This is another one of those situations where a crystal ball would be very helpful ; ).
Interesting question about gifts from the parents/inlaws.
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Are PreNups a mainstay of a certain economic status?? I would think so.
In my āmiddle of the roadā class status this has not been discussed in my kids relationships nor any friends who have kids/relationships.
Iāll also say this piece of information is not something that people are likely to advertise. So couples may have it but very few if any people outside the marriage would know.
Editing to say: this doesnāt mean these young adults of our āmiddle of the socio-economic roadā families arenāt making a very, very good living. Or have debt. Or not have debt. But I donāt know that pre-nups are commonplace .
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I am also a romantic, married 40 years, all my siblings (fortunately) in decades long, stable marriages. BUT- all it takes is one nasty divorce among your circle of friends to realize the wisdom of investing a few hundred dollars upfront just to āclarifyā the what-ifās.
The ugly divorce I saw (front row seat, unfortunately- close friends) ended up spending tens of thousands of dollars over what would have been clearly spelled out in a prenup. Is it fair to blow your kidās college fund fighting over assets which one party brought into the marriage? Everything is emotional and dramatic and wretched when a marriage dissolves, and the lack of a prenup (there was a clear differential in assets AND earning power when they got married) made the drama worse.
With a prenup it could have been a mediator situation. Who gets the couch, who wants the espresso machine. Even steven on the joint assets, working out a joint-custody schedule for the kids. A few sessions (there are a couple of fantastic mediators in my town who have saved people tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and months of contentious fighting) with a civilized back and forth- and done. But once you retain a lawyer over one complex part of a divorce (the prenup assets) that lawyer is going to āGo for the Goldā on everything else, and that costs money and time and time and money. The lawyerās on the clock, hey whatās another court appearance?
So I have come around to the prenup wisdom. Put it in writing before emotions run high and hope the document gathers dust until it is shredded when you die.
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I hear you. And I do see that there are a lot of circumstances where in hindsight, a prenup could have been very useful to individuals! But I just donāt think the only ācostā of a prenup is the hundreds (or thousands) of dollars upfront to set it up. I think thereās a very big emotional ācostā, to me itās going into the marriage saying you donāt have full faith in the lifelong vow you are making. Itās planning an escape hatch. It makes me wonder if the marriages with prenups may be more likely to end, because you are entering not fully committed. Admittedly, plenty of marriages implode anyway!! So Iām not denying the practicality of it, just that it feels like the wrong foot to start a marriage on. But, like I said, Iām not 100% opposed, especially in later life marriages or 2nd marriages with kids involved, etc. Iām not 100% sure of my feelings in all circumstances (what if my kid founds a unicorn company worth $2 billion at age 27, and his or her partner gives hints of being a gold-digger? Would I still want them to not have a prenup?? Iām sure Iād change my mind 
).
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Someone posted way up thread that there were statistics showing that couples with pre-nups were LESS likely to get divorced.
I remember going through pre-cana classes and a big chunk of time was devoted to talking through finances, spending habits, debt tolerance, etcā¦ We were the only couple, out of 20 that had ever discussed it before the class!
IMO, having those discussions strengthens a relationship, not weakens it (although we didnāt have a prenup because we were both young enough for it not to matter).
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Iām guessing that pre-nups may be less ātouchyā and more āpracticalā when itās people who have parents that got divorced, or when itās a second marriage, for example.
If youāre 22, just out of college, and have no money and no debt, it might not come up in discussion. But if youāve already been working a couple of years or more, have saved a lot, and have been scrimping to build your retirement account, you may think about it.
In some cases I know, spouses donāt share money, but do contribute to all shared expenses (with the freedom to decide what they want to share in any way they choose). That can work well, even though some people think itās a terrible idea.
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All of the reasons spelled out here are valid. For others. At the same time, Iād have skipped getting married if I thought Iād ever need one. I have and have always had zero worry that my spouse would be anything less than fair to me (if anything, heād be āunfairā to himself). I know people say you can never know someone entirely, and I know he could surprise me in some ways, but ethically, nope. (Even if he somehow decided he could, heād never chance the disappointment from our grown kids). And I am the same way.
I leave it to my kids to figure that out. Donāt think D has one; S is not married though in what looks to be a permanent relationship. Not my business.
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DH and I did not have a pre-nup because neither of us came into the marriage with anything at all.
If he had assets prior to meeting me, and asked me to sign a pre-nup, I probably would have been okay with that. But what I would NEVER do is sign away my rights. Iāve heard of people asking fiance(e) to sign an agreement giving up their right to community property, and that would have been a deal breaker to me, since we had agreed I would stop working for some period time (TBD) while raising kids. Agreeing to stay home can have negative effects on oneās future career prospects, so no way would I have waived the rights my state would give me in the event of a divorce.
It worked out for us. DH has received a small inheritance from his grandmother that he immediately comingled with me to make a down payment on our first house. We share everything equally even though I make a fraction of his income.
As with everything, different strokes.
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A court can toss a very lopsided prenup, like a prenup that forces one spouse to give up their share of community property. A lawyer experienced in prenup drafting would advise against inclusion of anything that would void the document.
This is a good article on the subject of prenups:
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I did see this, but Iām not convinced. There canāt be an accurate double-blind study for this, with people randomly assigned to the prenup/ no-prenup group. So any stats compiled from looking at people who happen to have had a prenup vs. happen to not would have so many confounding factors (ie prenup people may have been older & wiser, may have had a different education level, may have been more financially secure and we all know that lack of money is something couples fight about, etc etc). Thereās no way to know for an individual couple, what the likelihood is that they stay together if they chose one path vs. the other. So Iām inclined to have a personal hunch that the prenup itself is somewhat damaging to the marriage. But clearly countless couples have thrived with and without prenups! I definitely agree with the importance of talking about finances, kids, etc before marriage. I found pre-Cana classes to be really interesting if mostly silly to us (as we had known each other very well at that point). I see theyād be especially helpful for couples who had never discussed those things before. I doubt my kids will do pre-Cana as we are no longer religious, but maybe thereās a secular version?
