In one episode of The Big Bang Theory, Bernadette wished for Howard to sign a prenuptial agreement before they were married, and Howard was displeased with that, spending the entire episode in a negative emotional state due to Bernadette's request.
I am not married, so I do not understand why Howard was acting as if signing a prenuptial agreement was a terrible thing to do. If anyone here has knowledge on this subject, could you please explain to me why Howard was upset about it? Thank you very much.
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“Those who would trade their freedoms for security will have neither.”-Benjamin Franklin
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”-Thomas Jefferson
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of its user.”-Theodore Roosevelt
“Patriotism means to stand by one's country; it does not mean to stand by one's president.”-Theodore Roosevelt
I don't really think this belongs in Debate (B_S, if you agree feel free to send it to WCT).
In any case, a prenup is seen as a bad thing by some people because you're preparing for the failure of your marriage before you even get married. Trust is another factor, because to some people it also basically says 'I don't trust you to be reasonable in a divorce). Reasonable people generally don't have a problem with it, it's just the people who tend to romanticize marriage too much that have any issue.
So, simply put, signing a prenup evokes the idea that the marriage isn't destined, or that you don't trust the other person.
Also, signing a prenup generally takes away any fiscal incentive to get divorced after marriage.
My wife and I did not sign a prenup, but only because the process of getting one made up (and the cost of having a good one written up) just couldn't be factored into our wedding costs. She is going to be outearning me 3-to-1 or more in a few years, so I left the choice up to her to spend the extra money and she said not right then.
If I ever get married, I shall not do so unless I am absolutely certain that the relationship shall last for as long as both me and my partner are alive, so I do not believe that it shall be necessary for me to sign a prenuptial agreement. However, I can see the benefit in doing so, since I wish to ensure that my property and my partner's property are clearly distinct from each other, and I certainly shall not have a joint bank account with my partner; my money is my own, and I shall have no problem with my partner having the same belief.
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“Those who would trade their freedoms for security will have neither.”-Benjamin Franklin
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”-Thomas Jefferson
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of its user.”-Theodore Roosevelt
“Patriotism means to stand by one's country; it does not mean to stand by one's president.”-Theodore Roosevelt
my money is my own, and I shall have no problem with my partner having the same belief.
That is a very strange way to view it... What if you need a new stove? or new carpeting? Who pays for those? Do you split the costs 50/50? How do you buy a house? Does only one of you pay for it and lose the ability to possibly get something nicer?
Typically a pre-nup it purely for instances where one partner has significantly more money than the other going into a relationship(celebrities). It is typically accepted that once married, both parties are contributing to total household value... if one partner works and the other does not the mind set would be that the non-working partner takes care of many things that allows the working partner to work enough to cover all expenses. If that couple were to separate it's typical that all assets gained after marriage would be split 50/50 even if they were all bought by one partner (because the other partner was providing non-monetary value like raising kids).
To be clear, a prenup isn't just for instance where one person has significantly more money than the other. It can affect a lot of things about how stuff is divided after a divorce, which can make a huge difference in who gets to keep the house, for instance.
Signing a prenup is a good idea. My wife and I intend to sign a postnup at some point in the near future. It protects both of us, because no one knows who they're going to be in 30 years. I intend to stay with my wife for the rest of my life (and being married in a Hindu ceremony, six more lifetimes beyond this one), but if something I happens I want us both to be covered. Divorces are never pretty, so while you may say now that you don't intend to get divorced or you would never try to take your SO for all they're worth, it's better to agree on terms well before it gets to the point where your expensive divorce lawyer is pressuring you to take more.
In any relationship, whether it's a marriage or simply a girl/boyfriend;
Question: If you don't have trust, what have you got?
Answer: Nothing.
I think the whole pre-nup thing pretty much asks of the above concept.
In any relationship, whether it's a marriage or simply a girl/boyfriend;
Question: If you don't have trust, what have you got?
Answer: Nothing.
I think the whole pre-nup thing pretty much asks of the above concept.
For every 100 couples who trust each other enough to get married, roughly 50 of them will get divorced. No one thinks it will be them, or they wouldn't be getting married.
