When a couple deeply in love decides to marry, they think they will last forever (we hope that too!).
But life can become unpredictable, and the couple may choose to split sooner or later for many reasons and face the consequences.
Divorce can get very messy. That’s why many couples these days are signing a prenup before getting married.
It’s a smart move because you can save your marriage with prenups.
Let’s look at eight reasons why a prenup is a boon for your marriage.
What’s a Prenup?
A prenuptial agreement, or prenup for short, is a contract signed before getting married, where a couple discusses how their assets and other financial elements will be divided should they get divorced.
It may also talk about their children and public discussions about each other.
How Can a Prenup Save Your Marriage?
There are so many things that you have to discuss before signing a prenup!
Basically what a prenup does is get a couple to be open and honest about themselves and their finances to each other.
Well, the discussion can also help you decide whether getting married will be the right decision, but let’s not get to that.
Let’s see how you can save your marriage with prenups.
1. Communicate About Each Other’s Finances Honestly
While doing a prenup, you and your partner must give detailed information about your finances.
In such a case, a prenup allows you both to be open and honest about your earnings, properties, inheritances, and expenditures.
Openly discussing your finances will help you understand each other better, which things worry you, or how you can help the other out in a financially unfavorable situation.
2. Protect Individual Assets
If you marry much later in your life, it might mean you own many things and have a lot to protect in case you have to divorce.
A prenup will help you separate your marital assets from the assets that you own personally.
Assets can sometimes cause a tense situation in marriage. Therefore, a well-written prenup will help you set things straight and protect your assets and properties from getting affected by the divorce.
3. Determine Marital Properties
As mentioned earlier, a prenup will help you separate your personal assets from your marital assets.
It will also help you determine which of your properties are marital so that you don’t face confusion about the properties in your marriage and during a divorce.
4. Protect Individual Inheritance
Inheritances can become an issue in a marriage if you don’t discuss and clarify things earlier. No one wants to let go of their family heirlooms. That’s why prenup is helpful.
Signing a prenup to keep your inheritances to yourself can prevent state laws from affecting them.
5. Save Yourselves From Debt and Bad Habits
Does your spouse have student loans or other outstanding loans? Signing a prenup will prevent their liabilities from transferring to you.
However, you can mention in the prenup about helping each other out in case the debt is overwhelming or other financial issues are delaying the repayment of debt.
6. Protect Your Children
Both of you may have different parental preferences.
A prenup will help you outline and come to a middle ground with how you want to raise your children in your marriage, if one of you is willing to stay home as a full-time parent, if you want to keep a babysitter or send your children to a clean daycare facility, etc.
If you head for divorce, a prenup will help you decide what will happen to your children.
Giving child support to the primary caregiver is a steadfast rule, so you can’t do anything in your prenup in that regard.
7. Save Time and Money
Marriage isn’t always a bed of roses. You will have disagreements with your partner, some of which can be serious.
With a prenup, you can skip those issues. If your prenup is properly drafted, it will help you consider the hurdles in your marriage so that you can come to a quick solution every time, helping you save a lot of time.
It will also help you prevent an expensive divorce, as you can always come to a middle ground in a dispute.
If you both split, you can waive the alimony in the prenup.
8. Protect Each Other’s Public Image
This also applies in your marriage. You can put down the condition that whatever differences and disagreements you have, none of you should speak ill of each other publicly.
This will prevent both of you from facing uncomfortable situations.
People often habitually demean their ex-partners on public platforms after divorce.
A prenup will help you prevent that by putting the condition that none of you can speak ill of the other after you split, be it on social media or in public gatherings.
Conclusion
You don’t need to do a prenup with divorce in mind.
Sometimes, you can save your marriage with prenups if you can identify issues earlier and believe that you both can work through things in your marriage.
We hope that you find this information helpful and will consider getting a prenup to protect your marriage from mishaps and tense situations.