If you and your SO were getting married and they presented you with a prenup would you sign it? Do you think that already throws some negativity into the relationship if you are already “doubting” that it won’t last forever?
I would sign. Nothing is forever, especially marriage, even though we would like to think it is. Signing a pre-nup or presenting one to your partner isn’t a sign that one thinks that the marriage wont last, it is just insurance to make sure that if things end they will do so without either partner being screwed financially.
I would sign one too. Of course considering how little hubby and I had when we married I’m not sure what would have been in it!
I don’t see prenups as anything more than ‘divorce insurance.’ Something I hope I never need but I would be hugely thankful for if I ever did need it. Legally marriage is a contract between two people that they will be paired ‘for life’ a prenup is just a few more lines in the contract in case things go badly. I just hope the agreement would be written so that neither partner is screwed in case of divorce.
I have life insurance I hope I will never use and car insurance and home owner’s insurance …
Yes. Yes. Yes.
I agree that it’s a un-romantic gesture that can easily be construed as giving up on something before it even begins. However…
Me: Let’s sign a prenuptual agreement.
Her: Whu… What?! How could you ask that? Are you already giving up on us? Don’t you think our love is real? Is your love for me that easily shattered?!
Me: I love you and would be devastated if we were to ever part under any circumstances. I believe we will be married for as long as we live. I also believe that nearly all engaged couples believe this, and half of them are wrong. I also know that the divorce procedure almost always creates a GREAT deal of animosity, even if it was a mutal decision. If it turns out that we fall into the half of marriages that don’t last, I don’t want the divorce lawyers to turn us into mortal enemies. I want to remain on as friendly terms as possible. I want to keep a bad thing from becoming a horrible thing.
The other nice thing about pre-nups is that - ideally - they will spell out exactly what each of you brings to the marriage - assets AND liabilities. More than one person I know has gotten married and THEN discovered the depth of debt their spouse brought along.
In an ideal world, this wouldn’t be a problem because love conquers all. In the real world, not being able to go out to dinner for three years because you are paying off the debt your spouse incurred traveling around the world, drinking in college, or buying beanie babies during beanie hysteria is hard - and discovering that your beloved has spending issues and overcoming them ain’t easy either.
Pre-nups set the baseline for the marriage finance wise - never a bad idea.
BTW, after watching my uncle’s marriage explode, I’d do a background check on any future spouse as well. Romantic, nah. But marrying a felon isn’t a great idea either.
I don’t think these proactively resolve anything or save you any grief–what you sign can be contested and appealed later on. What if you promised your wife-to-be that if you split up she would get 1/3 of your 10 milllion–but she is a shameless adultress the entire time you are married, and gives you herpes? Not so keen on forking over the 3.3 mil after that, I would guess. I think they are just value-added constructs for lawyers–they get $$$$$$$$$ drawing them up before the marriage. Then if the marriage fails, they get $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ during the divorce and $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ when one or both of the parties contests the pre-nup.
Unfortunately I would. In my lst marriage I would not have. We both went into the marriage pretty much with nothing. So it didn’t matter. But now I have children, property, investments, retirements. The only reason I would do that would be for the protection of my children, for their future. I went through one divorce. No one ever plans for it but you have to think about your future and theirs.
No if it was a first marriage between the two of us. I married my husband with the intention that it was forever and he did the same. Divorce simply isn’t an option. Signing a paper that says “We don’t expect it to happen, but IF it does…” is a thinkly disguised admission that it IS an option to at least one of you. And it adds to an imbalance that is unhealthy for a relationship. You’re either equals or you’re not.
Yes, it may be realistic to sell the idea of a pre-nup based on divorce statistics, but IMO it adds a cynical flavor to the marriage that I want no part of. If my husband wants to break my heart and my children’s hearts by leaving us, then I cannot stop him. But am I going to make it EASIER for him to do so by making sure he has minimal negative financial repercussions ? No.
That being said, if I were going to marry a widower and he wanted to draw up a document that favored his children upon his death, I would agree to that.
In your opinion, is divorce the worst thing that can happen between two people or are there worse things?
For me, a pre-nup including full financial disclosure would be required. It would no more be a damper or foretelling of things to come than disability or life insurance.
Hey you, divorce isn’t the worst thing that can happen. But certainly the events that precede a divorce would be.
There’s no pre-nup to protect my heart, which is infinitely more valuable to me than my money. (Admittedly, it’s easy to be unconcerned about your fortune when you have none. 
I think if my boyfriend presented it to me I’d be pissed. I’d also suspect that his family was behind it. It’s slightly insulting to have them think that I’m concerned about his money or any inheritance that he would be receiving. That’s not why I’m marrying him. A prenup to me is like saying that there is distrust from the beginning and a lack of faith in the relationship. If any of this is a factor then he shouldn’t be marrying me.
IMO
There is no dougt that I think almost everyone should have one. This eliminates the whole gold digging concept. I personally hate the mentallity that a person is only worth their possessions(sp?) and unfortunately that is a major mentallity these days. It might not be the first turn on in the relationship but knowing that you’ll be financially stable isn’t a bad perk to have.
