Would You Sign A Prenuptial Agreement?

In My Humble Opinion
42

MandaJo

I hear your points, but I’m thinking that where I live (and of course your mileage may vary) assets that you have prior to a marriage stay yours after a divorce, they are not community property.

As for the kids inheritance, that should be tied up in a trust fund for them anyhow, not left to a prenup. What happens if widowed parent dies before getting to the prenup state?

Furthermore, the things that I would want to see in a pre-nup are not legally enforcable, so there wouldn’t be much point in it from where I stand.
Mr2001 Youre right, no crystal ball here. However, I’m mid thirties. I’d not marry on a whim. It would be only after I’d been in a relationship for several years and gotten past some difficult humps.

43

Hmm. Thanks to Dangerosa and gatopescado (and others) I’m now convinced there really can be good reasons to get married other than “that’s what you’re supposed to do.” And I agree, if you get married for one of those reasons, maybe it’s a good idea to have a prenuptial agreement.

I guess what I object to is the whole “Let’s get married so our relationship will be legitimate to society” impulse. I say screw society! What has it ever done for you? Also, people getting married because it’s “the next logical step”. It may or may not be, depending on the people. Can you imagine a lover saying “If you don’t marry me, I’ll leave you!”? And then you have to decide whether to get married just to save the relationship? I think that’s also a bad reason to get married.

In fact there are so many bad reasons to get married it’s easy to forget that there are some good ones as well.

44

But, Mangetout, what modifies wedding vows more than the very existence of divorce law?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad there’s an escape hatch AT ALL, but it really helps a lot if on the other side thereof is an appropriate slide to cushion the fall.

tanookie, robertliguori, MandaJo among others have been spot on.

At the very least, raising the consideration of a prenup is an excellent exercise in determining whether the parties are conscious of the grittier aspects of what they are about to embark upon. I know I would sign – if good case were made for going ahead with it in our particular case. Hell, it could be that after some discussion we decide that we’re in a position to wing it and hope for the best. It just hasn’t come to that point so far, but who knows… However, someone who felt insulted by the mere idea would be the totally wrong person for me.

White Ink: You will not necessarily always dwell in the same jurisdiction: in many places any debt incurred by EITHER spouse becomes debt of both, no matter what. Would you rather be heartbroken AND broke?

“The shit happens argument is failing to convince me that I should protect the finances of someone who is considering that he may choose to leave me.”
“*Divorce simply isn’t an option. *”

Ladies… don’t take me wrong but… may I join the rhetorical question, as to whether it has it crossed your mind that there may be even a possibility that it be YOU who finds herself in a situation calling for a JUSTIFIED bailout? You both project an apparent vibe that the only possible reason is that he is a bastard who plans to break your heart. On behalf of my parents, my sister, several longtime friends and colleagues, may I say that’s a load. Sometimes Shit happens just because it happens, or it happens because of combined actions and ommisions of both parties.
(WARNING smart-aleck comment ahead) What’s all this about breaking hearts? Well, last I checked, my heart is a four-chambered autonomically-enervated muscular pump located in the middle of my thoracic cavity, providing the impetus for the circulation of blood through my vascular and pulmonary systems. If that “breaks” I crumple dead to the floor. Of course IT is more valuable to me than any fortune. And since being trapped in a hopeless life-sentence with someone who has become innimmical to my happiness is a surefire recipe to elevate both our stress levels and blood pressure to the point where something in the vascular system may, indeed, break, a civilized exit is an act of kindness.

As for being emotionally devastated as a child that my parents’ marriage fell apart acrimoniously, it was obviously survivable and I continue to love the heck out of both of them. All my cardiac stress these days comes from my job…

45

“After changes upon changes we are more or less the same.” - Paul Simon

Truer words were never said. You may change your habits, your dress size, or your job. What doesn’t change is your character. If you are a liar today you will inevitably be a liar tomorrow. If you have honor today, you will undoubtably have honor tomorrow. And that means not breaking your promise to stay together, especially if you’ve brought children into the world. That doesn’t mean you can’t CHANGE. It means you can’t change spouses or abandon your kids.