No one ever thinks their house will get hit with a tornado either, but when it does they're glad they took out an insurance policy.
To the less rational individual, it can be seen as an insult of sorts: you're basically saying you don't for sure know you won't be together forever, signalling mistrust in your relationship (despite how reasonable signing a prenup is).
I don't know if I'd ever get a prenup myself, but I do believe it's smart to do so (especially those with more assets).
For every 100 couples who trust each other enough to get married, roughly 50 of them will get divorced. No one thinks it will be them, or they wouldn't be getting married.
It is true that (roughly) 50% of marriages end in divorce, but it is not true that 50% of married people become divorcé(e)s.
Imagine a world with six men and six women. Four men and four women pair off with each other and marry for life. The other two men and two women pair off, marry, divorce, marry the other available partner, then divorce again. That's eight marriages and four divorces, a 50% rate, but only four divorcé(e)s out of twelve people, a 33% rate. Math!
And real life works roughly like this. The serial remarriers drive up the divorce numbers. That one guy who's on his sixth wife - he "counts against" five other guys' lifelong marriages.
In any relationship, whether it's a marriage or simply a girl/boyfriend;
Question: If you don't have trust, what have you got?
Answer: Nothing.
I think the whole pre-nup thing pretty much asks of the above concept.
For every 100 couples who trust each other enough to get married, roughly 50 of them will get divorced. No one thinks it will be them, or they wouldn't be getting married.
No one ever thinks their house will get hit with a tornado either, but when it does they're glad they took out an insurance policy.
I don't disagree with this logic, and it's important for people to think this way and protect themselves when considering their options. But I do believe that people who have extra high standards for who is marriageable will be more successful than the general ~40% statistic of first time marriages (not 50% as Blinking Spirit pointed out). I believe that people of our generation have been raised rather poorly and don't have a good understanding of what makes a healthy relationship. Lust is not good enough to keep two people together indefinitely. Neediness and desire for companionship is not good enough. Convenience is not good enough. Compatibility is not good enough. Status/wealth/power is not good enough. You have to love each other. I think that if you are able to understand why your partner is with you and shield yourself from the unhealthy people who were just looking for companionship, just looking for sex, just looking for someone to show off to their friends/family, etc, and also if you hold yourself to these same standards, you can do a lot better than 40%.
Also, if having healthy children is important to you, a prenup cannot protect your potential children from the psychological damages of divorced parents or unhappy/negligent/abusive parents who stay together despite hating each other. A prenup also cannot rewind the clock x years to back before you wasted those married years of your life. You will still face loss if you choose a bad partner, which as has been stated is unsettlingly common. I'm not saying prenups are bad, I'm saying they are at best a kind of parachute when what your main focus should be is finding a plane that isn't likely to crash. Good luck.
For every 100 couples who trust each other enough to get married, roughly 50 of them will get divorced. No one thinks it will be them, or they wouldn't be getting married.
It is true that (roughly) 50% of marriages end in divorce, but it is not true that 50% of married people become divorcé(e)s.
Imagine a world with six men and six women. Four men and four women pair off with each other and marry for life. The other two men and two women pair off, marry, divorce, marry the other available partner, then divorce again. That's eight marriages and four divorces, a 50% rate, but only four divorcé(e)s out of twelve people, a 33% rate. Math!
And real life works roughly like this. The serial remarriers drive up the divorce numbers. That one guy who's on his sixth wife - he "counts against" five other guys' lifelong marriages.
This is clearly correct. (It's incidentally the same type of phenomenon that's responsible for the fact that a surprisingly large percentage of women are victims of sexual assault, whereas very few men actually commit sexual assault. A few repeat offenders are responsible for a big fraction of the problem.)
That doesn't really change my point, which is that a substantial number of couples get divorced, and none of those couples expected it. Maybe we think some of those couples should have seen it coming, but the fact is they didn't or they wouldn't have married. No one thinks they need a prenup, but many people do.
For every 100 couples who trust each other enough to get married, roughly 50 of them will get divorced. No one thinks it will be them, or they wouldn't be getting married.
