Improving Relationships

with Prenups

When you hear the word “prenup,” most people don’t think about it being something that actually improves your relationship. But a prenup is a contract like any other contract – it depends on what you put into it.

What Are Counseling Provisions?

Something that more and more couples are including in their prenup are counseling provisions – including a requirement that you and your spouse go to couples counseling during your marriage. For example, couples can agree that before either spouse can file for divorce, the couple has to complete a certain number of marriage counseling sessions. In other words, before we lawyer up and start spending money on a divorce case, let’s make sure we’ve given ourselves every possible chance to save the relationship.

Counseling for Divorce Preparedness

Even if the relationship can’t be saved, counseling can still be used to get you in the right mindset to negotiate any outstanding parts of the divorce like custody and child support, rather than go into those negotiations angry where you’re more likely to drop a ton of money on litigation.

Regular Counseling During Marriage

Often couples take it a step further and include regular counseling during the marriage in their prenup – where the couple agrees at the beginning of their marriage that any time either spouse wants to go to counseling, they agree that they’ll go to 3 or 4 sessions. Agreeing to do counseling ahead of time is so helpful, because otherwise, when does the topic of counseling come up? Usually after a big argument, one spouse says I want to see someone, and the other spouse takes it as an accusation that something is wrong with them – and at the time that you and your partner most need help, you don’t get it. I can’t tell you how many of my divorce clients over the years have told me that they wanted to work on their relationship, but their spouse refused to attend even a single session with a marriage counselor.

Counseling as a

Relationship Check-Up

I love the idea of setting an expectation that counseling will be a regular part of your relationship – it doesn’t have to be something that you only use when your marriage is on the brink of disaster – it doesn’t have to be something you resort to when your marriage is at a 2 out of 10. It can be something you use when you’re at a 7 out of 10 and you want to get back to a 9 – use counseling the same way you would an annual physical, where you get a checkup to make sure that things are running as smoothly as possible, and you get a chance to course-correct before things have gone too far south. It’s just another way you can use a prenup to plan for a successful marriage, not just divorce.