When I married my wife (and for the 10 years prior that we lived as a couple before I could convince her to marry me) I was 100% committed to being with her until “death do we part”. I adored her and cherished our relationship. After our first few months together, the thought of breaking up was simply out of the question. It was never going to happen. Although I never asked her, I’m confident the feeling was mutual.
But here’s the thing – I was her 2nd husband. When they married, I’m sure both of them felt the same way – that they would never get divorced. Even though it’s commonly stated that 50% of marriages in the US end in divorce, I assume that most couples getting married think “we’ll be in the stayed together 50%”. Divorce rates for second marriages is estimated even higher at 60%.
Given that the chances of a marriage lasting for a lifetime is literally a coin flip and given that I was one of the lucky ones who made it nearly 3 decades until “death do us part” I have a lot of thoughts about marriage.
First, I doubt I’ll ever get married again. When I met my wife, I was a 21 year old man just beginning to figure my way in the adult world. I was full of romantic dreams, big ambitions, plans for the future, wants, needs and hormones.
It never occurred to me that marriage was not really a contract with my wife.
I’ve learned, since then, through my own experiences and those of friends and family who’ve been through multiple divorces that it is a contract with the State.
The State decides the penalties for breaking that contract. The State has the final say in divvying up assets, debts, children, and personal belongings. The State controls much about how a couple’s divorce proceedings will occur and how they will impact both parties – for years and sometimes, forever.
If I was to get married again I would have a prenup with my partner. Before marrying, we’d discuss everything from money to children to assets to belongings to health decisions to power of attorney to families to money management.
It has nothing to do with love or trusting each other. It has to do with not wanting some Magistrate to have the power to make decisions regarding our lives that we could have made ourselves.
If any of my friends decide to get married, I’d recommend the same for them.
Other than some anecdotal stories of divorcees who got “screwed” or “rewarded”, I had no clue about any of this when I proposed to my future wife.
I recommend that high schools have a course on teach divorce law, child custody and child support law, property law.
Let’s end the fairy tales by equipping our next generation so they can enter into a marriage contract with honesty and open eyes.
For what it is worth, I never considered a prenup with my wife, nor would I have. I was young, delusional and had no assets at the time. She was more mature than I, but I’m certain the though never crossed her mind either. For us, it turned out not to be a non-issue. We won our coin flip.
My entire life I though prenups were beyond unromantic. They were something for rich people and celebrities to have. Normal people like me didn’t need them. In fact, theoretically, had my fiancee instead on one, I might have backed out of marrying her because I would have believed she didn’t “trust” me.
I no longer feel this way at all.
In fact, I almost feel society would be better served if it was required as part of a marriage license.