Do we need a prenuptial agreement? If so, what might we want it to say?

I am married in the state of MA, with a pre-nup. You will both need independent counsel for the pre-nup to be legally binding. It makes sense to ask your lawyer the technical questions directly, but the emotional ones you NEED to hammer out before lawyers get involved. If you want to maintain separate assets that seems fair, but keep in mind that this will only come into play if the marriage were to dissolve. You need to figure out how to BE married first, in terms of finances. If you're unhappy with how the expenses are divided now, there is no pre-nup in the world that will help your marriage. You need to have a financial discussion before you have a pre-nup discussion.

You are obviously not our lawyer, or our accountant. We do plan to hire such if we can do so inexpensively and have a good idea of what we want beforehand. I don't know the law in MA, but just to be clear, in at least some jurisdictions, this is not an optional extra that you can choose to do if you have the money; independent legal advice (i.e. you each get a different lawyer) is a prerequisite for a legally binding prenup. You can't just draw up a contract and sign it yourselves; it wouldn't be worth the paper it's written on. You must talk to a family lawyer in MA to see if this is the case there. A lawyer will also be able to tell you what sort of things you might need a prenup for; you might find that areas you thought were of concern are addressed by statute.

And as Erik Newton points out, you already have a pre-nup, it's just that by default it's written by the statutes of Massachusetts. Yeah, this is the same as saying that everyone already has a will called the intestacy statute. It is still recommended to have a will. As you may have gathered, the pre-nup is not to set forth who is going to pay for groceries or the water bill while you are married. You cannot whip it out if you think she is not holding up her end of things regarding how you share finances while you are married. It is not to settle tiffs about who is supposed to unload the dishwasher. If you think the pre-nup is going to solve any of your current issues about relationship finances, you need to put marriage on hold or you may need that pre-nup sooner than you think. Rather, the purpose of the pre-nup is to address how your property will be divided if you divorce - nothing more. If you divorce, you can have a judge decide how your property is divided, or you can decide right now with a pre-nup agreement. An agreement is better. By the way, please don't think that a pre-nup does much in terms of bankruptcy protection. If your spouse incurs debt during the course of the marriage, you can still be on the hook regardless of any pre-nup. Debts that is in her name only that was incurred before the marriage should not affect you. If you want to have a pre-nup, you want to have a lawyer. (IAAL. You know all the disclaimers)

Honestly, it sounds like you need financial/legal advice in the context of relationship/couples counselling to help you both articulate your goals and expectations around money. There is an imbalance in your relationship you (and maybe your partner) are uncomfortable with and you both need help in either righting that imbalance or accepting it

I don't think a pre-nuptual agreement can absolve you of any financial responsibilities that getting married would thrust upon you. Plus, I'm pretty sure the point of a pre-nuptual agreement is to settle upon the terms of divorce, should it occur. Not to settle differences within the marriage- the only way to "use" the contract would be to sue for divorce because the other side hasn't lived up to her agreement. As for finances, take a long view. Maybe the next 4 years will be tough financially. But 10 years from now? Assuming nothing bad happens, you'll probably done with those loans and well settled into your new house. You are the breadwinner now, so embrace that- help your spouse get out from under her debt and build a stronger future together. Maybe in 10 years she will be the breadwinner and support you similarly. As for not taking on new debt to increase earning power, you'd have to run the numbers. If it costs another $10,000 to increase her yearly income by $10,000, it seems like that would be worth it. She's back to even within a year, and has a lifetime of greater earning power for you both to enjoy. If it costs $100,000 to earn another $10,000 a year, that might not be quite worth it. (On the other hand, the debt is incurred in today's dollars, and the increased income keeps going up. So what was a $10,000 boost now might be a $15,000 or $20,000 boost in 10 years. So it's paid off in 10 and there are still another 20 years of work to save up for retirement.)

Keep in mind that a prenup is not going to protect your income/assets in the case of financial trouble on the part of your spouse. It is meant to outline what will happen if you get divorced, not to separate your debts/expenses/etc. while you are still married. Also - most student loans are NOT dischargable with bankruptcy, so if that's the majority of your fiancee's debt, don't plan on going down that path. That said, it looks like MA is a common law state, which means the debts of each spouse stick with that spouse - you're not legally taking on your spouse's debt by marrying her, regardless of whatever you put in a prenup. (IANAL - you should get this checked out yourself, of course!) Most of all, though, it sounds like you guys need to have a more serious discussion about what getting married and combining your finances will look like. A prenup is not going to make feelings of resentment over unequal earnings disappear, nor will it give you a clear plan of how to combine finances moving forward - you'll need to figure these things out yourself.

IANAL, but I am married and have gone through the prenup-or-no process. Based on the input I received from lawyers, your circumstances are not unique enough to require a pre-nup. Negotiating one is a very fraught process (and yes, you both need independent counsel), and is not worth doing unless there are significant discrepancies in income (as in several multiples) or pre-existing family or other assets to protect. That being said, you should both lay your financial cards on the table and discuss your philosophy for splitting expenses and sharing income prior to any marriage. There is no "right" way to do this, but you both need to feel that the arrangement is fair and that your contributions to the marriage are valued.

Right now, you have a prenup. That prenup comes in the form of the marriage laws of the state in which you reside and the laws of any state in which you might later separate. That's your prenup. It was written for you by a bunch of bureaucrats who have never met you and know nothing about your relationship or your life. It tells you who gets how much money or property if you divorce, and it tells you who is next of kin for whom, and it tells you how disputes over property and such should be adjudicated, and it tells you what expectations there will be for you going forward. That's the prenup you have right now. I suggest that you start by reading that prenup. Read up a little on what your state has to say about the division of debts and assets after a couple splits. Who bears what debts? Is it a community property state, or can people pretty easily come out with what they came in with? Figure out what the law says and how that law applies to you. Then, decide together whether or not you like that. Do you disagree with it? Do you think it's not specific enough to address real issues that might come up in your relationship? Do you want something in your marriage that the marriage laws don't give you? Then it's time to start thinking about drafting a custom prenup just for you to either supercede (where possible) or work with the prenup the state writes for every couple. And for that, you need a lawyer. But you can figure out a lot of whether you need one and what you'd like yours to say just by perusing the sample prenup that is (in a format that is terribly unhelpful and not-user friendly) laid out in the statutes and court decisions governing family law in your jurisdication. Because that's how you know what you're actually saying "I Do" to.

Although not the only scenario, a prenuptial agreement is most suited to a second marriage where one or both partners have children from a previous relationship and they want to ensure that a certain percentage of assets accumulated before the marriage will pass to the children rather than all to the spouse in the event of death.