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Learn to Love the Prenup
Signing on this dotted line could safeguard your financial future.
by Corinne Asturias
And yet, when one person in the relationship brings up the notion of a prenuptial agreement, it’s like, well, offering up a shot of ipecac even though there’s no poison in sight.
“You find yourself wondering, ‘Well, if we’re talking about a prenup, then why are we getting married?’” says one newly engaged woman, who has had a few tense conversations with her fiancé about the subject. “If you’re looking for an escape hatch, then let’s not do it.”
“It’s a very, very heated and difficult issue for most people,” agrees relationship therapist Janis Altman, who, in her three decades of practice in New York, has seen engagements broken over prenups. “Though it really is about finances, it’s riddled with emotion. People think, ‘Oh my God, doesn’t he trust me? Doesn’t he love me? Does he think we’re going to get divorced?’ Some look at it as a paper filled with doom and gloom.”
Doom and gloom is right. Statistics be damned; why plan for the end if you’re determined it’s never, ever going to happen to you?
As a recent headline in Psychology Today asks: Is it possible that a prenup, while pretending to be your ally, can actually “sow the seeds” of divorce? If that’s not enough to drive even the most optimistic among us to a box of chocolates and a sad movie, not to mention a really bad date with our favorite person, I don’t know what is. How in the world can something be so right, but feel so wrong?
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1 Marriage Without Monogamy: Part Two // Feb 29, 2008 at 11:31 am
[…] because we’ve decided to do so without getting legally married (see Marriage Without Monogamy), a prenuptial agreement is obviously out of the question. And yet neither one of us likes the idea of building a life […]
2 Kristi // Feb 14, 2007 at 8:40 am
Recently divorced with a prenup. This document allowed my husband to cheat on me with 3 different women (that I know of - if there’s 3 rats, there’s probably 10) for over 3 years and because of the prenup - he was not responsible for alimony! I wish I’d been more forthright in what was necessary to be included in the document.
3 Anonymous // May 23, 2006 at 11:16 am
I am 22 female and agree very strongly to having a pre nup. I would compare it to wearing a seatbelt for saftety, not that you plan for a wreck or even want one but, the future is unknown. I also believe an indiviual should be secure enough to know that a paper doesn’t make the relationship but, the indiviuals apart of it. If someone loves me they are marring me not MY ASSETS!!! -VMS