Spend More Time talking About The Relationship, and Less Money on the Ring, the Wedding (and the Divorce?)

An Emory University study suggests that there is an inverse correlation between the amount a couple spends on the engagement ring and the wedding, and the chance that the marriage will last.  I have my own theories about why this correlation may exist, but it does re-emphasize my "sermon" about pre-marital planning.  While sitting down and talking about what you intend in the marriage, financially, emotionally, and spiritually, isn't as romantic as picking a ring, or a wedding venue, it's a lot more critical to your long-term marital happiness.

Enforceable PreNups for the UK? Maybe Only Kinda Sorta...

The UK Law Commission has issued a report recommending legislation  for the determination of  the validity of premarital agreements in the UK.  Reports seem to disagree as to the extent to which courts would be permitted to second guess the agreements if the agreements seek to allocate the obligations of spouses to support each other.

A rainy California hat tip to Jeremy Morley, international custody expert, who discusses the proposal in more detail.

Family Law Goes To The Movies

There’s a “Winter RomCom” which bears on family law this season: Vince Vaughn’s comedy of assisted-reproductive-technology, “Delivery Man” (short non-spoiler synopsis: he’s been a artificial insemination donor, and discovers that, due to a paperwork snafu, he’s the father of 500+ children). Haven’t seen it yet, but I’m hoping it has a bit more of legal reality infused in it than past “family law” movies, comic or serious, including “Mrs. Doubtfire”, “Kramer v. Kramer”, “Intolerable Cruelty” (a prenup comedy) and “Next Best Thing”, a fairly dismally received film (Rotten Tomato-meter: 19%)  on which, I must admit, I received a screen credit (I and my partner are right there, between the caterer and Madonna’s yoga consultant), but couldn’t manage to get director to make the courtroom scenes quite right.

Looks Like A Romantic Summer!

Three years after my post noting that boomers and post-boomers seem to be much more comfortable with the idea of "tailoring" their marriage by way of a pre-marital agreement, the economy is slowly emerging from the doldrums, same-sex marriages are happening again in California, and, based on the number of calls I'm getting about relationship planning and pre-nups, Cupid is working overtime.

Pre-Nuptial Agreements In India

While "pre-nups" are apparently becoming more popular between Indian couples, their validity is still unclear.

Thanks and a tip of the Summertime seagrass fedora to Jeremy Morley's International Family Law.

"That Magic Moment", Revisited (A Belated Valentine's Day Post)

       While the legal wrangling over same-sex marriage continues apace (see my next post) as the economy looks like it may be improving, the divorce rate seems to be edging up again. 

  

            ....and why is this seemingly depressing thought in a Valentine's Day post?  

         Because I really want starry-eyed folks  (music swells, here, please)  to have successful marriages.  How to come as close as possible to guaranteeing it?  Talk to each other BEFORE the deal is struck.  If you and that special someone need to change the "marriage contract" to meet YOUR needs and expectations, then, whether you're eighteen or eighty*,  the time for that conversation is BEFORE you "sign on the dotted line"**. 

* Belated tip of the purple and gold,  Fat Tuesday fedora  (from Meyer The Hatter) to Randy Kessler for the pointers.

**those who've followed this space for a while know that my paternal grandfather remarried at 75, after being widowed, and was happily married on the day he died; my father remarried at 79 after my mom died, and was happily married until he passed last year.

Back to Hollywood

Kim K's marriage is broken, after seventy-two days; presumably she listened to her own advice on the subject of prenuptial agreements.

Back In The Saddle Again

After a hiatus, I'm accumulated enough stuff so that I feel obliged to get some posts up.

Within a week after the McCourts thought they'd worked an over-all settlement, MLB has said "Not so fast..."

...and this just in:

"Khloe Kardashian thinks 'everybody needs a prenup.' In an interview ... ... the 26-year-old defended her recently engaged sister Kim's shocking premarital agreement. 'We have a prenup,' she said, standing alongside hubby Lamar Odom. 'Do you know what kind of day and age this is? Everybody needs a prenup. I don't care if you make five dollars or five million dollars, you're protecting yourself… People are crazy, you never know.'."

