The new millennium has been witnessing a sharp rise in the number of couples getting prenuptial agreements before tying the knot. It is estimated that there has been a five-fold growth in how frequent lawyers see clients who want to draft a prenup. A current trend is that more millennials in Washington and all over the country have been getting in on the action.
Prenuptial agreements can be appealing to millennials for several reasons. To start with, given that millennials tend to marry a bit later in life than older generations, they tend to accumulate more assets before they say “I do,” meaning they have more to protect in the event of the dissolution of the marriage.
Another reason for the allure of prenups concerns debt; student debt can follow an individual for the rest of their life, and spouses who decide to break ties shouldn’t have to worry about shouldering debt that isn’t theirs. Such a scenario is probably worse for spouses than having to pay alimony or child support after a divorce.
The fact that millennials aren’t as committed to marriage as older generations might have been in the past is enough reason for both partners to take the necessary precautions. This seems less surprising when one learns that for about 60 percent of millennials, their career is a higher priority than marriage.
Writing a prenuptial agreement is an individual matter that can differ from one case to another depending on the assets that both parties own and their debts. Couples considering signing a prenup may wish to reach out to an experienced professional for help tailoring an agreement according to their specific circumstances.