Now for the people that make the trust and love arguement. If you really love someone you should have no problem with signing a prenumpt. If my material things aren’t a concern to you in marrying me than sign away and enjoy what I have. You have all I have but if you decide that in the future we shouldn’t be together than you can’t take what has always been mine.
Too many people get married and treat it like property and if it goes wrong than they try to take as much as they can. Not all the time, but most of the time it’s the female who gets the house, kids, alimoney, child support, etc. Translation~you just turned our marriage and kids into a monthly check so you can go shopping and not work.
Now I am young and haven’t been married technically but I am no stranger to these events. My mother has been married three times but as an exception to the norm my mom didn’t demand large alimoney or child support. But I have seen my stepfather pay large sums of money that is supposed to have gone to the kids clothes and activities that get spent on mom’s new jewelry and trips around the world. I seen this in my friend’s families as well. Which normally turns into the kids not liking the mom and living with the dad.
To sum it up, IMO I have seen most marriages(roughly 75%) fail and the divorce process and outcome are normally brutal. Sign a prenumpt and save both sides the heart ache that comes with it. I mean come on…you just got divorced and are hurtiing already…if you didn’t sign someone will be out for “blood”.
I can see both sides of the argument:
-That it is like putting on a seat belt - you don’t actually intend to crash the car.
-That it is a tacit admission of defeat.
I happen to weigh in with the latter - for myself at least, it would feel like a flaw in my absolute resolve to make things work - coldly and logically of course, it is just an agreement on a bit of paper, but perception is what counts.
Okay okay okay…
You want to get married, but you want a prenuptial agreement in place in case it doesn’t work out.
If your marriage is an arrangement of convenience/economics - and I understand that some of them are, at least partially - then I can totally understand this. You wouldn’t want to form a business partnership with someone without some kind of agreement in place in case the thing goes sour.
But say you’re in love. You want a commitment, but you don’t want your lover’s debts and you want protection in case s/he turns into a psycho. Why get married?!?!? I can’t think of a single good reason. Too many people get married for the sake of appearances, for tradition’s sake, or as an excuse to have a big party. I think you can love someone and be with them, even forever, and not have any need for this legally binding stuff.
I don’t know if I’m expressing myself very well tonight. I think what I’m saying is, I’d rather not get married than get married with a prenuptial agreement. The reason being that, if you’re thinking there’s any chance things might not work out down the road, why not just shack up? If you’re together forever, great! If not, all the better that you didn’t get married and complicate everything.
I’m a lawyer. I understand the value of having a pre-nup in place. And I’m overlooking all the B.S. about them being "value-added constructs for lawyers . . . No, wait, I’m not. Pre-nups are contracts, just like any other written contract. If they’re done correctly they are very difficult to contest and therefore make the divorce proceedings easier and cheaper because the property settlement is already agreed to. And another thing: :rolleyes:
I would never under any circumstances sign a pre-nup. If you’re looking down the road to when you’re going to divorce me, then you’re not ready to marry me. To me, marriage is absolutely a forever thing, and I’m not jumping off that cliff with anyone whose motto is not “Failure Is Not An Option.”
Where I live, there are laws that set out what must be done upon marriage breakdown. That means that upon marriage, I am bound by these laws.
So it isn’t a question of either a pre-nup or nothing, for there will always be something, even if it is the default statutes.
It is a question of which set of rules will be applied, the government’s rules or the rules made by me and my partner.
I had a similar thread that might be of interest: Can someone explain pre-nups to me?
Sure, I’d do it.
In fact, I wouldn’t marry someone who refused to sign a pre-nup. The message I’d hear is “I get my expectations of marriage from Hollywood and romance novels,” “I can’t handle your pragmatism and cynicism,” and/or “If we ever split up, I want half of your stuff.”
But then, I think of marriage as a mere legal recognition of what already exists between two people. I wouldn’t marry someone who I hadn’t already lived with and didn’t already feel married to.
cuauhtemoc
I was of the same opinion of you. Having had a first marriage I intended to last forever, and then discovered I had married a flake who didn’t leave me any choice (he started living with his girlfriend), I was pretty pragmatic. Marriage doesn’t always last forever, no matter how good the intentions are when the marriage occurs. And you can’t make up for the sudden loss of committment on the part of the other party.
So when my husband proposed, I wasn’t very sure. We had the whole committment thing going already - what did the piece of paper add.
I discovered exactly what it added three years later - the ability to adopt my son. Without that peice of paper, his adoption would have been impossible.
Marriage adds a lot of things - legal rights, the ability to pay even more in taxes, the ability to put your spouse on your benes at work - what it doesn’t add is committment or love. Those are either there or they are not. Likewise, a prenup doesn’t change committment or love. What it does is acknowledge the pragmatism of “things change - I can’t guarentee you won’t discover you are gay and need to find your true self. I can’t guarentee I won’t flip out and move to France at 39 with a 22 year old guy wearing leather pants.” (both unlikely, but possible).