Is it reasonable for me to ask for a pre-nup?

Hi All,

I´m 41 yrs old and engaged to a 26yr old girl from the UK, we plan on getting married in summer of 2014. I´m American but have been living and working in Spain for many years. We have been together now for 3 and a half years.

My fiancee has been living with me for over 18mos now, and she has known that I have wanted a pre-nup for well over a couple of years (before I proposed to her). She has never really liked the idea of me wanting a pre-nup and feels that I am trying to leave her with nothing in case we get divorced.

I work in a family owned company, and have saved up over the last 16 years to finally be able to put a down payment and buy a flat in Spain, and now have a 25 year mortgage to pay off.

I am the financial supporter of my Fiancee and she is starting up a small business here in Spain, although she does not earn much and comes from a modest family without much money.

My family, although not rich , is a bit more well off than her family. My family and myself both feel its normal (I´ve spoken with many friends and they also agree), that we sign a pre-nup to protect my assets in case of divorce.

What I want to protect are my business , any inheritance I have, and my apartment. Although I do want to be fair and will consider giving up a part of my apartment given certain circumstances, especially if my fiancee stops working for some time to raise children we would like to have.

I am trying to reassure her that I will try to make the agreement fair to make her feel comfortable that, in case of divorce, she will have enough money and I will pay her enough to support herself and our children in a good way, not just scraping by, assuming that my financial situation allows for it. I would never want my children to suffer or live under poor circumstances If I can afford better. I am meeting a lawyer soon and hope to have some draft agreement ready in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, over the past couple of months my Fiancee has been getting more and more upset, angry and resentful about the fact that I want a pre-nup, and does not agree with the whole thing. She says I´m already planning for the divorce before we even get married. We have continuous repetitive arguments over this subject...

I´m trying to make her understand its a normal thing to do in my situation but she does not want to hear it , and I´m afraid this will end up driving a wedge into our relationship. At the same time however, I cannot allow myself(nor will my family consent) to get married without some type of pre-nup.

Both my parents have been married and divorced twice, and I have also known people in similar situations. The feedback I get in general is that I would be crazy to marry without a pre nup as I would have too much to risk losing.

Obviously my Fiancee is much younger and this may be another tension point as the maturity level and understanding of these situations is different as she has not had enough experience, and has been lucky to have her parents still married.

My questions are:

Do you think I am being unreasonable in asking for a pre-nup?

Is my Fiancee over reacting?

any advice is welcome to try and resolve the situation !