I thnk you have a very good point about medical insurance benefits and authority to make decisions on behalf of an incapicated spouse. Although medical insurance benefits tend to be the same regardless of whether a couple are married not, there are exceptions, and in any event, being married makes it more difficult for the insurer to weasel. Same goes for death benefits. Decision making power for an incapicated spouse can be granted by a power or attorney, but often non-married spouses forget to do this.
No, the prenup would specify support will be limited in years until the youngest child turns five. I would question the intent of anyone who wouldn’t be willing to sign “such a thing”. To me, it is a person looking for a meal ticket for life. Long term marriage often have lifetime maintenance.
You’re saying that the pre-nup would say "No spousal support if we get divorced after the kids turn five’.
Ok, I don’t see how that helps with the spouse who won’t go back to work when the kids are in school. If the working spouse feels so strongly about it, the time to get divorced is within two years of the youngest kid turning 5, at which point it’s pretty clear what the new pattern is. There’s no lifetime maintenance when a marriage is of ten or fewer years. Bitching and moaning about it for a decade or more after the kids are in school, and then suddenly deciding that you “can’t” get divorced because of spousal support is really missing the point.
I think what is really at play is that the working spouse often considers property purchased during the marriage to really be “his” (or hers), not “theirs”, because hey, he (or she) paid for it. That’s what they don’t want to divide.
And it really doesn’t seem reasonable to say “I want you to drop out of the workforce for 5-10 years, and spend those years taking care of our mutual responsibilities, including both our kids and our household. At the end of that period of time, if we get divorced you are entirely on your own”. I know that when we decided my husband should stay home with the baby that he was taking a much bigger financial risk than I was. I can’t imagine asking him to be the only one to shoulder that risk when I am very much reaping the benefits right now.
Marriages are built on trust, I think.
If you need me to sign something, I’m not feeling the trust. If you think I could railroad you, then you apparently don’t know me very well, and we shouldn’t be getting married.
If you know me at all, you know that’s not who I am. Sorry, no prenup for me.
I agree with Elbows. I think marraige should be about trust. If you’re worried the other person is gonna turn into a total shitheel in the event of divorce, you are probably marrying the wrong person from the get go.
My wife and I both talked about financial issues. I was relieved to find that we have very similar attitudes about money and possessions. We’ve had our ‘what ifs’ on if we got divorced (both without and with children). To me, I think California law is reasonable on how things would play out. To me, feeling hung up about my hypothetical ex wife getting something I didn’t think she deserved is just being hung up about the hypothetical divorce and being unable to move on. Neither of us went into our marraige with much. My wife is going to grad school right now but because of a grant I’m not really supporting her at all; she’s pretty financially self-sufficient. So the way we see things there’s nothing we can’t agree on verbally.
People do change. But whats more common is one person changing, and the other partner choosing to ignore it until it becomes impossible to ignore. The coworkers I have that got ‘screwed over’ in divorces wasn’t for a lack of a pre-nup, it was foolishness on their part- they wanted a 1950’s style marraige, but didn’t realize their partner might get used to that lifestyle (but without them in their life). The coworkers that had divorces and aren’t hung up about them generally weren’t attached to stuff that they supposedly ‘lost’ in the divorce, and were able to move on with their lives.
Prenups aren’t about who you are. They’re about the crazy fucker that you have a roughly even chance of becoming at some point during the marriage.
[QUOTE=Incubus]
If you’re worried the other person is gonna turn into a total shitheel in the event of divorce, you are probably marrying the wrong person from the get go.
[/QUOTE]
If you aren’t worried about it, it’s because you don’t listen to your friends and family. Assuming the person you’re with now is going to be exactly the same in 10, 15 or 30 years isn’t the proof of genuine love; it’s proof that you are short-sighted and irrational.
I don’t see how a pre-nup is going to be a hedge against that. What is a pre-nup going to protect that California marraige laws don’t? My wife and I went into our marraige with basically zero assets- what would I be walking away from that I would have had with a pre-nup?
You were talking about how pre-nups are bad because marriage is about trust, not about how you didn’t personally need one because you have no stuff.
This.
I find it bizarre that someone would sign what they consider to be the most important contract of their life and not have defined the terms.
Agreed.
If you start out with nothing why not protect what may happen to the future? First and foremost, no spousal support. If a split happen, each party supports themselves. 401Ks can be addressed, future inheritances, financial expectations as far as credit card debts etc. The list can be as long or short as you want it to be as long as both parties agree that it is fair.
If I become a crazy fucker, I see no reason to make it easier on myself to be a jerk about being a crazy fucker.
If I don’t have a net, I might still fall from the tightrope. But if I do have a net and I get tired, I might be willing to let myself fall. Without the net, if I get tired, I’ll not take that risk.
I believe I speak for everyone when I say, “que?”
Not sure why it’s confusing. A prenup makes divorce an easier process. I don’t want to make divorce an easier process.
I voted no, because I made vows comprising a *nuptial *contract, which could not have been valid in the presence of any prenuptial contract worth writing.
coming late to the party, but I’ve not seen anything in this thread that explains this point, or why the OP feels vulnerable as a male.
Canadian matrimonial property laws are gender-neutral, and the general rules are 1. property acquired before marriage remains separate; 2. property acquired after marriage is joint; 3. the family home is joint, whether acquired before or after marriage.
Support rules are also gender-neutral, and only apply if one party’s earning capacity has been reduced as a result of the marriage (e.g. Staying home to look after the kids thus losing employability and income).
Not intended as legal advice, of course, but just to discuss a matter of public interest. Anyone who needs advice on property and support issues should consult a lawyer experienced in those areas, not rely on posts on the Internet.
What if I for eg. Run a successful small business where I make three times the salary my SO does, and the support the SO puts into my business is soley emotional support and nothing else. Would that entitle the SO to a cut of my profit to ensure the SO life style is not lessened ? For this scenario, no children would be involved or they are adults.
How is that inquiry tied to your gender or that of your SO?
Depends on the province, but yes, in our common law provinces, even when there were no children, usually a difference in income following a long term relationship will trigger spousal support for roughly as long as the parties were together, such that on an after tax basis little less than half of the parties’ combined income will end up in the hands of the recipient. Here’s a calculator to play with, but be advised that this is just a rule of thumb, and there are a great many factors that would change the result, and often there are changes in circumstances in later years that would change the entitlement or quantum at that later date: MySupportCalculator.ca
In law, one’s sex is not a relevant factor when deciding spousal support. In reality, men more often make more than women. Unfortunately, a lot of men improperly jump (well actually, they usually smolder and fester to a conclusion, and then flare up in occastional rages to spew their faulty logic on those around them) to the comclusion that the law is biased against men.
I left gender out of it for a reason. But looks like according to Muffin, yes there is such thing as spousal support . That’s all I was asking.