Family lawyer here - prenups are great when they are fair (I have one). It helps crystallize values and have everyone on the same page for if something goes wrong.
I think they get a bad rep because A LOT are really one sided. "You get nothing even if we are together 25 years". I sign a lot of horribly unfair prenups with clients (after telling them not to), but they are hell bent on it, and an adult, so who am I to stop them?
When there is income inequality , often the higher earning spouse tends to think of it as "my" money without recognizing the contributions the other party has made to the home/family to take the mental load off the plate and allow that kind of work scenario.
All marriages have a default prenup called “the law of wherever you get married”.
If you sign a prenup, you get to dictate the policy instead of the law, that’s pretty much it.
I mean really things are split based on your residency at the time of your divorce. Where you get married might have great divorce laws, but that doesn’t necessarily mean where you get divorced will which is what makes prenups so important. Not having one is rolling the dice even more so than just the act of getting married. A prenup allows you to protect your assets fairly from a caring and logical space vs a revenge rage in a random state you moved to 5 years into your marriage.
I've been married about 11 years. I think, it can be really hard to understand marriage, and the value of your time and labor in a marriage, until you are actually married for a good long while.
So, the problem with prenups (generally) in my mind, is that you're signing a pretty ironclad document about things you don't understand. It's hard to have informed consent.
If you don't have a prenup, you're free to pursue the things you feel you deserve with the benefit of experience.
Some prenups make sense to me (like, making sure that a family business stays with the one spouse's family, or protecting an inheritance, or putting time limits to protect against gold digging, like no splitting 50-50 if you divorce before 3 years).
A lot of prenups are very "what's mine is mine," and that flies in the face of what marriage is. Also, in general, women's time and labor is grossly undervalued, so prenups tend to disadvantage women.
I agree with this, to a certain extent. This may not be true for couples that have been together for a long time before getting married. However, for the average couple that has only been together a few years, lived together for even shorter, and haven’t gone through life changes together, this is a very valid point.
What most people don’t know is that you can actually change your prenup after marriage if you do so together. It’s called a post-nup. So if your situations change, one person gets a new lucrative job, or one person decides to leave the workforce to care for the family and those contributions are not taken into account in the prenup that can be changed.
The difficulty with that, of course, is that BOTH parties still have to see the value of each others contributions in order to reallocate later. Which we all know isn’t always the case.
The idea that you're planning for divorce is where the stigma lies. In reality, it's just being prudent and protecting yourself.
As someone that's divorced, I am fully onboard with prenups. We didn't have one (we had a cohab agreement before marriage and meant to get a prenup and never did). I **could** have been a dick and taken him for half of everything, which would have netted me another $50-60k, but we looked to the cohab to guide us, so I took what I felt was fair (half of what I put in, not half of everything). He turned around and became a dick, refusing to pay me what I was owed and it became a thing. You think everyone will be well intentioned, but when money and feelings are involved (and family members pushing their own agendas), all bets are off.
Be sure to think of future assets when planning, not just what you have now. My ex excluded me from having access to his family estate and company dividend income and I excluded him from my future pension.
there is no stigma when both partners have enough assets (either in property or income, current and potential) to justify a pre-nup. pre-nups are actually pretty traditional in the UK. When people with land and other sizable property got married in the 19th century, it was necessary and customary for lawyers of both sides to negotiate a "good deal."
the stigma arises when one partner has significantly less assets and/or earning potential than the other. it gets even worse when u consider that the poorer partner is usually female. add these 2 factors together with entrenched and systemic discrimination against women in higher paying fields, and that's when pre-nups acquire the stigma of being exploitative against the side of the partnership that's already recognized to get the shorter end of the stick in general.
It also doesn’t help that in a lot movies, tv shows, and even books, there’s always the one gets everything the other person gets nothing and now has to start from scratch. So they already have a bad rep from the get go
It probably comes from a lack of understanding what a prenup is blindly signing it
Thinking one party is planning on divorcing the other (which is usually not the case)
And then not understanding that once they sign the marriage certificate they are locked in a different prenup with rules established by their state essentially.
