Planning a wedding is exciting—choosing venues, caterers, and music can be fun. But talking about a prenup agreement may feel less enjoyable, even uncomfortable. However, having this conversation can strengthen your relationship because it forces you to engage in three activities:
- Transparency: Both of you share details about your finances—assets, debts, and income.
- Future Planning: You’ll align on important decisions like career roles, raising children, housing, and finances.
- Legal Awareness: You’ll learn what marriage and potential divorce mean legally in the UK.
Bringing up a prenup agreement is not a chat that most people would look forward to. It can be a challenging conversation to have with someone you plan to spend the rest of your life with. However, there are ways of making the case for a prenup agreement in a positive way:
- Highlight the Benefits: You can explain that a prenup agreement encourages open conversations and transparency about your finances and your aspirations for the future. It also helps you both understand the intricacies of the law around marriage, something that many couples are not aware of.
- External Reason: Prenup agreements are a great way of heading off uncomfortable conversations with parents, particularly about inheritance. Entry into a prenup agreement may be a requirement of a family trust, or may be something requested by investors or business partners. Highlighting these external drivers shifts the emphasis away from you.
- Compare to Insurance: Like an insurance policy, you hope to never need your prenup agreement—but like insurance, it’s reassuring to have it for peace of mind.
Most couples find the process of agreeing a prenup agreement surprisingly easy. After all, they are in love and working towards a common goal, and both assume that the agreement will never be needed. In the event that it is, the vast majority of couples are relieved that they entered into thoughtful financial arrangements that (despite the pain, loss and complexity of divorce) allow them to separate their affairs with the minimum of fuss and cost.