More than half of the attorneys who took part in an American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML) survey said that more millennials are seeking prenuptial agreements. One of the reasons why this could be happening is that New Jersey residents and others are getting married later in life. Men get married for the first time at age 29 on average while women get married for the first time at age 27 on average.
This means that millennials could have assets, like retirement accounts or stock options, that they would like to protect. Considering that this age group grew up during the Great Recession, those between the ages of 18 and 34 may not want to risk losing hard-earned money because of a divorce. The divorce rate in the United States is around 50 percent, so there is some value in planning for what happens if the relationship doesn’t work out.
Furthermore, if a person does get divorced, he or she could be on the hook for paying a spouse’s student loan or other debts. That could be on top of making alimony and child support payments. The average student loan debt in 2017 was $38,000, and a spouse could have other forms of debt as well. By creating a prenuptial agreement, it can be easier to walk away from a marriage without an obligation to repay it.
The use of prenuptial agreements could be a convenient way to end a marriage without a lot of stress. This is because they are negotiated before the marriage begins, which generally means that they are constructed in a fair and reasonable manner. It may be worthwhile to have an attorney review the terms of an agreement before a person signs it to determine if they are indeed fair and reasonable.