The prevailing attitude about premarital contracting is that it spoils the whole concept of marriage, love, and trust. How do you counter that?
First of all, most of us hear about premarital contracting when someone rich and famous gets divorced and about all the battles they are going through. I know when my husband and I decided that we wanted to have a premarital contract, my son said 'Why you guys doing that? Don't you trust each other?' So it's not surprising that people's initial reaction is a negative one. But in fact, premarital contracting is a way that we can learn more about each other, make each other feel more comfortable about issues that are of concerns, and certainly clarify money concerns. This way, we can talk about them, decide together how we want our marriage to work, and if necessary, and only if necessary, we put it in a premarital contract, a legal document.
Each year, there is one divorce for every two marriages. And a substantial portion of those who have divorced remarry. Is the notion of the premarital contract simply for those who are entering second marriages, or is it also something for the people getting married for the first time?
Premarital contracting is a communication process. I think all of us, whatever age we are, whatever financial status we have, we have things to talk about. And if we avoid doing that and wait until there are problems, it's almost too late. I think that no matter what age, whether we've been married once or not, whether we have stepchildren, whether we have assets, it's important to communicate and consider a legal document.