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A prenuptial agreement is just as important in some situations as premarital counseling. A few decades ago, the thought of either prior to saying "I do" was unheard of. Should it be a requirement? Of course not. But it should be considered.

People live longer now. Wives and husbands both work. People move away from their families and hometowns. People with vastly different backgrounds marry one another. For these reasons and many others, a prenuptial agreement is an important document.

Think of it as a "living will" for your marriage. When you're healthy and coherent, the idea of being incapacitated or worse doesn't exist for you. The same goes for a marriage. In the emotionally exuberant days of dating, the idea of a prenuptial agreement seems absurd.

But when you are lying in a hospital bed, unable to breathe on your own, you'd probably wish you'd made your intentions known rather than have someone make decisions for you. Same goes for a marriage. Trying times are part of marriage. Those who enter into it thinking that their marriage will always be rosy are kidding themselves. Those who entertain the possibility of an incapacitated marriage are more realistic, and can save themselves heartache and devastation in the event that the marriage becomes impossible to resuscitate.

I am happily married most of the time. There have been times when I wish I could change my husband's behavior. There are times when I think I could do so much better on my own. I don't kid myself. I know he has those same feelings about me from time to time.

We have vastly different views about religion and finances. We have slightly different (but complementary) views about raising our children. As we've gotten older, some of these differences have become more pronounced, to the point that they could conceivably tear us apart.

We went through pre-marital counseling with the Unitarian minister who married us. He was fascinated with the idea that an agnostic and a Christian had already been together as long as we had (7 years), and wanted to prepare us for some of the ways our differences would affect our marriage.

We do not have a prenuptial agreement, but we verbally created one with each other during our counseling sessions: to have enough respect for each other and ourselves that we can embrace our differences and always come back to what was important to us when we made the decision to marry. If we are unable to reconcile our differences, we should have enough respect for ourselves, our partner, and our family and friends, to part ways and allow us to have fulfilling lives.

Prenuptial agreements are not necessarily all about money, although the attorneys who draw them up generally protect assets versus emotions because assets are tangible. There is, to my knowledge, no way to amicably distribute the remains of emotions. But mutual respect can go a long way in keeping emotions as intact as possible.
I want to be that elderly couple on a park bench holding hands and still adoring each other after 50 years. That couple has had its share of arguments, tears and hurt, in addition to agreement, smiles and satisfaction. Couples who survive for decades have been served healthy doses of reality along the way.

By addressing the possibility of problems before a marriage, and deciding how to settle those problems, is important for all concerned. It is not an admission of distrust. It is, instead, an acknowledgement that reality plays a major role after the honeymoon is over.

A prenuptial agreement, then, is like a vitamin pill for the marriage. Not everyone is going to take the vitamin, but those who do will be better off in the long run.

Learn more about this author, Beth Hermes.
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