We tossed about this topic at work a bit and started a pretty fierce "debate". (I'm a construction worker so our debates are a lot of cursing, name calling, and threats of bodily harm)
Personally, I think having a prenup for this and this alone is ok, not for posessions. Retirement money should not be messed with in my opinion. If a person works 35 years and is married for 20 of those years then gets divorced, what possessions they have are thiers, but what retirement savings one or both of them have earned are individually owned.
In a room of five carpenters, the one married guy in the room agreed with this (he actually brought it up after reading a newspaper article), the 20 year old single kid didnt' care one way or the other, and the heroin/coke addict 40 year old bachelor said basically "fuck her that shit is mine!"
I thought this was an interesting topic and wanted to know what people think of it.
Let's say the husband works 35 years, saves a hefty retirement plan for his family.
His wife doesn't work (and hasn't since their first child), and they have three kids. One under the age of 18.
They're married 30 years and somewhere down the line they realize they just don't love each other anymore so they decide to get a divorce. The wife hasn't worked in 26 years. The best she can hope for is a full-time retail pay grade job, and working until she dies just to stay afloat. 1/3 of the retirement plan her husband put back could keep her afloat and able to take care of her ailing mother well into the time social security would kick in.
sillyokio said:
Let's say the husband works 35 years, saves a hefty retirement plan for his family.
His wife doesn't work (and hasn't since their first child), and they have three kids. One under the age of 18.
They're married 30 years and somewhere down the line they realize they just don't love each other anymore so they decide to get a divorce. The wife hasn't worked in 26 years. The best she can hope for is a full-time retail pay grade job, and working until she dies just to stay afloat. 1/3 of the retirement plan her husband put back could keep her afloat and able to take care of her ailing mother well into the time social security would kick in.
IMO, the retirement should be split.
This is a great point and one that didnt' even come up honestly Everything that was mentioned at work had all kids grown and already gone from the house, and no one at all mentioned parents.
(and I just realized there are only four people in the "5 guys surveyed" example, the 5th guy who was young and married didn't really say too much about it)
I'm with sillyokio. Marriage is a partnership. Denying the wife a share of retirement is saying that she didn't contribute to the partnership if she stayed home and raised the kids.
That's ridiculous. A full-time babysitter, cook, and housekeeper would cost more than the guy makes, in many cases.
My concept of a prenup is to protect what each party brought into the marriage, not what is accumulated during it. Each case is different, of course.
But telling a middle-aged woman that she has earned nothing toward retirement because she didn't have an outside job for the last 20 years is really harsh.
IPOD
RADIO
Faytal_Kraydel
Havertown, PA
November 2007
JAN 14, 2008 04:23 PM