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marriage failure may not be a sensible trade-off.

However, prenuptial agreements can be highly useful for people entering into second marriages who have children from the first marriage. An agreement can balance a spouse's loyalty to the new spouse and with the spouse's concern and loyalty to the children of the first marriage.

Reality 4: A Prenuptial Agreement often damages the relationship between the two families-of-origin.

A party (or the party's parents) may want a financial agreement prior to the marriage due to the existence of family wealth. The premarital agreement generally isolates all family property as not part of the marriage, forever. Result: the future spouse's family feels humiliated and disrespected, and never forgets the rebuff. This is not good for the parties' marriage, as it will result in family-of-origin conflict that will be present during the entire marriage and remembered until death.

One common fact pattern that I see often is this: the future spouse does not want to have a prenuptial agreement, but his parents insist. The prenuptial agreement is made. The wife feels her husband was unable to stand up to his parents, and loses respect for him.

The control of the marriage by one party's family of origin disturbs the delicate balance of a marriage and makes it more likely to fail.

Reality 5: The terms of a Prenuptial Agreement are often quite unfair at the time of divorce, even though they are generally enforced by a Court.

Courts routinely enforce premarital agreements that give a spouse a fraction of what the spouse would "deserve" under state law. This proves that the deal made in the prenuptial agreement years earlier were unfair to that spouse.

Parties struggle in courts over prenuptial agreements; prenuptial agreements per se do not eliminate court battles.

Divorce laws are fair. That's why they were developed. Trust in them (and in your good will and sense of fairness to each other) to do the right thing at the time of divorce. Do not rely on a set of financial agreements made years earlier prior to the marriage that may be totally out of sync with the real facts at the time of divorce. Trust that by foregoing the premarital agreement you have made your marriage stronger and more likely to succeed.

Copyright 2008 Laurie Israel

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