It is true that (roughly) 50% of marriages end in divorce, but it is not true that 50% of married people become divorcé(e)s.
Imagine a world with six men and six women. Four men and four women pair off with each other and marry for life. The other two men and two women pair off, marry, divorce, marry the other available partner, then divorce again. That's eight marriages and four divorces, a 50% rate, but only four divorcé(e)s out of twelve people, a 33% rate. Math!
And real life works roughly like this. The serial remarriers drive up the divorce numbers. That one guy who's on his sixth wife - he "counts against" five other guys' lifelong marriages.
Yeah, the actual answer is more like 34% of people who have ever been married will have at least one divorce, NOT that half of all marriages end in divorce. There are just a bunch of people out there who get multiple divorces.
Also, if having healthy children is important to you, a prenup cannot protect your potential children from the psychological damages of divorced parents or unhappy/negligent/abusive parents who stay together despite hating each other. A prenup also cannot rewind the clock x years to back before you wasted those married years of your life. You will still face loss if you choose a bad partner, which as has been stated is unsettlingly common. I'm not saying prenups are bad, I'm saying they are at best a kind of parachute when what your main focus should be is finding a plane that isn't likely to crash. Good luck.
Yeah, but a prenup isn't supposed to prevent any of that. Nothing can. And how are people in love enough to get married really supposed to see the signs of a potential divorce in the morning?
In many cases, there was no reason to suspect a divorce was forthcoming, especially 10 years down the road. People change, circumstances change and there really isn't that good a way to tell which marriages will stay strong and which will fail.
I just feel that asking your potential life-long partner to sign a "just in case you're not the one" isn't going to go down well at all.
Cue your partner having 2nd thoughts about you.
....
Go ahead and prove me wrong, but I know my missus would think it's an ******** manoeuvre, and I reckon most of her friends would too...
Considering divorce courts tend to see pre-nup agreements as pretty much null-and-void if children are involved, I'm not sure there's much point unless you have very deep pockets.
EDIT: To add to your points el_pato about marriage;
Marriage takes work. Even the best marriage has roller-coaster moments.
It'd be bloody boring if it didn't.
Make up sex is the best.
I actually just had this discussion with my soon-to-be-fiancee. I'm against them, because I see it as a sign of distrust. Marriage is a leap of faith, where two people agree to hitch themselves to the same wagon and see where it goes. I believe in shared bank accounts; the idea of me buying more stuff for me than my wife gets for her, just because I make more, horribly unfair. A shared bank account also ensures equal access to funds; again, an act of faith, trust, and honesty.
And I'll add that I've been divorced once. No prenup, and we had a great divorce (dissolution, actually): no lawyers, no quibbling over things (because neither of us put much value in things...one of the reasons we married in the first place). If you fear a messy divorce, maybe you should reconsider who you're marrying. Even if things don't work out again, I'm confident that I've picked a deep-down kind, caring, unmaterialistic, and not-petty woman to marry.
If you fear a messy divorce, maybe you should reconsider who you're marrying. Even if things don't work out again, I'm confident that I've picked a deep-down kind, caring, unmaterialistic, and not-petty woman to marry.
This is pretty insulting. I don't fear a messy divorce, but that doesn't mean I can't protect myself just in case. And it also protects my wife from me. I may trust my wife completely now, but people don't stay the same forever. What if we have a kid, and the kid dies and we blame each other?
You don't wear a seatbelt because you don't trust the driver, you put it on because all sorts of bad things could happen that aren't your fault.
I actually just had this discussion with my soon-to-be-fiancee. I'm against them, because I see it as a sign of distrust. Marriage is a leap of faith, where two people agree to hitch themselves to the same wagon and see where it goes. I believe in shared bank accounts; the idea of me buying more stuff for me than my wife gets for her, just because I make more, horribly unfair. A shared bank account also ensures equal access to funds; again, an act of faith, trust, and honesty.
And I'll add that I've been divorced once. No prenup, and we had a great divorce (dissolution, actually): no lawyers, no quibbling over things (because neither of us put much value in things...one of the reasons we married in the first place). If you fear a messy divorce, maybe you should reconsider who you're marrying. Even if things don't work out again, I'm confident that I've picked a deep-down kind, caring, unmaterialistic, and not-petty woman to marry.
