You signed a prenuptial agreement back when you got married. Now you and your spouse are talking about divorce, and you want to look over the document again. For one thing, you want to check what you agreed to, but you also wonder if some of the provisions in it won’t actually hold up.
To help you spot things that may not stand, here are a few examples of issues that prenups cannot address:
- The prenup cannot get either one of you out of child support obligations.
- The prenup cannot force you to do anything that breaks the law, and it cannot allow your spouse to break the law.
- The prenup cannot waive or take away your child custody rights. As with child support, the court is going to make a decision that is in the best interests of the child.
- The prenup cannot deviate too far from strictly financial issues. It is essentially a way to divide or protect assets, and things that are merely personal in nature may not hold up.
- In many cases, the prenup cannot incentivize a divorce. It is just supposed to help make the process easier, not push you and your spouse toward divorce. If you could do this, it would be possible for one partner to use the prenup with the express purpose of taking advantage of the other — for instance, convincing someone who is in love to give up the rights to all of their personal property from before the marriage.
It is important to know how the prenup can impact your divorce and what to do if you think it should not stand.