Throughout the past 100 years, the way we think of marriage and divorce has changed dramatically. Divorce was once seen as a taboo. People stayed in unhappy or even abusive marriages indefinitely – even when doing so harmed them or their children. Fortunately, things have changed. As divorce becomes more accepted in society, many married couples are choosing to use prenuptial agreements and postnuptial agreements to protect their financial interests in the event that the marriage does end in divorce. Read on to learn about the potential benefits of a postnuptial agreement, when a postnup is appropriate, and how you can get help with creating a postnuptial agreement.  

Protecting Financial Interests and Planning for the Future

Postnuptial agreements are virtually the same thing as prenuptial agreements, the agreement is just signed after the couple is married. There are countless reasons a couple may choose to sign a postnup. Often, couples choose to sign a postnuptial agreement because they have accumulated significant assets or debts that they want included or excluded from the marital estate. A postnuptial agreement is also a useful tool when a married person has children from a previous relationship. If you have a blended family and you want to ensure your children receive certain assets when you pass away, a postnuptial agreement can help you accomplish this goal.

Business owners and entrepreneurs may benefit greatly from signing a postnuptial agreement. Through a postnup, you can designate how business profits and the business itself are classified should the marriage result in divorce.

Many long-term marriages share traits that create a strong relationship, such as respect, dedication, admiration, and patience. You cannot know whether these attributes will develop and sustain themselves in your marriage, but your interactions before your marriage can foreshadow how you will get along in your marriage. You can more easily predict when a marriage is destined for divorce than when it will succeed. Some couples enter ill-advised marriages because they ignore warning signs of incompatibility or make hasty decisions.

Social Pressure

You may become more anxious to get married as you grow older because:

• You fear that your chances of attracting a spouse will diminish with age;
• You want to start a family while you are still biologically capable of doing so;
• Your family is asking about your relationships and whether you have thought about marriage; and
• Your friends are getting married, leaving you as one of the only unmarried people in your group of friends.

An unexpected pregnancy may also pressure you into marriage out of a sense of responsibility. Pressuring yourself into marriage can cause you to ignore whether you are compatible with your potential spouse. You settle for someone who meets your minimum qualifications for marriage instead of choosing someone with whom you can develop a strong relationship.

A wedding is a landmark occasion in the lives of yourself and your spouse. A good wedding is a happy memory that you will share, but can a bad wedding spell doom for your marriage? Researchers have discovered that some factors in a wedding correlate with a higher rate of divorce, including:

• How much you spend on your wedding; and
• The wedding date you pick.

There are too many factors leading up to a divorce to definitively say that a wedding caused a divorce. However, there are ways that your wedding can potentially cause marital strife.

Cost of Wedding

When you are having problems in your marriage, you might be advised to schedule a few marriage counseling sessions, either alone or with your partner. During these sessions, a licensed marriage counselor listens to you and your partner discuss the state of your marriage and what you feel is causing your rift, then explores ways you can mend this rift through a guided critical discussion. Sometimes, marriage counselors assign “homework” to their clients, such as journaling or communication exercises. The problems in your marriage might not drive you to divorce.

Sometimes, marriage counseling can be the key to avoiding divorce. Other times, it becomes clear during counseling that a couple should not remain together. If you reach this insight during your marriage counseling session, do not think of it as a failure. You put work into your marriage and, after facing the issues present in it, determined that a divorce would be healthiest for all members of your family. If you are considering attending a marriage counseling session, prepare yourself to discuss the following issues during it:

Your Role in Your Marriage's Problems

When a couple gets married, there is no way to guarantee whether they will eventually divorce. However, there are certain factors in marriages that have been linked to divorce. These factors generally stem from an imbalance of power, outside factors that have a toll on the marriage, and each individual's ability to make rational decisions. Below are a few factors that can mean that a couple is more likely than others to divorce.

How Old Were You When You Married?

Couples who marry before the age of 25 are more likely to divorce than those who marry in their late twenties and thirties. This is because the human brain is not fully mature until about age 25. At this age, the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for managing impulse control, making decisions, and learning from past mistakes, is completely formed.