Not e everyone wants to live like this and it's unfair to believe if a person is not selfless and unmaterialistic he/she is not worth marrying.
Prenuptial is a fine deal and if you you're marrying in the mindset that marriages can never go wrong I believe chances are, you will get a reality shock sooner or later. People change with times, it's how the world is.
I'm not sure what the law is like in the USA regarding "de-facto" relationships, but here in Australia it's pretty hardcore.
Consider this;
In Australia, if you both live together as a couple for a period of 6 months or more in the same house, and share a child, the law treats any break-up no different than marriage.
I.E. The primary carer (not bread winner) gets the house and child support, regardless of the name on the deed.
Funnily enough, because there is no gay marriage laws in Australia (yet), even if a gay couple share a child here, there are no de facto laws to protect the child in the instance of a break-up.
If you're thinking about a pre-nup, might be a good idea to check out the de facto laws in your country for piece of mind, if you're that way inclined.
I actually just had this discussion with my soon-to-be-fiancee. I'm against them, because I see it as a sign of distrust. Marriage is a leap of faith, where two people agree to hitch themselves to the same wagon and see where it goes. I believe in shared bank accounts; the idea of me buying more stuff for me than my wife gets for her, just because I make more, horribly unfair. A shared bank account also ensures equal access to funds; again, an act of faith, trust, and honesty.
And I'll add that I've been divorced once. No prenup, and we had a great divorce (dissolution, actually): no lawyers, no quibbling over things (because neither of us put much value in things...one of the reasons we married in the first place). If you fear a messy divorce, maybe you should reconsider who you're marrying. Even if things don't work out again, I'm confident that I've picked a deep-down kind, caring, unmaterialistic, and not-petty woman to marry.
Not e everyone wants to live like this and it's unfair to believe if a person is not selfless and unmaterialistic he/she is not worth marrying.
Prenuptial is a fine deal and if you you're marrying in the mindset that marriages can never go wrong I believe chances are, you will get a reality shock sooner or later. People change with times, it's how the world is.
How on earth is that unfair? Do you believe that people should not be entitled to choose the qualities they are looking for in their spouse?
I don't have a problem with other people wanting a prenup, but it's not for me. I think if my wife had asked for one it would have given me pause, though I may have grudgingly gone along with it. It seems like a bad precedent to start a marriage on, to immediately begin planning for what should happen if it ends in divorce. I trust my wife to stick it out through the bad times, and at the very least not to take me to the cleaners if things go south. If the absolute worst happens and she does? Meh, I don't care that much about money. I've survived on Ramen noodles and PB&Js before, and I can do it again.
I actually just had this discussion with my soon-to-be-fiancee. I'm against them, because I see it as a sign of distrust. Marriage is a leap of faith, where two people agree to hitch themselves to the same wagon and see where it goes. I believe in shared bank accounts; the idea of me buying more stuff for me than my wife gets for her, just because I make more, horribly unfair. A shared bank account also ensures equal access to funds; again, an act of faith, trust, and honesty.
And I'll add that I've been divorced once. No prenup, and we had a great divorce (dissolution, actually): no lawyers, no quibbling over things (because neither of us put much value in things...one of the reasons we married in the first place). If you fear a messy divorce, maybe you should reconsider who you're marrying. Even if things don't work out again, I'm confident that I've picked a deep-down kind, caring, unmaterialistic, and not-petty woman to marry.
Not e everyone wants to live like this and it's unfair to believe if a person is not selfless and unmaterialistic he/she is not worth marrying.
Prenuptial is a fine deal and if you you're marrying in the mindset that marriages can never go wrong I believe chances are, you will get a reality shock sooner or later. People change with times, it's how the world is.
How on earth is that unfair? Do you believe that people should not be entitled to choose the qualities they are looking for in their spouse?
