I'd like some advice on prenups. I am mixed on whether I want to do this or not. I know the practicalities of it, but I also feel like it's planning a divorce...and that just feels so wrong to me. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> My fiance's owns some property that has been a part of his family for quite some time, and stands to inherit additional property, as well as gain financially. I understand their need/desire to protect that...I just can't help how it feels from an emotional standpoint, as if I am not trusted or there is an expectation of failure. Any ideas/thoughts would be helpful. I told him I wouldn't have an issue signing to protect those items, but anything in additional I'd would refuse to sign, he knows this. His family attny is to prepare the prenup, and my attny to review it. The problem is ...I just feel weird about it in general.

My wife and I signed a prenup (my idea) when we got married almost 9 years ago. Still doing great.

It was a fairly vanilla prenup - what's mine would stay mine, what's hers would stay hers, jointly acquired assets would be considered marital assets and subject to division. Individual 401k, IRA, and inheritances are off limits. Alimony waived. Child support cannot be addressed in a prenup as it wouldn't stand up in court anyway - at least that's the way it was when we did it.

So why did I want a prenup? It had little to do with trusting my fiancee - I mean, if I didn't trust her, why would I marry her? It was more...we've all heard financial horror stories coming out of divorce, and I wanted to protect myself. I had visions of starting my own company (I'm a techie) and didn't want half of it to go away if we split up.

For the first year or so on the advice of my attorney, I maintained my own checking account in addition to our joint account. My paycheck was deposited into my account, and then I transferred funds to our joint account. This was done to avoid the precedent that my income was a marital asset.

After the first year, we moved to North Carolina (for good reasons). When we got there, I never set up my own account. I was secure enough that I wasn't worried about it any more. Honestly, the prenup has been sitting in a drawer since we got married, and I haven't thought about it in years.

It's okay; I wouldn't worry about it too much.

We felt for us, it would be a negative message.

What we did do, was have a lot of conversations about financial matters, hopes for retirement, etc. We then drafted a will together -- allocating the "his", the "mine", and the "ours" among our family (and future family) as we felt was appropriate. The children's college money is already set aside; all our funds now go into our joint accounts.

In our situation, he earns a higher salary, but we were financially fairly even overall, coming into the marriage -- so having a prenup wasn't an issue for either one of us.

How about this, this is how I'd negotiate the issue of a prenup if my wealthier partner requested one. YES, we can have one, but lets talk terms ...

For example

- Standard Vanilla prenup as presented by bitBucket.

- Put a 'self-destruct' time limit on the whole thing of 30/40/50 years depending on your age when you marry. So after 30 years of marriage the prenup is nonfunctional.

- Add a clause that says if he cheats (assuming the prenup is protecting his assets) 5 years gets deducted from the prenup.

- If you cheat 5 years gets added to the prenup.

- Add a limit to this if you like. 3/5/10 affairs (however many you think is forgiveable in your marriage) on his part triggers an early self destruct on the prenup. 3/5/10 affairs on your part, would permanently stop the prenup from self destructing.

The emphasis here, is on you BOTH working to create a safe, loving, exclusive marriage for each other that meets ENs.

Put some serious money on the line as people tend to respond to external contraints quite well.

Overall, don't take it TOO seriously. Be smart, but humourous about it all.

And most of all, go for win win solutions always!

I felt the same way when we got our prenup. It's hard to think about the possibility of divorce before you've even gotten married and when you are so in love with some one. Don't think of a prenup as "a lack of trust" or "planning for divorce". Think of it as an "ACT OF LOVE".

Think about it, if the worst should happen, most people don't love/like each other at all and it is a very rough, trying and stressful process. There is bitterness, sadness and a whole treasure chest of bad emotions that come with it.

Instead, think of a prenup as something loving that you can do now for each other should the worst happen. Right now you are saying "I love you enough to make this hard decision now, so we can't hurt each other even more if it doesn't work out."

But the other posters are right, tailor your prenup so it works for you. It doesn't have to be set up in a way where you or your fiance feel taken advantage of. You go in and tell your attorney what you do and do not want it to be and then they make it happen. For example: If the worst happened, I didn't want my husband to be responsible for the numerous student loans that I have - at the time, because I loved him, I couldn't comprehend putting that debt on him, if things ever went bad I didn't know what I might do. So I put that in our prenup. He did some similar things that were out of his love for me, never to deny me in any way.

I know this is a tough thing to do and to even think about possibly not being together is SO hard, but look at a prenup not as a negative thing, but as something loving you can do now for each other. I can tell you now, as hard as it was to put together the prenup, I hardly even think about it now. Sit down and talk to your spouse about it and you will both be fine.

Good luck!