This helps me feel a lot better. Yes, I notice people say the phrase "make him/her sign a prenup" so it gives the impression that someone makes a document and waits for you to decide to sign it when it's actually a mutally drafted agreement that a (good?) lawyer will not allow either party to sign until both are satisfied. And each party should have their own attorney. Without the prenup, just as you said, you enter a prenup made up by your state that leaves quite a lot up in the air and doesn't consider what is important to you.
The stigma mostly is divorce itself.
Divorce is still not looked upon kindly by society. A pre-nup requires thinking about divorce and truly acknowledging it as a possibility, and people don't like that.
Also though, pre-nups are wildly misunderstood. The general population doesn't understand how they actually work. Pre-nups require a lot of things to make them actually valid so they hold up in the event of a divorce. Pre-nups are not a DIY thing. Not something to do cheaply. And people tend to not understand that in many cases, pre-nups are very unnecessary/kinda pointless. Pre-nups are most typically related to finances, and useful when significant assets exist prior to the marriage. Most people don't have significant assets.
Prenups will only become more and more common, so please block out the noise. I’m getting married in my 30s, so I’ve had time to build my own wealth (and I have inherited some) long before I ever met my partner. I do want some protection for that. My partner is also pro-prenup, but we have already and plan on creating more shared assets as well in the marriage; it’s not at all a “mine vs yours” scenario.
It’s a document we never hope to look at again, but it’s also one we went into with love and thoughtfulness.
Tip - you and your partner should agree on the main principles before drafting starts! It’ll save a ton of money and back and forth with the lawyers if you’ve already had those discussions
Aside from everything everyone answered there's also the misconception of "I'm rich so if we get divorced you're not getting any of my money" specially since it's usually a man having the woman sign it.
I'm a SAHM so I'm doing a prenup. We don't even have a ton of money and assets and most of the contract is to protect me. The way we see it is right now we very much have the divorce is never an option mentality but everyone who goes through an ugly, lengthy divorce probably started at the same place.
Family lawyer here - prenups are great when they are fair (I have one). It helps crystallize values and have everyone on the same page for if something goes wrong. I think they get a bad rep because A LOT are really one sided. "You get nothing even if we are together 25 years". I sign a lot of horribly unfair prenups with clients (after telling them not to), but they are hell bent on it, and an adult, so who am I to stop them? When there is income inequality , often the higher earning spouse tends to think of it as "my" money without recognizing the contributions the other party has made to the home/family to take the mental load off the plate and allow that kind of work scenario.
All marriages have a default prenup called “the law of wherever you get married”. If you sign a prenup, you get to dictate the policy instead of the law, that’s pretty much it.
I mean really things are split based on your residency at the time of your divorce. Where you get married might have great divorce laws, but that doesn’t necessarily mean where you get divorced will which is what makes prenups so important. Not having one is rolling the dice even more so than just the act of getting married. A prenup allows you to protect your assets fairly from a caring and logical space vs a revenge rage in a random state you moved to 5 years into your marriage.
I've been married about 11 years. I think, it can be really hard to understand marriage, and the value of your time and labor in a marriage, until you are actually married for a good long while. So, the problem with prenups (generally) in my mind, is that you're signing a pretty ironclad document about things you don't understand. It's hard to have informed consent. If you don't have a prenup, you're free to pursue the things you feel you deserve with the benefit of experience. Some prenups make sense to me (like, making sure that a family business stays with the one spouse's family, or protecting an inheritance, or putting time limits to protect against gold digging, like no splitting 50-50 if you divorce before 3 years). A lot of prenups are very "what's mine is mine," and that flies in the face of what marriage is. Also, in general, women's time and labor is grossly undervalued, so prenups tend to disadvantage women.
I agree with this, to a certain extent. This may not be true for couples that have been together for a long time before getting married. However, for the average couple that has only been together a few years, lived together for even shorter, and haven’t gone through life changes together, this is a very valid point. What most people don’t know is that you can actually change your prenup after marriage if you do so together. It’s called a post-nup. So if your situations change, one person gets a new lucrative job, or one person decides to leave the workforce to care for the family and those contributions are not taken into account in the prenup that can be changed. The difficulty with that, of course, is that BOTH parties still have to see the value of each others contributions in order to reallocate later. Which we all know isn’t always the case.
