It is always practical to ensure you don't get f*cked in the end. It may be unromantic, but really, it's necessary. Pre-nups are mutually beneficial. But since I will not be marrying until marriage is mutually beneficial, I can see how I would want to make other aspects of the union beneficial as well. If that means the thought of divorce, fine.

I don't like pre-nups solely because I think they're unromantic, to me they represent a lack of trust between the parties. A pre-nup is like an asterisk on your marriage: we'll try our best to love and care for each other forever but if we change our minds then there's an option that makes it easier to split up. why marry someone that you think you should protect your assets from?

I am all for a pre-nup solely because I watched my parents marriage completely destroyed...and my lying, cheating, abusive father got just about everything and my mom got screwed. Hard. No pre-nup. It's not about trust, it's not about worrying that you want to keep your assets from somebody. It's to ensure that, unlike my mom, you end up with your fair share, that you get exactly what you deserve. Not some uneven distribution of crap because someone has a better lawyer and lots and lots of money on their side. You would be appalled at what happened during my parents divorce...and there is no friggen way I am riding that rollercoaster.

If the assets are substantial enough I see nothing wrong with a pre-nup.

If the couple is mature and strong enough in their relationship then even when they do face diffcult times they won't be thinking about the ease of a divorce, they'll be thinking about how to make things work. If that's not the case then perhaps they shouldn't have gotten married in the first place?

I never thought I would get a pre-nup until my friends parents got divorced. They were married 30 years and my friends mom fully trusted her husband but turns out he was cheating on her for years and doing other things that weren't so great. She ended up getting screwed and left with almost nothing, the divorce was so bad that the kids don't even speak to their father anymore.

I don't care if its unromantic to have a pre-nup, with the amount of people who get divorced these days I need to protect myself.

in some cases,pre-nups are the way to go

Definitely. What with the rate of divorce being so high, I would not take a chance on losing everything if my husband-to-be turned out not to be the same devoted man I married 15 years later. I've also seen women get royally screwed just for wanting to leave lying, cheating bastards who abuse their children, and that will never happen to me.

I am torn on prenups. I don't have a lot of money, but I fully intent to take a copy of all of my bank statements, mortgage statements, IRA info, etc. for the month before I get married, put them in an envelope and mail them to myself. I won't open it, and should anything happen down the road, I have evidence of how much money I had, how much I had paid on the house, all of that in a file. I think we should split everything we have acquired since the day of our wedding, but I want to make sure that should I have to leave, I leave with at least what I started with. Just my opinion.

i would not sign one. in my opinion it shows ur already planning ur divorce and ur not even married yet.

I worked for a family law attorney the summer after my first year of law school, and it was heartbreaking to see how many wealthy male doctors and lawyers leave their wives in their 40's and 50's, and the wives are left to support themselves after decades of not working (but years before they qualify for social security). Courts rarely awarded life-long maintenance (formerly called alimony) these days, so in many cases, the wives get a couple years of maintenance and then are out of luck. I don't see myself ever giving up working, but if it were me personally, and the man I planned to marry refused to sign anything saying he would support me in the future, I would have some second thoughts. I understand the argument that they're "unromantic," but that's like saying you don't want to buy health insurance because you're healthy now and don't want to think about being sick.

I can see how a prenup is practical but I also cannot see myself considering marrying a man that required one. I'm not getting married for financial reasons and I'm a very independent person. I wouldn't expect my ex husband to support me but I would expect him to support the children.
All in all I think prenups are unromantic and I think it's terrible to get married for some sort of financial gain or stability.

It's not for me - I agree with the "asterisk" comment above - but I can certainly understand the concept. Most of my married friends keep their money separate anyway, and I've told my long-term boyfriend that I'd like to keep it that way.

Hiding55 - I'm the same way as you in that I plan on always working and supporting myself. But with the clients I worked with, many of the ex-husbands actually encouraged their wives to quit their jobs in order to stay home. I think that with people who are now middle-aged, it was more common for husbands to want their wives to stay home and cook, take care of the house, etc. So it wasn't so much that women got married for stability as they got married for love and then gave up their jobs thinking everything would be ok, only to find that they have NO income whatsoeve and no marketable skills due to being out of the working world for so long.

*and just to clarify, when I mentioned earlier not wanting to marry a man who wouldn't agree to support me if I stayed home, I didn't mean support as in "maintain a middle-class lifestyle," I meant "support" in the sense of paying the bare minimum amount of money to keep someone from being homeless and starving - because is literally where women can find themselves if they aren't working throughout their marriage.

I don't think they're unromantic as much as they are admitting a potential failure. My husband and I don't have one for many reasons, but mostly because we didn't have anything when we got married. All we've acquired since marriage is a a car and 3 cats.

I am not signing a pre-nup because I require one, or my future husband requires one. I am signing it so we both get what we deserve. If courts want to keep up with your quality of life after divorce, it makes sense to get some kind of alimony payment. When it comes down to it, I highly, highly doubt most women would say no to at least an extra 300 a month. When my parents got divorced, did you know he was only required to pay I think 80 dollars in child support? 80 dollars does not cover clothes, food, etc. The 300 dollars a month went to covering my younger siblings. It usually is not life long, and in my dad's case, he pays alimony until he retires. That's all.

