Adoptive children are fully children, unless there is a specific provision.
One caution we got in including adopted children was to be mindful of the adopted’s blood relatives. I forgot if or how we resolved that issue.
“PG–I’m asserting that anyone whose actions would necessitate the pre-nup lacks character. That doesn’t mean that asking for one necessarily shows that, only that it turning out to have been necessary shows a lack of trustworthiness. You shouldn’t need a legal document to behave honorably.”
It’s not about honorable or not honorable, to protect a family business or assets.
My dad’s lady friend is worth a heck of a lot more than he is. She has investment streams coming in from her family owned business. My dad isn’t entitled to any of it, nor are we as his children. I wouldn’t blame her family one bit if they insisted on a prenup. It’s only fair. It’s known as being smart and protecting oneself.
I like post #36 idea. As our DC’s are now 19 and 16, DH and I should start looking into establishing trust and keeping in mind of their future family situation.
Legal documents make things easier, not harder. Look - if one of my parents passed away, I know my sister and I would split things fairly down to the penny. That still doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t have wills that specify half and half or that doing so says that one of us is “not trustworthy.”
I think there’s a huge difference between young people getting married and older adults/those with children.
It’s different when you have descendants to think about and I don’t think the two situations are comparable.
We specifically defined “children” as any children adopted by either or both of our Ds, just so there is no question.
I think if parents of adult children who are marrying are concerned about how their own assets may be distributed in the future, then it behooves them to do some serious estate planning, spelling all of that out. DH and I did that this fall. Several trusts were set up, and these trusts keep all of the family money IN THE FAMILY. They are protected from a divorce that occurs even if there is no pre-nup. Our Ds can co-mingle their inheritance draws (and that co-mingled draw would be considered community property), but the balance which remains in the trust is protected from a divorce.
We went to a law firm which specializes in this exact thing, and we got exactly what we wanted. Rather than “INSISTING” our adult children sign a pre-nup (who does that?!? I get “suggesting” but “INSISTING”?!), we have protected their inheritances in such a way as it doesn’t make them look like the bad guy in the event of a divorce or pre-nup discussion. We took it out of their hands in advance of any future marriage.
@Nrdsb4, that is what DH and I should do. We want to reevaluate our estate paperwork since my younger one will turn 18 in 1.5 year. Set up the trust to protect our hard earned savings (albeit not a huge amount) is a prudent thing to do.
Romani - the difference between younger and older is simply that most older adults will have assets, most young couples won’t. However, some young people do / will. There is a big world out there.
Smart thinking, nrdsb4. We have a meeting with a planner in a few weeks. Neither of our kids is married or anywhere near, but I want their inheritance / future assets bulletproof.
"-I’m asserting that anyone whose actions would necessitate the pre-nup lacks character.’
When my dad married my stepmom she signed a pre-nup. He is 15 years older than her. If he dies first she gets 1/4 of his estate and we(his 3 kids) get 3/4 of it. I don’t think that lacks character just good planning.
The problem is that you may only find this out retroactively, when it’s too late.
My take on this is that couples who are planning to get married should do some financial planning. This may or may not include a pre-nup, depending on their circumstances.
If I croak and my DH marries some trophy wife, I don’t what her getting half of my hard earned $. She can have my shoe collection. The $ goes to my kids 
Now I’m imagining @jym626 's hubby going out looking for a trophy wife with her shoe. Like Cinderella’s prince.
That’s when you have to worry, if H says, “oh, don’t worry, she wouldn’t want your shoes. Her foot is a different size.”
Garland, I don’t recall if you have 1 child or 2. But if you have 2, does your will specify that each gets half? Does that mean that you think your kids are of poor character and would fight over the estate and screw each other over, or is it just sound financial planning to have that spelled out? Because conceptually I’m not seeing the difference, I know my kids would never try to screw the other over, but that doesn’t mean I don’t explicitly spell out what they get in the event of our death. Even though I’d trust them to do the right thing.
There are a lot of family businesses in my world, but even there pre-nups for first marriages between people under 35 are very unusual. I do have a few clients, though, where the family business shareholder agreements expressly require that every shareholder have a pre-nup with specified provisions.
As for @garland ‘s point, of course you shouldn’t marry someone you wouldn’t trust to act honorably in a divorce. I doubt many people do, with the exception of couples consisting of an 80-year-old magnate and a twentysomething aspiring actor or actress – and they certainly have pre-nups. Still, when it comes to divorce, there’s an awful lot of dishonorable behavior that goes on. So I have to conclude that people aren’t necessarily great judges of their prospective spouses’ future behavior.
Anyway, both my kids have long-term SOs; one is deeply into the process of formalizing an engagement. I don’t expect there will be any pre-nups – certainly I won’t be suggesting it. It wouldn’t shock me if the parents of Prospective Spouse raised the issue, since there could well be some structural economic inequality there (valuable professional degree vs. not, more vs. less prospects of inheritance), and if they do I wouldn’t oppose it. But Prospective Spouse might. (My kid would sign anything to make this marriage happen. Some advice and guidance would definitely be necessary.)
Interestingly, Jewish law and practice essentially require a written marriage contract, which can (but most often doesn’t) deal with inheritance and the financial consequences of separation and divorce. Signing the contract and having it witnessed is part of every Jewish wedding, although not always a public part. Background traditional Jewish law on divorce is very one-sided and harsh, so dealing with financial and custody issues in a ketubah is not a bad idea for very observant Jews.
I also note that, in many cases of religiously “mixed” marriage, couples will agree in advance about how to raise their children, whether or not they write it down, and clergy of one or the other faith may require some sort of formal commitment about children’s religious identity before officiating at the wedding. In that sense, first-marriage pre-nups are a lot more common than we generally think.
I get that folks that have kids from prior marriage would likely want a prenup to protect some assets for them IF that’s what the remarrying person wants.
In a first marriage, there can be huge disparities of assets/debt, and I get that it makes sense for the couple to think about it and talk about it. A good earner/saver could have savings/assets in the 6 figure range while the other partner could have 6 figures of ed debt. These could be “kids” in their 20s. The one with assets may also be likely to inherit more assets from his family.
I can see why the idea of whether to consider a prenup may arise. The family could put the family assets in trust, but that has its own issues. Keeping multiple separate accounts has its own issues, which some families are fine with but others find daunting.
I think it may take longer for a person with significant assets to be assured that the potential partner is interested in him/her and not after the assets–I see this with a relative who is still single but has been in many relationships over the decades. I have no idea what my kids will want and do but I suspect it is not something to arise in their near future.
Our estate planning was tedious but well worth it so our Ds are financially protected. We even set the trusts up to protect the assets in case of bankruptcy. One of the significant others is an entrepreneur and we could envision this happening.
@jym626, lol. We actually addressed this as well. If I die, and DH marries someone with children, he can do what he wants with his half of the estate. But my estate, deposited in trusts, will only go to our Ds and their children (natural or adopted). If he were to adopt wife #2’s children, they are not considered “children” as it relates to the trust. So no one else besides our two Ds and their heirs will ever profit from my estate. Same applies if DH were to die and I later adopted children (though not happening).
We tried to think of every possibility. Our lawyer was really sharp.
I think one of the reasons older people who have adult kids DON’T marry is just to avoid mingling the assets and potential inheritance issues. I see this with a dear aunt who is a widow. Her H was dad’s bro and her 1st longtime companion died and she has a 2nd one now. She has never spoken of remarrying and I believe she likes the companionship but not the extra issues that would arise from a remarriage. She has huge assets but lives simply.