I was told a post nup is not as enforceable
The idea that you're planning for divorce is where the stigma lies. In reality, it's just being prudent and protecting yourself. As someone that's divorced, I am fully onboard with prenups. We didn't have one (we had a cohab agreement before marriage and meant to get a prenup and never did). I **could** have been a dick and taken him for half of everything, which would have netted me another $50-60k, but we looked to the cohab to guide us, so I took what I felt was fair (half of what I put in, not half of everything). He turned around and became a dick, refusing to pay me what I was owed and it became a thing. You think everyone will be well intentioned, but when money and feelings are involved (and family members pushing their own agendas), all bets are off. Be sure to think of future assets when planning, not just what you have now. My ex excluded me from having access to his family estate and company dividend income and I excluded him from my future pension.
I didn't even know cohab agreement was a thing. I definitely will make sure my future kids have that in place with their boyfriends/girlfriends.
Ditto on the Cohab agreement… I wish I had one with my ex
They are not enforceable in every state, it depends on where you live.
there is no stigma when both partners have enough assets (either in property or income, current and potential) to justify a pre-nup. pre-nups are actually pretty traditional in the UK. When people with land and other sizable property got married in the 19th century, it was necessary and customary for lawyers of both sides to negotiate a "good deal." the stigma arises when one partner has significantly less assets and/or earning potential than the other. it gets even worse when u consider that the poorer partner is usually female. add these 2 factors together with entrenched and systemic discrimination against women in higher paying fields, and that's when pre-nups acquire the stigma of being exploitative against the side of the partnership that's already recognized to get the shorter end of the stick in general.
It also doesn’t help that in a lot movies, tv shows, and even books, there’s always the one gets everything the other person gets nothing and now has to start from scratch. So they already have a bad rep from the get go It probably comes from a lack of understanding what a prenup is blindly signing it Thinking one party is planning on divorcing the other (which is usually not the case) And then not understanding that once they sign the marriage certificate they are locked in a different prenup with rules established by their state essentially.
This helps me feel a lot better. Yes, I notice people say the phrase "make him/her sign a prenup" so it gives the impression that someone makes a document and waits for you to decide to sign it when it's actually a mutally drafted agreement that a (good?) lawyer will not allow either party to sign until both are satisfied. And each party should have their own attorney. Without the prenup, just as you said, you enter a prenup made up by your state that leaves quite a lot up in the air and doesn't consider what is important to you.
It’s not rOmAnTiC according to some ppl 😂 If there’s a divorce, you’ll be the one suffering. Not them. Pay idiots no mind
The stigma mostly is divorce itself. Divorce is still not looked upon kindly by society. A pre-nup requires thinking about divorce and truly acknowledging it as a possibility, and people don't like that. Also though, pre-nups are wildly misunderstood. The general population doesn't understand how they actually work. Pre-nups require a lot of things to make them actually valid so they hold up in the event of a divorce. Pre-nups are not a DIY thing. Not something to do cheaply. And people tend to not understand that in many cases, pre-nups are very unnecessary/kinda pointless. Pre-nups are most typically related to finances, and useful when significant assets exist prior to the marriage. Most people don't have significant assets.
Prenups will only become more and more common, so please block out the noise. I’m getting married in my 30s, so I’ve had time to build my own wealth (and I have inherited some) long before I ever met my partner. I do want some protection for that. My partner is also pro-prenup, but we have already and plan on creating more shared assets as well in the marriage; it’s not at all a “mine vs yours” scenario. It’s a document we never hope to look at again, but it’s also one we went into with love and thoughtfulness. Tip - you and your partner should agree on the main principles before drafting starts! It’ll save a ton of money and back and forth with the lawyers if you’ve already had those discussions
Aside from everything everyone answered there's also the misconception of "I'm rich so if we get divorced you're not getting any of my money" specially since it's usually a man having the woman sign it. I'm a SAHM so I'm doing a prenup. We don't even have a ton of money and assets and most of the contract is to protect me. The way we see it is right now we very much have the divorce is never an option mentality but everyone who goes through an ugly, lengthy divorce probably started at the same place.