This is a debate and the theme is the morality of asking a prenup agreement. Arguments such as "choose a wife that doesn't care about money" or "you shouldn't care about money" does not contribute to the debate because the moral question exist for all kind of people including the ones that wants to marry selfish and materialistic women and people who cares about money. It's precisely because people are entitled to elect the qualities their seek in their partners that it is unfair to narrow down the debate to one kind of person.
Marriages are projects. Life projects are still projects. And in every project you should be prepared to all the outcomes and the preparation s of course based on the probabilities of each outcome. I can see why someone can get upset. Let's say there's a cost associated with getting a prenup agreement. If someone is asking one is because this person believe the chances of the marriage go wrong are big enough to surpass the cost of getting the prenup. I can see why a large difference in the belief of the chance the marriage go wrong might upset someone.
But it's important to keep in mind there are other factors too. Such as one of the person having much more money then the other, so even a very small chance of the marriage go wrong might outweigh the costs of the prenup. You can also picture the situation were both people have the same amount of money but one of then putting much more value in it, which might lead this person to ask the agreement.
So it could be that one person might take the agreement as a sign of lack of faith while the real reason behind it being one of the above. It could even be that the person who have more faith in the marriage would ask the agreement.
How on earth is that unfair? Do you believe that people should not be entitled to choose the qualities they are looking for in their spouse?
"If you fear a messy divorce, maybe you should reconsider who you're marrying."
He's not just making the decision for himself. He's recommending it to everyone. That's what we find objectionable.
Not to mention everyone already has a de facto prenup. It's called Divorce Law. So all a prenup is saying is that "Hey, I don't like the rules the state is imposing on us. Let's draft our own." This is especially important for people who've already been divorced, people who have children by other parents, etc.
Honestly, I'm just glad I married a rational woman who understands that the future is in flux, and that agreeing to things while we're in love and happy is better than, god forbid, something happens and we duke it out at our most bitter and spiteful. We discussed the prenup, and ended up deciding against it for financial reasons and because first marriages generally don't need it. If you haven't had a serious talk about divorce with your significant other, you may really want to consider it. It's right up there with money, kids, politics and religion, because it seriously affects the disposition of those first two if anything happens. You should 'trust' that you actually have no freaking clue how either of your would react in a break-up, and they're certainly not known for being civil. One of the biggest mistakes couples make is they don't communicate about these things in advance, or really communicate about anything substantial until after the marriage. If even discussing a prenup seriously hurts your relationship (or you think it would), you really need to think about your relationship and WHY it's an issue.
How on earth is that unfair? Do you believe that people should not be entitled to choose the qualities they are looking for in their spouse?
"If you fear a messy divorce, maybe you should reconsider who you're marrying."
He's not just making the decision for himself. He's recommending it to everyone. That's what we find objectionable.
I think I have two objections to what towishimp's saying. One is what you articulated: "prenups are unnecessary because everyone should have a relationship with the same priorities as my relationship." Obviously every relationship is different.
The second issue I have is the naivete of the statement "if you just find a partner with qualities x, y, and z you don't need to worry about a messy divorce." Human beings are complex and ever-changing creatures. I'm an almost unrecognizably different person from who I was 10 years ago; my priorities are very different, my outlook on life is different, my religious, political, and philosophical beliefs have shifted. If I had married someone 10 years ago, maybe we wouldn't be getting divorced, but my spouse would definitely feel like I was not the same person she married.
And even if your partner doesn't change, per se, you still can never be sure how someone will react to a crisis situation like divorce until you're actually in the thick of it. Perhaps if both of you had been divorced before, and things went smoothly both times, that would suggest that things might not go bad for you two. But then you have a couple of divorcees getting married, which suggests an elevated risk of future divorce, which again underscores the need for a prenup.
Where wealth is concerned, we must begin with the basic point of protecting assets. This is no different than someone with an heirloom ring telling his or her fiance that "this stays in my family, we break up I get it back."
The same with family heirlooms and specific particulars. "No my mother's jewelry isn't my gift to you, if we get a divorce." The intention is to give someone their parents jewelry, because they're married and it's a benefit of continued relationships.
