Hell Yes I Want A Pre-Nup

Lots of people have this fearful notion of what a pre-nup does. That it will stipulate that you can never gain more than ten pounds, that it will assign you to clean the litter box forever. I wonder what these people have been sniffing, and if so, would they send me some too? Do people really become insane when they come within ten feet of a legal document?

Boyfriend and I have talked now and then about what would happen if we broke up. This is not done in a morbid sense, or as part of a fight. This is sort of the pre-nup for the un-nupped. We specifically chose the price range for our apartment so that I would not be forced to break the lease if he were not helping with the rent, and we know whose furniture is whose, and that he would take the cat and I would keep the guinea pigs. Boyfriend would probably get all the hot spices on the spice shelf.

Do we plan these things because we are each secretly plotting to run off with the hot spices? No. The principal reason to have a pre-nup is to protect one another from your future selves who may not love one another anymore. Right now, things are rosy, and we are agreeable towards one another. We share the same bag of toothpick-flosser thingies. But in the future, anything can happen. We'd rather have these informal chats about who gets the big stockpot now, than when we are angry, upset, and bitter towards one another. How are we going to negotiate the little things when we failed to negotiate on the biggest thing of all - our relationship?

And things can only escalate during a divorce where children, real estate, or significant sums of money are involved. Boyfriend and I do not have any of these things, but if we did, we would want to work something out before any of them were acquired. This is a key tenet for successfully using a pre-nup or other type of property-dividing agreement as part of managing the health of your relationship: you need to talk about it BEFORE things get bad, not after, and not under coercion. Most judges won't actually uphold a prenup signed the night before the wedding, as it is generally argued that there is no way the coerced party could back out and save face (as well as not lose thousands of dollars in deposits.) This issue should be addressed before the wedding invitations go out.

A pre-nup's principal purpose is to protect your spouse from the future you who may not love them anymore, by making promises with the present you, who does love them and want what is best for them. The idea is to be like the first letter-writer in this article, working things out before things get hairy, and not the second. (Thanks to Boston Gal's Open Wallet for the Herald link) However, if you were an inconsiderate ass from the beginning.. maybe you just shouldn't get married. Sorry!