Recently, a friend asked me what I thought about prenups. She isn’t married yet, but she was wondering if it was “right” or “wrong” to bring it up to her fiancé.
She thinks that he won’t take it the correct way, but she wants to protect herself in case anything were to happen.
Does this mean she doesn’t believe in their relationship? I don’t think so at all!
These days, with all of the statistics you hear about divorce and the crazy stories you hear about exes taking them for everything that they have, it may make sense for some couples.
What is a prenup?
A prenuptial agreement (“prenup” for short) is what a couple signs to lay out and figure out their assets and finances. This contract is usually made before the couple gets married (however, it can be created afterwards) to protect themselves in case the marriage ends badly.
A prenup will help you in cases where:
You have a lot of assets and your spouse does not. Maybe you have a family property that would be horrible if you were to lose it?
You make more money than your spouse.
You have a business.
You win the lottery.
You know you will be receiving an inheritance.
If you plan on having children and you want to stay at home. This then protects the stay-at-home parent who has been out of work for years.
You have been divorced before and you want to protect yourself.
I have also heard of couples putting a cheating clause into their prenup. I’m not sure if this is true but I heard gossip that Jessica Biel has one of these contracts where if Justin Timberlake cheats then she will get around $500,000.
Other celebrities have put drug clauses where if the person relapses then the other will receive $1,000,000 for each year that the person was drug free.
It’s not romantic.
One of the main reasons why couples say that they do not want a prenup is because they consider it extremely unromantic and almost like you are saying that your marriage is doomed from the very beginning.
I don’t believe that is the case. I think each relationship is different, and prenups work for some, whereas they may not work for others. I do not think there is a right or wrong answer for all.
Here is what some of you had to say about the subject.
What about us? Before anyone gets snarky about what I’m about to say, I want to say that I don’t care 🙂 What we did works for us, but I do realize that it does not work for many, many others. We do not have a prenup, mainly because we started everything together when we were very young (when we had absolutely nothing), bought a house together when we were 20 (yes, 20!) and already have combined finances.
Always discuss finances.
No matter what you decide to do, I always think that you should discuss finances with your significant other until there is absolutely nothing left to talk about.
I have seen so many relationships where finances are not discussed anywhere the amount that they should be, and this is just scary to me. I know people where:
They don’t know how much their monthly mortgage payment is. This person couldn’t even make a guess.
They don’t know how much they spend each month. They leave everything up to the other and don’t even ask.
They don’t know how much debt they have. Do you know if you even have debt? The other day I heard someone say (I can’t remember who said this, I think it was on Twitter?) that one person in a marriage thought they had $500,000 in debt, whereas the other thought it was $1,000,000. WHAT? How do you not know? That’s a big difference!
They don’t know their income. Come on people, if you have joint finances, you need to have a realistic idea of how much you are bringing in.
They don’t know how much they put on credit cards each month. These people are in debt and they don’t even know it!
They lie to their significant other about things that they buy. I specifically know of someone who tells their significant other that a hobby that they have only costs a few hundred dollars every few months. This hobby is actually a few thousand, and this person uses extra money that they make to hide how much it actually costs.
Do you have a prenup? Why or why not?
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