Equally, we have to take into consideration someone handing to their child an heirloom to give to their groom/bride and the groom/bride seeing that as a "consolation prize." From the perspective of the parent, the loss of the heirloom is greater than the "consolation prize" for a failed marriage, at least for some people.
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I am not married, so I do not understand why Howard was acting as if signing a prenuptial agreement was a terrible thing to do. If anyone here has knowledge on this subject, could you please explain to me why Howard was upset about it? Thank you very much.
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”-Thomas Jefferson
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of its user.”-Theodore Roosevelt
“Patriotism means to stand by one's country; it does not mean to stand by one's president.”-Theodore Roosevelt
In any case, a prenup is seen as a bad thing by some people because you're preparing for the failure of your marriage before you even get married. Trust is another factor, because to some people it also basically says 'I don't trust you to be reasonable in a divorce). Reasonable people generally don't have a problem with it, it's just the people who tend to romanticize marriage too much that have any issue.
So, simply put, signing a prenup evokes the idea that the marriage isn't destined, or that you don't trust the other person.
Also, signing a prenup generally takes away any fiscal incentive to get divorced after marriage.
My wife and I did not sign a prenup, but only because the process of getting one made up (and the cost of having a good one written up) just couldn't be factored into our wedding costs. She is going to be outearning me 3-to-1 or more in a few years, so I left the choice up to her to spend the extra money and she said not right then.
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“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”-Thomas Jefferson
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of its user.”-Theodore Roosevelt
“Patriotism means to stand by one's country; it does not mean to stand by one's president.”-Theodore Roosevelt
That is a very strange way to view it... What if you need a new stove? or new carpeting? Who pays for those? Do you split the costs 50/50? How do you buy a house? Does only one of you pay for it and lose the ability to possibly get something nicer?
Typically a pre-nup it purely for instances where one partner has significantly more money than the other going into a relationship(celebrities). It is typically accepted that once married, both parties are contributing to total household value... if one partner works and the other does not the mind set would be that the non-working partner takes care of many things that allows the working partner to work enough to cover all expenses. If that couple were to separate it's typical that all assets gained after marriage would be split 50/50 even if they were all bought by one partner (because the other partner was providing non-monetary value like raising kids).
Signing a prenup is a good idea. My wife and I intend to sign a postnup at some point in the near future. It protects both of us, because no one knows who they're going to be in 30 years. I intend to stay with my wife for the rest of my life (and being married in a Hindu ceremony, six more lifetimes beyond this one), but if something I happens I want us both to be covered. Divorces are never pretty, so while you may say now that you don't intend to get divorced or you would never try to take your SO for all they're worth, it's better to agree on terms well before it gets to the point where your expensive divorce lawyer is pressuring you to take more.
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Question: If you don't have trust, what have you got?
Answer: Nothing.
I think the whole pre-nup thing pretty much asks of the above concept.
For every 100 couples who trust each other enough to get married, roughly 50 of them will get divorced. No one thinks it will be them, or they wouldn't be getting married.
No one ever thinks their house will get hit with a tornado either, but when it does they're glad they took out an insurance policy.
I don't know if I'd ever get a prenup myself, but I do believe it's smart to do so (especially those with more assets).
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Imagine a world with six men and six women. Four men and four women pair off with each other and marry for life. The other two men and two women pair off, marry, divorce, marry the other available partner, then divorce again. That's eight marriages and four divorces, a 50% rate, but only four divorcé(e)s out of twelve people, a 33% rate. Math!
And real life works roughly like this. The serial remarriers drive up the divorce numbers. That one guy who's on his sixth wife - he "counts against" five other guys' lifelong marriages.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I don't disagree with this logic, and it's important for people to think this way and protect themselves when considering their options. But I do believe that people who have extra high standards for who is marriageable will be more successful than the general ~40% statistic of first time marriages (not 50% as Blinking Spirit pointed out). I believe that people of our generation have been raised rather poorly and don't have a good understanding of what makes a healthy relationship. Lust is not good enough to keep two people together indefinitely. Neediness and desire for companionship is not good enough. Convenience is not good enough. Compatibility is not good enough. Status/wealth/power is not good enough. You have to love each other. I think that if you are able to understand why your partner is with you and shield yourself from the unhealthy people who were just looking for companionship, just looking for sex, just looking for someone to show off to their friends/family, etc, and also if you hold yourself to these same standards, you can do a lot better than 40%.
