The hard Talkswith your Future Life Partner

Our is simple whatever we earn we keep. Whatever we’ve bought separately we keep. Whatever we’ve bought together if we can’t agree on who should have it, we’ll sell it and split the funds 50/50. Joint custody of any children.

We lived together for 5 years before getting married, so we have had many extensive conversations about finances and roles in the household (we are egalitarian in that we both do all the cleaning type stuff). Neither of us had any major assets prior to marriage either, so a pre-nup was not necessary. I think pre-marital counseling is always a great idea. We didn't do it because we've had all those types of conversations on our own over the years. I'm a MH provider and worked in the domestic violence field for years, so I'm very familiar with many of these aspects. We talked about doing it, but when we looked into the kinds of things they cover, we have already tackled those tough conversations on our own.

FH and I are pretty good at being pragmatic in normal life--we had a pre-nup talk about a year into our relationship (inadvertently: the subject was brought up on a TV show we were watching) and we both agreed it'd be a good idea. We, like most other couples, have no plans for divorce, but seeing as we're in our late 20s/early 30s now, we know situations can change if we're looking at the rest of our lives. We've seen some truly horrible situations with family friends who've gotten divorced and we're both totally on board for a standard pre-nup.

It's not a fantastically romantic topic, but I also feel like one of the most "romantic" parts about a relationship is actively choosing your partner over and over again, every day. We wake up and choose to be with each other, and we respect each other immensely, which is why we want to protect ourselves and one another in case of divorce.

View Quoted Comment Love this! Thank you ☺️

I think premarital counseling can help any and every couple that's interested! It's a neutral environment where someone else is posing the questions around "moving in together" logistics (from the sounds of the questions in this post!), how the couple will develop a financial plan, how will they react in times of hardship, tough questions that many drag their feet on discussing. My husband and I lived together for 3 years before getting married, and had a chance to come to conclusions around a lot of these topics (moving, careers, experiencing death, changes in financial situation, pets, household logistics, etc). Ultimately we did not participate in formal marriage counseling, but have always agreed that if we feel that we cannot work through an issue together, a marriage counselor would always be an option.
We did opt for a prenup, although we already had a handle on how we were contributing before marriage and had many in depth financial discussions for financial goals. To be honest, it didn't seem like that big of a deal to us, but we could tell it was important to our parents, particularly in regards to future inheritances. Watching my in laws talk to my BIL and his now-wife about a prenup (they were married 2 years before us), and the subsequent freakout she had that "they didn't love her and thought their marriage would be a failure," which strained their relationship, my husband and I agreed that, although we have 100% confidence in our marriage, there's nothing wrong with a safety net...especially when it eases the minds of those who plan to leave us X when they pass away. I feel we had a pretty standard agreement that whatever assets/savings/debt that we came into the marriage with would be separate, any inheritances would remain separate, and assets acquired (kids, home, etc.) would be divided equitably. Of course at any time I could move my savings into a joint account or include my husband in my inheritance and vice versa and then it becomes our property.
We currently have a joint account that we put 100% of our income into, as well as a joint account for investments. We still have the separate savings accounts that we started before marriage, and have agreed that we can use this how we see fit, while maintaining X amount in each one to be used as an emergency fund if needed. We each have an employer 401(k) account and also plan on opening a joint IRA through our bank.

View Quoted Comment Great sound advice. Thanks for sharing!

We've been together for a few years and living together for a year already. We had a lot of those hard conversations when we moved in together.. Neither of us is interested in a pre-nup as neither of us has any major assets to protect. Anything we build up while we're married would be joint property anyway.

We've talked about name changing (we're both changing our names to match) and opening a shared bank account for joint savings/bills/etc (we both plan to retain our personal accounts & contribute to the joint one).

My FS and I have talked about cheating but we're both pretty open about our sexualities and are both monogamous. We have also talked a lot about future jobs and schooling since we're both planning on continuing to graduate level education. The big thing for us is also financing a child/children since we cannot conceive on our own and I have a few health issues that may make it difficult. We also don't completely agree on joint funds, but I think that has to do more with how we were raised.

We don't need a pre-nup but we have had many discussions over 5 years about infidelities, children, money, sickness, any major life struggle.

If one or the other stepped out in any form or fashion, the relationship is dissolved immediately and automatically. Trust is a major cornerstone for us and if I can't trust you not to cheat, then what can I trust you with? We do not plan to have children and have discussed what we would do if it inadvertently occurred. We have our own bank accounts, and split the bills evenly. Sometimes I am not able to pay or he isn't and I or he step in to pay it when needed. We are 11 years apart and he is older. I have experience caring for people and he believes he will die earlier than usual. I say not if I'm around. He struggles with going to the doctor for important things and I help him (by his ear). I don't want to live where we are for the rest of our lives, and he does. We are still working this out. We are more vocal now about the little things like chores, our ferocious feline, and how the house is run. We are both on board to travel this road called life!