The most common piece of marriage advice I get is to sign a pre-nup. I did some research.
Reasons to Sign a Pre-nuptial Agreement & How they don't apply to me
1) Substantial wealth or assets. In theory by my age I should have a stable well paying career, substantial investments, possibly own a home and certainly own a car. So I'm about 1/5 because I am substantially invested . . . underwater. Pretty far underwater.
2) Have my own business. No.
3) Have kids from a previous marriage. Have already provided for Muffy in event of divorce or death, so not applicable.
4) Expect to come into an inheritance. Used it up already. And then some more. And after that, I graduated and couldn't get a job. Working on using up my siblings' shares now.
5) Gave up a career or lucrative job to get married. I like this one. It's a good story. I suspect it's what a lot of people think when I tell them I moved up here without a job. Until about two seconds into the conversation when they realize that none of the following words applied: lucrative, job, or career.
6) Concern about being saddled with your spouse's debts/future lawsuits. This is actually applicable because C has a lot of school debt. Years ago we used to share a credit card account. Found out today I was still on the account, which is still his main CC. In a legally blond moment, realized that cutting up the card doesn't close the account. So here's the question...is it better to let your spouse ruin your credit b/c he doesn't pay his credit card or student loans, or is it better to ruin your own credit by filing for bankruptcy because you just don't make very much money?
It is concerning but I'm not sure a pre-nup protects me in a case of debt load 1 (10-20% chance of him defaulting) versus debt load 2 (80% chance I'll never make my share of the cost of living). So anyhow, no prenup for us, but I'm guessing we're the last of our generation to skip this step. Only because normal people a year older have jobs/assets.
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