No children ever – it’s in the prenup
At long last you and your soul mate are talking about getting married. You’ve just begun to daydream about the ceremony, having kids, growing old together. And then your lover punctures the dream by suggesting a prenup. Which is bad enough.
“Here’s the deal,” your lover continues. “There has to be some reassurance that marriage won’t kill our sex life. I want a guarantee of four times a week.”
“Isn’t that something we can just kind of shoot for?”
“Not good enough. I want it in a prenup.”
“Hmmm,” you say. “Is there anything else?”
“Well, yeah, actually. You saw what happened to Sue and Mike after they started having all those kids. It’s like they took over the place. We are not ready to be parents, and I don’t think I’ll ever be. That needs to be clear, in writing.”
“Lots of people feel that way,” you say. “Can’t we just talk about that?”
“Nope, my mind’s made up. I want it in the prenup.”
In an uncertain world, some partners want to take uncertainty out of relationships by putting down terms in black and white. According to a recent poll of matrimonial lawyers, prenups are becoming more common at all levels of society. Surprisingly, money isn’t always the biggest issue.
Kelly Chang Rickert, a family law specialist in Los Angeles, has negotiated sex-life clauses. So has Raoul Felder, who has inked promises that a spouse would pay $100,000 in damages for each case of infidelity.
They have known couples to stipulate who did certain chores, who would get opera tickets, and where they would live (as in, “I will go to Connecticut, I will go to Westchester, but I will never go more than two hours from Manhattan”).
Almost a third of the arrangements refer to pets. “We had a couple enter a prenuptial agreement that provided that the parties would never own pets,” says Lee Rosen of Rosen Law in Raleigh, NC. “We had another agreement that provided that the wife would have the discretion to own as many pets as she wished without objection by the husband. We have had numerous agreements wherein the parties agreed as to household chores such as the husband agreeing to do the dishes and the wife agreeing to do the cooking.”
Leon Burnett, attorney for Marlon Brando, Kelsey Grammer, and Dennis Hopper, once helped a couple determine who would receive a taxidermied horse.
Several media outlets have reported that Keith Urban would receive nothing from Nicole Kidman if he fell off the wagon.
Other tales must be considered apocryphal, even though they have been told in papers such as Newsday: a spouse permitted to watch only one football game per Sunday; another who could opt out of vacations with in-laws. Perhaps the most offensive story of all concerned a wife who would have to pay $100,000 if she gained a pound over 120.
It all may seem peculiarly modern. 2,500 years ago, however, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote:
Two made one are never one.
Arguing the same we disagree.
Singing together we compete.
We choose each other
to be one, and from the one
both soon diverge.