Pre-Nups Valid in the U.K.

Maybe, says the U.K.'s Supreme Court. Thanks and a big 'ol Texas hat tip to Randy Kessler for the pointer.

Are You and Your Fiancee Working From The Same Blueprint? The Pre-Nup Conversation as Marriage Insurance

Over at Gitlin Law Blog, Illinois family law attorney Joe Gitlin muses that marriages break down when (to use a metaphor which dates both him and me) the spouses aren't "building from the same blueprint".

This is consistent with my take: the crux of the decision to divorce isn't usually specifically about money, or sex, or intimacy, it's that moment, a year, a decade, four decades into the marriage, when one spouse says "This ISN'T the deal I thought I signed on for!"

I consult with folks frequently about whether they need, or want, a pre-marital agreement. The first part of that conversation explores whether the client, and the spouse-to-be, have ever talked seriously about the sorts of things that a pre-marital agreement might address: who's going to control the money? Are both spouses going to have accounts for "their own" money, and a joint "pot" out of which they'll pay joint expenses? Is the plan that one spouse will work, and the other will be a stay-at-home parent for a number of years? If one owns a house, what's the other's expectation as to what's going to happen with that house after the marriage?

Even if folks are okay with the "off-the-shelf" marriage contract, if they understand it, and each understands in advance what the other's expectations are, the chances that they'll manage a lasting marriage are increased.

With all respect to my friends in the floral, couture, and catering industries, marriage planning's less romantic, but more important than wedding planning, and almost nothing is less romantic than divorce court...

Pre-Nups: "Not Romantic", but more romantic than divorce!

On the upswing, says USA Today.

McCourts: Minding (And Dividing) The Family Store

Jamie McCourt has now filed her action for dissolution, along with a request for somewhere between $300,000 and $500,000 per month in spousal support (depending on whether she immediately gets back all her perks of being a Dodgers co-owner) and about two and a half million dollars in attorney fees and litigation costs.

What's interesting about this case, beyond the usual tabloid stuff, is that it involves almost all of the issues any married couple in business together faces when the marriage goes bad.

The questions aren't that different from those which have to be answered if the McCourts together had purchased and operated, let's say, a sandwich franchise, except that there's a much longer string of zeros after all the numbers, which makes it worthwhile to take a long hard look at the issues, rather than just sort of "washing them out". If either of them wants to air the dirt, as it appears that both may be in the process of doing, their employees, and their business competitors, are of course watching from the sidelines.

To the extent that either airs dirt, and the business suffers, there then will arise the equally interesting question of who it is (to mix metaphors) who killed the golden-egg-laying goose. Since California spouses have an ongoing fiduciary duty to their spouses, and to the community, NOT to kill the golden goose, if each takes a drumstick and pulls hard, it'll take a lot of sorting out to find the cause of goosey's death.

Kim Kardashian Agrees With Me: Get a Pre-marital Agreement!

I just couldn't resist writing the headline. Here's the story.

We're saying the same thing; we're just saying it differently

My learned colleague Mark Chinn** from Jackson, MS, posted a deliberately provocative title to his blog this week: said Mark: "If you get a prenuptial agreement in the days before the marriage, don’t sign it!"

My thought was: "If your fiance hands you a prenuptial agreement at the church door, stop the music, and postpone the wedding! You've just learned something very valuable about your fiance, before you've married him!"

Mark's point, as we kicked it around on Facebook afterwards, was: "If you are going to sign a life time contract, you better have counsel and some time to think about it."

Mine was: "That INCLUDES that big contract you sign on when you say "I do!"