Also, if having healthy children is important to you, a prenup cannot protect your potential children from the psychological damages of divorced parents or unhappy/negligent/abusive parents who stay together despite hating each other. A prenup also cannot rewind the clock x years to back before you wasted those married years of your life. You will still face loss if you choose a bad partner, which as has been stated is unsettlingly common. I'm not saying prenups are bad, I'm saying they are at best a kind of parachute when what your main focus should be is finding a plane that isn't likely to crash. Good luck.
This is clearly correct. (It's incidentally the same type of phenomenon that's responsible for the fact that a surprisingly large percentage of women are victims of sexual assault, whereas very few men actually commit sexual assault. A few repeat offenders are responsible for a big fraction of the problem.)
That doesn't really change my point, which is that a substantial number of couples get divorced, and none of those couples expected it. Maybe we think some of those couples should have seen it coming, but the fact is they didn't or they wouldn't have married. No one thinks they need a prenup, but many people do.
Yeah, the actual answer is more like 34% of people who have ever been married will have at least one divorce, NOT that half of all marriages end in divorce. There are just a bunch of people out there who get multiple divorces.
Yeah, but a prenup isn't supposed to prevent any of that. Nothing can. And how are people in love enough to get married really supposed to see the signs of a potential divorce in the morning?
In many cases, there was no reason to suspect a divorce was forthcoming, especially 10 years down the road. People change, circumstances change and there really isn't that good a way to tell which marriages will stay strong and which will fail.
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I just feel that asking your potential life-long partner to sign a "just in case you're not the one" isn't going to go down well at all.
Cue your partner having 2nd thoughts about you.
....
Go ahead and prove me wrong, but I know my missus would think it's an ******** manoeuvre, and I reckon most of her friends would too...
Considering divorce courts tend to see pre-nup agreements as pretty much null-and-void if children are involved, I'm not sure there's much point unless you have very deep pockets.
EDIT: To add to your points el_pato about marriage;
Marriage takes work. Even the best marriage has roller-coaster moments.
It'd be bloody boring if it didn't.
Make up sex is the best.
And I'll add that I've been divorced once. No prenup, and we had a great divorce (dissolution, actually): no lawyers, no quibbling over things (because neither of us put much value in things...one of the reasons we married in the first place). If you fear a messy divorce, maybe you should reconsider who you're marrying. Even if things don't work out again, I'm confident that I've picked a deep-down kind, caring, unmaterialistic, and not-petty woman to marry.
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candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
This is pretty insulting. I don't fear a messy divorce, but that doesn't mean I can't protect myself just in case. And it also protects my wife from me. I may trust my wife completely now, but people don't stay the same forever. What if we have a kid, and the kid dies and we blame each other?
You don't wear a seatbelt because you don't trust the driver, you put it on because all sorts of bad things could happen that aren't your fault.
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International diplomacy.
Or business.
I'm not joking.
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Not e everyone wants to live like this and it's unfair to believe if a person is not selfless and unmaterialistic he/she is not worth marrying.
Prenuptial is a fine deal and if you you're marrying in the mindset that marriages can never go wrong I believe chances are, you will get a reality shock sooner or later. People change with times, it's how the world is.
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Consider this;
In Australia, if you both live together as a couple for a period of 6 months or more in the same house, and share a child, the law treats any break-up no different than marriage.
I.E. The primary carer (not bread winner) gets the house and child support, regardless of the name on the deed.
Funnily enough, because there is no gay marriage laws in Australia (yet), even if a gay couple share a child here, there are no de facto laws to protect the child in the instance of a break-up.
If you're thinking about a pre-nup, might be a good idea to check out the de facto laws in your country for piece of mind, if you're that way inclined.
