The prevailing attitude about prenuptial agreements is that they throw cold water on the whole concept of marriage, love, and trust. First of all, most of us hear about prenuptial agreements when someone rich and famous gets divorced and about all the battles they are going through. So it's not surprising that people's initial reaction is a negative one. But in fact, prenuptial agreements and premarital contracting is the way that we can learn more about each other, make each other feel more comfortable about issues that are of concern, and certainly clarify money concerns. Each year, there is one divorce for every two marriages, and a substantial portion of those who have divorced, remarry.
Premarital contracting is a communication process.
On that premise, I think that no matter what age, whether we've been married once or not, whether we have stepchildren, whether we have assets, it's important to communicate and consider a legal document. The predominant reason why we in the financial planning profession raise the subject of premarital contracts with our clients who are facing subsequent marriages is people getting married the second time around are often in their 40s or 50s, and they have assets that they are bringing into the marriage, or children from a prior marriage, and without a prenuptial agreement, it's quite possible that those children could be excluded from assets should you die. And one of the key ways to protect your kids is a premarital contract. That's a very important point. A prenuptial agreement is not just for divorce.