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Interesting that someone upthread wrote that a lot of the friends of their kids have them. I wonder if this is because people are delaying marriage more and more, so that each party has had more time to build up assets/retirement/savings.
Dh and I have no pre-nup. My parents both died when I was engaged but not yet married. As everything for their estate was being wrapped up by my attorney, he said to me, āHoggirl, I think dear fiance is a wonderful guy, and I am sure that you two will have no issues in your marriage. However, inherited property is not marital property, so I advise you to keep what you have inherited separate.ā Yes, there has been some commingling of money in our home buying. Dh now has significantly more money/assets than what I inherited from my parents. We have yours, mine, and ours piles for various reasons. But initially, I had quite a bit more because of that inheritance. My dh never had an issue with my keeping it separate and solely in my name.
I think whether or not I advised ds to seek a pre-nup would depend on the facts and circumstances at the time. I think I would feel the same about how I would feel about a future wife asking him to sign one - would depend.
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If one of the parties is signing under duress (āHe/she wonāt marry me if I donāt sign this, so Iāll sign even though this really bothers meā), I would agree. If both parties are ok with this, there is no reason to think their marriage would be in any danger of being damaged.
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On the other hand, having an equitable prenup can prove you didnāt marry for money or the partnerās earning potential.
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Way back in post #2, there was this:
Seems like @DadTwoGirls is suggesting that a pre-nup is a way of forcing the people to talk about compatibility on money issues before marriage, so that the engagement either breaks up before marriage if they are unable to agree on money issues, or the marriage is less likely to fail due to money disputes (though it can fail for other reasons). But then (for Catholics), pre-cana includes this, right?
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Yes, in post 49 I agreed I saw the #2 post, but I was not convinced those stats are meaningful. Thereās no way to really know, but in my personal opinion I think:
A) itās beneficial to talk about all kinds of expectations, including financial, before marriage, (through a program like pre-Cana or just good candid conversations) but
B) Planning an escape hatch for something that is intended to be enduring is very practical but potentially unhealthy to the relationship. But I am clear that this is just MY opinion. And I also think there are unusual circumstances where the benefits of a prenup might outweigh any potential negatives (ie someone coming into the marriage with a ridiculous fortune, or a lot of family property or large share of a family business, etc).
Although the kind of financial talks during pre-Cana and/or just personal money talks that I think are healthy and advantageous to have before marriage are NOT ones about how weād divide the assets if our marriage fails (pretty sure thatās not discussed in pre-Cana)ā¦ā¦it would be more along the lines about priorities on spending and saving, levels of risk we are comfortable with when investing, how charitable we plan to be, how important making money is to us vs. having extra time to devote to family/leisure, expectations about both partners contributing financially to the family, thoughts about one partner taking time off to raise the kids or keeping both partners working throughout, etc. I guess I think the healthy talks still focus on assumptions that we are staying together, not focusing on what to do when we break up our marriage.
But for sure, these are just my feelings, I certainly believe people have good reasons to consider prenups!!
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I was the one who posted that a lot of D1ās friends have prenups. Most of them got married in their late 20s and early 30s.
The way I look at it is like buying insurance. Would you buy a trip insurance? You hope you wonāt have to use it, but it would just give you a peace of mind. Would you not book a trip because it might be cancelled?
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Most of my Dās friends also have prenups but she lives in NY where prenups are more common among young professionals.
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In the context of these forums, perhaps one of the circumstances would be children from a previous marriage and how their college gets funded (and that can also pull in the ex-spouse whom they probably otherwise want nothing to do with).
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Jewish couples have been signing prenups for two thousand years; itās called a Ketubah and it is signed right before the wedding, and read out loud as part of the wedding ceremony. It outlines the groomās obligations to the bride both during and after (if thatās the case) the marriage. Some couples now are creating versions with more egalitarian texts- but the principle is the same.
I am not aware that incorporating this āwhat ifā contract (and framing it, and hanging it in your home, since most are done by calligraphers and are very ornamental) increases the likelihood of divorce! During a traditional wedding, the groom hands it to the bride (it becomes her property, since it outlines his financial obligations to her) and nobody thinks twiceā¦ in fact, the couple chooses someone important to them to read it since it is considered a great honor!
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I found statistics on this before my wife and I were married. However, that was 30 years ago so whether I could find the same stats now, I do not know.
I just tried a Google search. I found a lot of articles about prenups. I found some allegations that prenups result in either more or fewer divorces. I did not find any solid numbers.
However, I did find statistics that the divorce rate is correlated with a number of other factors with the profession of the married couple having quite a large impact on the probability of divorce, and the education level also having some (but less) impact. Interestingly āsome college but no degreeā seems to be slightly more likely to divorce compared to either ābachelorās degreeā or ānever went to collegeā.
There are several reasons why marriages with prenups might have a lower divorce rate, and I did not see any data on why this would be. I did speculate that the effort to negotiate a prenup might prevent some marriages that were not meant to be. However, I can think of some other possible reasons for this. Perhaps the most obvious is that the likelihood of a couple agreeing to have a prenup may be correlated with other factors such as the age of the couple, the occupation of the couple, and the income and financial wealth of the couple.
Here are some stats that suggest that actuaries, scientists, and software engineers are relatively unlikely to divorce, while bartenders are quite likely to divorce. Who could have predicted this?
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