Some people are really good at putting up facades but eventually their true character will shine through. Those are the people who will end up divorced. And while some people will scratch their heads and lament about how “Fred really changed,” the people closest to him will know that it’s how he’s always been.

46

So, divorced people are of poor moral character. And people who have honor never get divorced. As long as you have honor and character, your marriage will last forever and ever. Got it. :rolleyes:

47

NOPE!

Big fuckin so way Jose.

Take your goddam crap thats all over the house and leave.

Like I’d want half of HIS stuff anyway:rolleyes:

And he doesn’t want my books, cats or plants… the rest is just stuff…

What little money I have beyond day to day expenses is all tied up so only my son can access it if something were to happen to me… when he is 18.

48

When we got married, Mr. Legend and I were both young and broke, so some of the decisions that other, more established couples have to face just never came up. Property? Well, I had a car my mother owned but was letting me use, and he had one that needed a new engine. Oh, and we had a 10" tv and a bed. A prenup would have been laughable.

Nowadays, if (God forbid) something happened to him and I were considering remarriage, I’d have a lot more to think about. I would have the property we’ve acquired over the past 22 years and our two children to think of. I might still be receiving royalty income from Mr. Legend’s work that I would want to benefit the children. If the person I was thinking of marrying had a business to consider, that would add even more complexity. For all practical purposes, I would think a prenuptual agreement would be an excellent idea, if only to make our intentions crystal clear to our children and families.

Ideally, whoever had the least amount of money/assets would insist on having a prenup while the one with greater wealth would object strenuously. If I planned to marry a rich person, I would want him to know that I wasn’t in it for his money, but I’d like him to make it very obvious that he wasn’t worried about my motives at all. In fact, if I were to marry someone with about the same amount of assets, it would be ideal for each of us to insist on a prenup to protect the other.

49

Well I did one. Being that it was the '70s and that I don’t take anything very seriously for very long, it went something like this: “The husband agrees that it is not the wife’s job to do the dishes. The husband agrees that he will provide and maintain not less than two lines of clothesline for purposes of a solar hairdryer.”

In retrospect it could have been a lot longer, with such items as,

“The couple agree that any shampoo purchased at a salon or boutique rather than the grocery or drugstore is for the exclusive use of the spouse who purchased it, barring emergencies,”

“The toilet paper shall hang with the edge going over the top and not coming out from under,” and

“The couple agree that the house is the property of the wife and all decorating/design decisions shall be made together but with her power to veto any such decisions.” And on and on.

50

People do change, yes, but (and this is only my opinion) I view marriage as the complete union of two people - the very point of marriage is the combination/union of selves and resources- like baking a cake - you mix it all up together and bake it, once it is done, you can’t just take the eggs out and put them back in the fridge, the best you can do it is divide the finished cake up into pieces.

51

I did sign one before my marriage to Marcie.

52

People do change a lot!

Here’s a wild what if about people changing. Say a spouse gets a horrible illness/injury. They fight through it together and the spouse beats all odds and is healthy. They look at their experience and decide life’s too short to waste and set off to spend every dime the couple has ever saved trying new death defying experiences. I can see that breaking a previously stable marriage.

On a more personal note…

I was a skittish, angry, suicidal teenager when I met my husband. I’m now a more confident, happy wife and mother.

My husband is no longer the geeky college student he was when we met either. He’s matured into an amazing husband and father.

We’ve been together for 12 years now and are very lucky. We’ve managed to change and grow together and we love eachother as much (if not more) than when we got engaged so many years ago.

My parents on the other hand should never have married. My mother actually delayed marriage until I was 10 or so because she wanted to wait to marry him until he stopped his philandering. Too bad she didn’t have a prenup because the divorce was a mess and she had to pay a lot to extricate him from her life. She’s also inherited a lot of debt/credit problems for things he forged her name to that she did not know about.

