With prenuptial agreements, it’s almost as if you can hear the sound of hissing air escaping.
Put another way: So much of what so many people have long believed about prenups — that they are acrimony-laden, foisted by powerful partners upon soon-to-be spouses with comparatively weak bargaining positions and poisoners in the well of love — seems to be dissipating as their broad-based utility is becoming increasingly appreciated.
In other words, these marital contracts are looking less like cold legal instruments employed in unilateral fashion by partners seeking to safeguard their assets in the event that love doesn’t prevail and more like contractual devices that equally assist both partners in planning their future lives together.
The utility of prenuptial agreements as financial planning tools that mutually benefit partners rather than as vehicles to safeguard the wealth of one person in a one-sided coupling is being increasingly acknowledged in Texas and across the country.
“They’ve expanded in terms of why we use them,” says one commentator from a financial planning group.
In days of yore, as noted by the Wall Street Journal, a prenup invariably seemed solely related to “how much of a family’s fortune might be shielded from the newcomer.”
Nowadays, and in a highly contrastive manner, prenuptial contracts are valued by many couples for entirely different reasons.
That is especially true in cases of second marriages, particularly unions in which both parties have children from prior relationships. Understandably, a prenup is valued for its ability to set forth clear parameters regarding provisions for those children and to clearly state how things like retirement accounts and insurance policies will be handled if a marriage doesn’t work.
In a nutshell, a prenuptial contract is a highly flexible legal instrument that can promote purposeful planning and clearly set forth a couple’s expectations regarding a number of marital concerns.
A proven family law attorney experienced in helping clients negotiate and draft this central planning document can answer questions and provide further information.