I wouldn't intend to get a divorce by signing a pre-nup. It would be something to have in case something happened. That way it will be in writing what we are both entitled to, and if we both happen to be on bad terms during the divorce, there shouldn't be much hassle involved in dividing up property and getting the heck out.

Since I have seen such a disaster divorce, I'd be an idiot not to get one. Like I said, I will not be riding that rollercoaster. I will not be left with nothing in the event of a divorce, so a pre-nup prevents that from happening, IMO.

Oh, and failure happens all the time. You are not immune because you truly believe you will not be one of those people. My BF's parents had no pre-nup and divorced after 30 years of marriage. I know people who have signed a pre-nup (my grandparents) and have been married for over 60.

ADMITTING to potential failure is being realistic. If you want to be divorced, you will...pre nup or not.

i have mixed feelings on pre-nups, on the one hand i want to be protected and go in knowing that i will get my fair share, on the other hand it feels like your planning your divorce and if your planning your divorce before you jump the broom, why jump at all?

Absolutely I would sign one if either one of us has assets acquired before marriage. I do have assets to worry about when I get married so I will be having one drawn up. I don't see signing one as setting myself up for failure. I see it as protecting myself and my children.

My boyfriend has $100,000 worth of loans and I have more than that of assests, so YES, if we get married we're getting a prenup. If anything that should help us stay together... finantially leaving me would be detrimental to him instead of possibly benificial.

After watching what my mom did to my dad when she filed for divorce, I will not let myself be placed in the same position as my dad. I don't think it's unromantic, in fact I think it is romantic, because you are showing each other that the marriage truly and legally isn't about money, it's about the feelings between you. I will not marry a man who can't support himself, so really the pre-nup wouldn't hurt him either!

I think the key is that when you start talking serious, and you want one, you should start talking about it. Waiting until you're halfway through an engagement and then springing it on someone makes them start having all of these negative reactions. I feel the same for any of the major life choices, like children, working or not working, the possible debts you'll be incurring with school and houses, etc. You can't just walk into a legal binding marriage with your heart on your sleeve and nothing taken care of beforehand.

It took me time to pick an answer, I went with no. It's tough, but neither of us have anything to begin with, so if we did split up, there wouldn't be much to divide up. I'd take my debt, he'd take his If my boyfriend wanted to sign one, I'd say yes, but I wouldn't push for one.

I wouldnt push for one, but if the marriage went sour I'd like to walk out of it with whatever I had when I went into it. Keep my car, my loans, my book collection, and my paycheque.

I think pre-nups are practical and they don't have anything to do with the state of your relationship. My family has worked hard to have the things that we have and I wouldn't take the chance of losing any of it because of a marriage gone bad. I would expect any man I marry to prtect himself in the same way.

KCmonsiski and this bullimicwar- you should really give pre nups a second thought. Pre nups are not designed to be "romantic" or something that gets you all hot and bothered, it's about protection. The divorce rate has been reported to be as high as 50%- i don't know for sure whether it's this high but there are a lot of marriages that do end up being dissolved shortly after the wedding and there is a strong chance that you two could be included in that number. Another great point is that you never really know the person you are with. Some people are married to a spouse for 20(+) years and never really know that person. Think about the BTK killer and the med student from Boston that was killing women he met on Craig's list or women who have cheating spouses, and don't find out until they are served with divorce papers. Do you really think that their significant others knew and condoned what they were doing? A lot of people confuse compatibility for "love". For example, I like pizza, he likes pizza, I like to ski in aspen he likes to ski in aspen. That's not love, its compatibility. So, do yourself a favor and procure and sign a prenup, so that if or when it does happen you know exactly what you will be taking away from the union and you can avoid a messy divorce and expensive legal fees. Not to mention the mental health and emotional stability of the children.

Nope, if I don't have enough faith in the person I wouldn't marry them. It is more than a romance issue, it is about trust and respect.

I don't really agree with a woman (or a man) being supported forever after a divorce. It's not their exes responsibilty. They are an adult after all. I do agree with some support to help them get back on their feet if they have been dependant however.
But the main reason I thought people got a prenup was to make sure someone didn't take all of their money. I think it's unromantic, but why should that matter. The reality is people get divorced and people change. No one goes into a marriage thinking that their spouse is going to turn into a creep or that they will end up divorced. It's just the way it happens sometimes. Why not protect yourself just in case? It will be one less thing to worry about.
I guess I've never thought I would need one though becaue I don't have a lot of money and I don't plan to marry a millionaire. I'm biased. I guess I think they'd cheat. Anyway I still might consider it if it made sense to and it was to protect both of us. Isn't it just another paper to sign?

Also it's kind of like an insurance policy. When you buy a car you don't plan to slide off of the road and smash it to pieces, but sometimes that happens. That's where the insurance comes in handy.