I really hope that no one ever gets mixed up in an abusive relationship either. I had the experience of growing up in a very unhealthy household where my mother stuck with my father ‘for the kids’ and because she ‘took her vows seriously.’ In exchange for her incredible devotion to a piece of paper my father used as shackles on my mother we kids wittnessed hell first hand. Some people are really good at putting up facades until they know they have you trapped in a corner and then they show you how evil they can be. My mother didn’t divorce my father until it was too late really.

I do know some people who divorced for stupid reasons and they probably shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place. Unfortunately some people treat marriage as a disposable institution. Others stay in horrible relationships for far too long.

For the people who make it ‘till death do us part’ the prenup can be something that molders in a drawer ignored and I think that’s great. For the rest, well it sure would make a difficult situation less legally complicated.

53

cuauhtemoc, I am rolling eyes with you all the way.

54

Mangetout, the dish can go rancid; to use another allegory, in a committed marriage the two become one flesh. BUT, if part of my own flesh becomes gangrenous or aggressively malignant, the scalpel is my friend.

55

Okay, maybe I don’t understand pre-nups very well. How would having a contract that deliniates personal property of each person help with the debt they BOTH enter into after marriage. (Whether forged or not.)

To me a pre-nup says “Whats mine is mine and whats yours is mine also.” Jeez, take half if you want it so damned bad if we’re divorcing I just want YOU GONE!

56

Krisfer, with a pre-nup you have wide latitude to decide how both assets nd debts accumlated during the marriage are handled, though of course what the contract sets out would have to be in line with general contract law.

For example, where I live (YMMV), the assets and debts accumulated in the marriage by either party are usually split 50/50 upon separation (with exceptions). If X borrows 100K from the bank during the marriage of X and Y, and X spends this money on himself/herself, then upon separation, X owes 100K to the bank and Y owes 50K to X. Y would either suck up the unfair division of the debt, or spend a pile suing for wrongful depletion of net family property (or some similar cause of action), pouring a lot of time, energy, and money into the fight.

A pre-nup could be drafted such that each party would keep its own assets and debts, so that with the above scenaraio, upon separation X would owe the bank 100K and Y would not owe X anything.

57

Sorry Krisfer… I put two separate problems together there.

If she had some kind of agreement about how things would be divided at their split she could have saved herself some of the problems she encountered.

She also ended up with debt she did not know existed. My father took a lot of loans/credits and spent the money on himself and his girlfriends and my mother got stuck with half of that.

58

In addition PunditLisa has an incredible talent to read the character of another individual and is never wrong. She can see the flaws in a person that - when dating - may be microscopic, but given twenty years and a hot twenty two year old chesty blonde willing to give blowjobs to a forty five year old guy whose wife is tired every night from running around with kids, can wreck a marriage. And, incredibily, she can do this while on the hormonal high that is being in love and the stressfest that is an engagement.

I’m not that good. I either am a worse judge of character or have lower standards - or perhaps both.

59

Hmm. I guess I have to revise my earlier statement. I might sign a prenup, but only if I were heavily involved in the crafting of it.

I agree that it’s hard to see the future. I can’t really imagine being in a marriage that drifted apart and broke up amicably. If that were the case, I’d probably be amenable to playing nice. But frankly, if it’s because of infidelity on his part, abandonment, or something else that is hurtful in that nature, I’m going to be out for blood and revenge. I don’t know how to prepare for both contingencies. I’ve been told that you can’t specify for things like that (infidelity penalties) in a prenup as they are not enforceable.

60

At the very least, as long as you both have honor and character, you won’t need to sign a pre-nup.

61

Well, of course White Ink. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that you sign a pre-nup that doesn’t protect your interests as well as your potential spouses. What a prenup can do for you - in the case of infidelity - is make sure the bimbo does not end up living in the house you brought into the marriage because some judge decided him getting the house was a “fair division of assets.” Chances are you won’t get blood anyway, most states have no fault divorce and don’t hand out penalties. You just don’t want the bimbo to end up with your grandmother’s china.

My father in law’s ex wife ended up with all his family heirlooms - as she got the “house and furnishings” in the settlement. My father in law is still bitter 30 years later.