** Mark's a great guy, and a wonderful lawyer, but he's about as different from me as someone who would fit my superficial police description (6'2"+; 200 lb. + white male, brown hair, glasses, over 40, lawyer, married, parent) could be: he's perpetually cheerful when I'm saturnine; he's relaxed and Southern and small-towny where I'm a perpetual pent-up Northern cosmopole, etc.

Pre-Nups in Britain? Maybe so!

It appears that a sea-change in British family law may happening, and that British courts may begin recognizing some pre-marital agreements as valid.

A Cup of Coffee on the Way, Part 3: Pre-Marital Agreements: Romance-Killer or Marriage Insurance?

Back in February, I started down a path of discussing what we, as a society and as a state, intended when we set up our "family law" and rules, and how, and whether, that should change. I've been contemplating those issues since then and talking to lots of people, about 'em.

One of the issues which has nagged at me is the relative ease with which we as a society let (some) folks undertake the "off-the-shelf" marriage contract, but for various reasons, make them jump through complicated hoops if they want to fine-tune and customize that contract (which is what a pre-marital agreement really does) , and refuse to let some other couples (that'd be the same-sex couples) enter into that contract at all.

Pre-marital agreements have finally made their way into popular song*, but they're still regarded by much of the public as something that only the celebrity rich need or want, and as a "romance killer" no matter who's considering them.

My view** is that they're exactly the opposite; they're a form or marriage insurance. I believe that the discussions which fiances have with each other in regard to the terms of a pre-marital agreement are the conversations which they should be having already if they're getting married. I'll offer the anecdotal observation, based on 30 years of family law practice, that the biggest cause of divorce isn't specifically sex, or money, or power, or boredom, it's that moment when one spouse says "This isn't the deal I thought I'd made when I signed up."



. . . and in other news, in at least one state, you can still get a jury verdict for "alienation of affection" (someone stealing your spouse) by someone who's engaged in "criminal conversation" (adultery).


*"If you aint no punk, holla 'We Want Prenup! WE WANT PRENUP!" Kanye West: "Gold-Digger"
** about which I rant and rave all the darn time

A Cup of Coffee On The Way, Pt. II: Why Is Getting Married Easier Than Joining a Health Club?

When I was younger, and even more cynical, I once joked that the best way to reduce the divorce rate was to make it a lot more difficult to get married.

It's not as funny as I used to think it was.

When you buy a house, or even a car, you get a stack of many pages full of tiny type, which you are expected to read. Some really important paragraphs are in BOLD TYPE, with lines for you to sign or initial, confirming that the BOLD TYPE got your attention, and that you at least read those parts, and that you say that you understand them. Then, if you change your mind within a day or so, within some limits, you can back out. Heck, in California, if you just want to join a gym, you have to go through a similar ritual*.

If you want to get married, on the other hand, you pays your money, and you gets your license. There's a contract there, all right,** it's just that nobody really demands that you read it, let alone that you have any idea what it says before you sign on for it.

I've spent 29 years wrestling with what the terms of that contract really are, and I've got sort of a handle on it, says the State Bar*** . I used to keep the terms of that contract in a shelf-full of books, which had to be updated annually; now I keep it on my computer, where it occupies a swath of virtual space. Most of those young folks lining up at ring stores in the Jewelry District haven't a clue what's in there.

Next topic up: If you want the "off-the-rack" marriage contract, we've made it fast, cheap, and easy; if you want to think about, and change, what you're signing on for, even if you and your spouse-to-be agree, it's expensive, complicated and takes at least a week.

Why would we discourage people from looking before leaping?


* California law regarding this implies that it came to the attention of our Legislature that miscreants were going out and signing up, say, 90-year-old ladies to expensive "lifetime" installment contracts for gym or "dance studio" memberships, and swindling the heck out of them; thus there are now fairly comprehensive rules for what you have to read, before you can get those mambo lessons.
**Says so, right there in California Family Code 300: " Marriage is a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman. . .". Don't send me a comment about the validity of those last five words; I'll be coming around to THAT debate presently.
*** "Family Law Certified Specialist, State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization"