Chapter 30: How to Deal with a 21st Century American Woman--Prenuptial or practical patience

By Frosty Wooldridge 

                              SECTION V–BREAKUPS AND DIVORCE

          If you’re beginning your first marriage, (and we hope, your only marriage), it’s ludicrous for­ you to begin with a qualifier like a prenuptial agreement.  ­Everything earned between husband and wife will be in the ­common pot, which means you’ll have to divide it equally if your­ marriage should fail.

          That’s not true when you marry later in life and have­ savings, retirement plans, property and/or debts.

          No matter how in love you are in mid-life, it is imperative ­to think straight and have each other sign a prenuptial­ agreement.  If the marriage lasts and all is well, you won’t have­ to think about it.

But if the marriage fails, that piece of paper will keep­ things equal when rational thought and behavior flies out the door­ as anger marches into your life.  Love is blind, but anger when­ it arrives, is thoughtless, cruel and unpredictable.  When ­someone feels hurt, they want to throw pain back at the source of ­their anger.  If you’re in her gun sights, the only thing­ protecting you from her lawyer’s nailing you to the wall with a ­jackhammer, is that prenuptial agreement.  It also protects ­everyone’s older children. 

          One otherwise financially responsible friend we know waited ­until his thirties to get married.  He had built a successful ­career and was making a lot of money.  But he made the duel ­mistake of getting a woman pregnant out of wedlock, and then ­proceeded to buy a house with her, prior to getting married.  His ­new wife also had a job, but was laid-off soon after they were ­married.  She thought that he was somehow responsible for that.     Their marriage crumbled and he wound up being financially ruined. ­ He paid out over twenty thousand dollars in divorce costs, paid­ his wife over one hundred thousand more than she had into the ­house to buy her out, and is also paying a substantial amount of­ child support.

          His new retirement plan is to work until he dies.

          Enough said.