Got a Kid Getting Engaged this Autumn? Read on!
If this column prompts you to profess that it’s about lawyers feeding business to lawyers, you are correct. Guilty as charged. But chances are you will see merit in my madness.
I ran across an article about a couple who met with a family lawyer while engaged but before marrying. I have thought about this topic countless times because most people get married with little to no awareness of the legal consequence of the transaction. Marriage is not unique. How many of us have read an owner’s manual before buying the car? How many of us have read the note and mortgage which separate us from owning our homes outright? But marriage is a BIG transaction with huge legal implications. Yet almost all of us “sign up” assuming that if we love each other, everything will turn out all right.
The world has changed. Young people today are delaying marriage to their late 20s and early 30s. Many of them aren’t just starting out as was the case in the 1950s and 1960s. Today’s betrothed couples have assets, debt and careers underway. That’s a good thing. But it also complicates a world where the bride is up for a promotion and re-assignment to Singapore while her groom would like to buy a house and have some kids. It’s rare for these kind of things to come up during engagement but job relocation, job loss and children with special needs are now part of the landscape of young adulthood.
The article comes from Insider Magazine and was published earlier this year.
Some of these conversations are about what happens if the marriage fails and the mechanics of “decoupling.” Many couples have the perception that their property remains “theirs” and free of claim. Others assume there is no alimony law that could affect them. But a lot of needed conversation relates to expectations in marriage. Things like; how important are children to the arrangement and how will children affect employment over the long term. There are also privacy and boundary issues. We have had two instances where college age children were accused of sexual assault. We have seen instances where it emerges that one of the parties has a horrid credit history or hasn’t filed a tax return in three years. These kinds of non-disclosure problems have multiplied in a day when people are meeting and dating electronically.
If you are a parent, this is a sensitive subject. Your advice on these topics is rarely solicited and any questions on your part can often be dismissed as intrusive. So perhaps a link to the magazine article with a simple “Thought you might be interested” attachment may get something started.