Post-nuptial Agreement in Your Marriage

You might have believed in happily ever after when you said, “I do,” but now that you have been married for a few years your views may have changed. It is not that you don’t love your spouse, but you have witnessed the nightmares that your friends and colleagues have faced when they went through horrendous divorces. You might be wondering if there is anything you can do to help minimize the disagreements on the off chance that a divorce might be in your future. Every marriage is different, but here are five general clues that could indicate that a post-nuptial agreement might be appropriate in your situation:

  1. You and your spouse are partners in a successful business. Succession planning is an important part of regular business planning, but when the owners are husband and wife, a divorce could put the future of the business in jeopardy. Ironing out who will get what in the event of divorce and what will happen to each partner’s share in the event of the death of the other, along with other vital details about ownership of the business, can be included in the post-nuptial agreement.
  2. You or your spouse has adult children from a previous relationship. Both you and your spouse want to make sure that your children from previous marriages feel secure about how they will be taken care of.
  3. You or your spouse took a hiatus from a successful career to raise children. The fact that you have sacrificed your career so that you can stay home to raise the children and maintain the household does not mean that you should leave the marriage feeling insecure in your finances.
  4. One of the partners brought significant personal property into the marriage. When one partner has accumulated significant assets long before the marriage occurred, they might want to make sure that those assets remain separate from marital property that will be divided by the court in the event of divorce.
  5. One of the partners brought significant debt into the marriage. If one of you has a reputation for being a spendthrift, and has the five figures in credit card debt to prove it, you do not want to end up being held responsible for debt that you did not incur.

A postnup need not dim the romance; however, it could help you both sleep easier at night knowing that all of those nagging financial issues about who would get what in the event of death or divorce have been taken care of.

Both you and your spouse will need to hire an attorney to draw up and finalize your post-nuptial agreement, so you’ll want to start asking your friends for a referral to a good, local family law attorney to represent you.

Contact Karla C. Miller and Associates, PLLC today at 615-391-4200 to schedule an in-person or video consultation with an experienced Nashville attorney.