I don't have a problem with other people wanting a prenup, but it's not for me. I think if my wife had asked for one it would have given me pause, though I may have grudgingly gone along with it. It seems like a bad precedent to start a marriage on, to immediately begin planning for what should happen if it ends in divorce. I trust my wife to stick it out through the bad times, and at the very least not to take me to the cleaners if things go south. If the absolute worst happens and she does? Meh, I don't care that much about money. I've survived on Ramen noodles and PB&Js before, and I can do it again.
This is a debate and the theme is the morality of asking a prenup agreement. Arguments such as "choose a wife that doesn't care about money" or "you shouldn't care about money" does not contribute to the debate because the moral question exist for all kind of people including the ones that wants to marry selfish and materialistic women and people who cares about money. It's precisely because people are entitled to elect the qualities their seek in their partners that it is unfair to narrow down the debate to one kind of person.
Marriages are projects. Life projects are still projects. And in every project you should be prepared to all the outcomes and the preparation s of course based on the probabilities of each outcome. I can see why someone can get upset. Let's say there's a cost associated with getting a prenup agreement. If someone is asking one is because this person believe the chances of the marriage go wrong are big enough to surpass the cost of getting the prenup. I can see why a large difference in the belief of the chance the marriage go wrong might upset someone.
But it's important to keep in mind there are other factors too. Such as one of the person having much more money then the other, so even a very small chance of the marriage go wrong might outweigh the costs of the prenup. You can also picture the situation were both people have the same amount of money but one of then putting much more value in it, which might lead this person to ask the agreement.
So it could be that one person might take the agreement as a sign of lack of faith while the real reason behind it being one of the above. It could even be that the person who have more faith in the marriage would ask the agreement.
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He's not just making the decision for himself. He's recommending it to everyone. That's what we find objectionable.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Not to mention everyone already has a de facto prenup. It's called Divorce Law. So all a prenup is saying is that "Hey, I don't like the rules the state is imposing on us. Let's draft our own." This is especially important for people who've already been divorced, people who have children by other parents, etc.
Honestly, I'm just glad I married a rational woman who understands that the future is in flux, and that agreeing to things while we're in love and happy is better than, god forbid, something happens and we duke it out at our most bitter and spiteful. We discussed the prenup, and ended up deciding against it for financial reasons and because first marriages generally don't need it. If you haven't had a serious talk about divorce with your significant other, you may really want to consider it. It's right up there with money, kids, politics and religion, because it seriously affects the disposition of those first two if anything happens. You should 'trust' that you actually have no freaking clue how either of your would react in a break-up, and they're certainly not known for being civil. One of the biggest mistakes couples make is they don't communicate about these things in advance, or really communicate about anything substantial until after the marriage. If even discussing a prenup seriously hurts your relationship (or you think it would), you really need to think about your relationship and WHY it's an issue.
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I think I have two objections to what towishimp's saying. One is what you articulated: "prenups are unnecessary because everyone should have a relationship with the same priorities as my relationship." Obviously every relationship is different.
The second issue I have is the naivete of the statement "if you just find a partner with qualities x, y, and z you don't need to worry about a messy divorce." Human beings are complex and ever-changing creatures. I'm an almost unrecognizably different person from who I was 10 years ago; my priorities are very different, my outlook on life is different, my religious, political, and philosophical beliefs have shifted. If I had married someone 10 years ago, maybe we wouldn't be getting divorced, but my spouse would definitely feel like I was not the same person she married.
And even if your partner doesn't change, per se, you still can never be sure how someone will react to a crisis situation like divorce until you're actually in the thick of it. Perhaps if both of you had been divorced before, and things went smoothly both times, that would suggest that things might not go bad for you two. But then you have a couple of divorcees getting married, which suggests an elevated risk of future divorce, which again underscores the need for a prenup.
The same with family heirlooms and specific particulars. "No my mother's jewelry isn't my gift to you, if we get a divorce." The intention is to give someone their parents jewelry, because they're married and it's a benefit of continued relationships.
Equally, we have to take into consideration someone handing to their child an heirloom to give to their groom/bride and the groom/bride seeing that as a "consolation prize." From the perspective of the parent, the loss of the heirloom is greater than the "consolation prize" for a failed marriage, at least for some people.
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