Love is grand, but divorce is brutal.
Could the person you love turn against you and bite you like a rabid dog? Of course, but you can protect yourself from the divorce dog by having a prenuptial agreement in place before you get married.
A lot of people think a prenuptial agreement is only for the rich. That is not true!
A prenuptial can protect you in many other ways. Let’s face it, half of us who get married will eventually get divorced, so say the current statistics. Nobody likes to think of divorce when they are getting married, but it is a fact of life. However, you can be prepared for the possibility of divorce.
A prenuptial agreement is not just in case you get divorced; it can be a flow chart for your marriage. The prenuptial agreement can guide you on issues such as:
1. How expenses are paid and by which spouse
2. How to save for the kids’ college fund
3. How assets will be combined or kept separate
4. How property is defined
We all know, that marriage takes a lot of planning and forethought. You are going to have discussions with your future spouse about married life at some point. If you want to make sure your plans for married life are going to go as you discussed, it is a good idea to put them in writing in a prenuptial agreement. You are going to spend a lot of time planning anyway. So why not use a prenuptial agreement as a blueprint.
OK, now the divorce part. So the person who you thought you would be spending the rest of your life with changes their mind. Eventually, they release that divorce dog on you, and it starts to bite, and it hurts bad. What do you do?
You pull out the prenuptial agreement and muzzle that puppy.
Your prenuptial agreement is going to say how much, if any, support your spouse is going to get. We are talking alimony here folks. With the recent changes in tax laws, this alone could save you tens of thousands of dollars. If you did not know it, the tax laws changed January 1st, 2019. Alimony is no longer tax deductible by the person paying alimony and is not claimed as income by the person receiving the alimony. That alone is a potentially huge hit to your finances.
So, what about Grandma’s china set? Good thing you had that in your prenuptial agreement, or you would only have half of Grandma’s china to enjoy. Your prenuptial agreement is going to say who gets what if the divorce dog bites.
For most people, a divorce is an emotional rollercoaster. Unfortunately, a divorce is one of the most stressful things that can happen to a person. I have seen it first hand, clients so distraught over their divorce they can not think straight or make good decisions. Good thing you got that prenuptial agreement done in the beginning when you were both calm and collected.
Divorce is a fight, for some couples, it is a fight over every little aspect of the marriage.
In my practice, I have seen couples fight over not only Grandma’s china, but over pets, golf clubs, motorcycles, baseball cards, and a host of other things. In one case, I have gone as far as writing out detailed visitation plans for pets! All this disagreement can cost you a boatload in legal fees. You could be eating mac and cheese for a while because you are trying to pay your legal fees. But you were smart, you called me before you got married, we wrote your prenuptial that says who gets what and when, now, you can celebrate your divorce in Tahiti with all the money you saved in legal fees.
Muzzle that rabid divorce dog, get a prenuptial agreement. ?
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