can’t even enjoy the luxury.
For those with $3M+ net worth, do you actually feel rich? Are you frugal or do you spend freely?

I got married about a year ago. My husband has significantly more money and assets than I do. I was actually hesitant about getting married, and he was the one who really wanted marriage. To make me feel more financially secure, he proposed having a prenup drafted that was very favorable to me.
Under our prenup, if we divorce, our assets are essentially divided 50/50 regardless of who brought more into the marriage. I understood and was comfortable with that part.
The part I did not fully understand or think through at the time was what happens at death. The prenup also provides that if he dies first, I receive his estate, and if I die first, he receives mine.
This is where I’m struggling now.
I have children from before this marriage, and protecting them is extremely important to me. My husband already has significantly more assets than I do, so I don’t feel that he needs to inherit everything I have if I die first. I would want some or all of my own assets to ultimately go to my children.
At the moment, I really don’t have the money to hire attorneys to negotiate and draft a new postnuptial agreement.
My question is: Are there estate-planning options I can put in place on my own side to protect my children without changing the prenup?
For example, can I legally name my children as beneficiaries on retirement/investment accounts, life insurance, bank accounts, or transfer-on-death assets? Can I create a will or trust leaving certain assets to them? Or would the language in my prenup override those beneficiary designations?
I’m not trying to take anything away from my husband or challenge the divorce provisions of our prenup. I’m simply realizing that I need an estate plan that makes sure my children are protected if something unexpectedly happens to me first.
I’m in Minnesota if that matters. I know Reddit isn’t a substitute for an attorney, but I would really appreciate hearing what options I should research or what type of attorney I should eventually speak with.

One additional question/clarification:
I have already tried to protect my children through beneficiary designations. My children are currently named as beneficiaries on several of my accounts and life insurance policies, and I have a recorded Transfer on Death (TOD) deed on my house naming my daughter.
What I’m confused about is how those designations interact with being married and with the language in my prenup.
If I died tomorrow, would those assets automatically pass directly to my named beneficiaries, or could my husband have a legal right to them first because he is my spouse and/or because our prenup says he receives my estate if I die first?
And here’s the part I’m especially trying to understand: If my husband simply does not challenge any of my beneficiary designations or the TOD deed, would my children receive those assets normally without an issue?
My husband has told me that he would never challenge my children’s beneficiary designations and that he would allow my assets to go to them. I want to believe him, and I love and trust him, but I also recognize that estate planning shouldn’t depend entirely on someone keeping a verbal promise years from now. People, circumstances and relationships can change.
I’m trying to figure out whether what I already have in place is enough to protect my children, or whether the prenup creates a problem that needs to be legally corrected now.
Basically, I want my children’s inheritance to be protected by the documents themselves, rather than having to rely on my husband choosing not to challenge anything after I’m gone.
Has anyone dealt with this in Minnesota, particularly where a prenup, beneficiary designations and a TOD deed potentially conflict?

I’d really like some outside perspective, especially from anyone who has been in a similar situation. Am I being selfish or unreasonable for not wanting to sell my house?
I remarried a year ago. My husband (62 M) is quite a bit older than me (35 F) and has always presented himself as financially very successful and knowledgeable about money. He has substantial assets, but he is also a big spender. He enjoys an expensive lifestyle and has made a lot of promises about our future and about always taking care of me. He has no kids of his own.
I owned my home before our marriage, and I have always intended for the equity in that house to eventually go to my children. My kids are young adults who are still figuring out life, and right now the house also gives them some stability and a place to live while rent and housing costs are so incredibly high.
My husband would like me to sell the house and use the money/equity to pay down debt and improve our overall financial situation.
This is where I struggle.
If he had said, “Sell your house, but the proceeds are yours, invest them, protect them, and keep them for yourself and your children,” I think I would feel very differently. But if I sell the house and use that money to pay down debt, that equity is essentially gone.
My biggest fear is: what if I sell it, put all that money into our finances, and something happens to me shortly afterward? My children would receive nothing from the house that I spent years building equity in. Yes, I have other assets and things set aside for them, but the house represents a significant portion of what I want to leave them.
Maybe this is the protective mother in me, but something about giving up that security makes me deeply uncomfortable. I feel very protective of my children and their future, and when I think about selling the house under these circumstances, my gut tells me NO.
My husband still occasionally brings up selling it, but at this point I mostly don’t engage because I don’t want to be pressured into making a decision I can’t reverse.
I also recognize that marriage means building a life together and making financial decisions as a couple, which is why I sometimes question myself. Am I holding on too tightly? Am I being selfish by protecting an asset for my children instead of using it to benefit our marriage financially?
For those who remarried later in life and already had children and assets of your own: how did you handle this?
Did you combine everything? Did you keep certain assets protected for your children? Did you sell a home and put the equity into the marriage, and if so, did it turn out okay?
I genuinely want to hear both sidesh. My gut is telling me not to sell, and right now I don’t intend to. But I would really like to know whether other parents would feel the same way or whether I’m looking at this too emotionally.