Lawyer Grant J. Gisondo is a Florida Family Law attorney practicing in Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, Miami-Dade, Broward, Orange, and Hillsborough counties in Florida and Washington DC and New York. His areas of representation cover all aspects of divorce, child support, parental time-sharing, modification, bankruptcy, and pre and post nuptial agreements. He has been actively handling Family Law cases for over a decade. One of the things attorney Gisondo has noticed during his years of legal representation is the increase in couples seeking prenuptial (before marriage) agreements, especially those in the millennial generation. There are several reasons for this.
In recent years the once strong stigma against divorce has melted away, and in fact there is even a mindset that sees divorce as the way to move on with life once a marriage becomes difficult, a hindrance to perceived success, or just plain boring. In fact, many young couples face marriage with the realization that divorce is a real possibility, especially as they have seen so many of their parents and even grandparents divorce. These hopeful young couples have seen once happy marriages torn apart, and the parties turned against each other by angry confrontations, fighting over who gets what, how alimony is handled, and even by “who gets the dog”. While they see marriage in a romantic light, they also live in the real world and so see a prenuptial agreement as a practical solution to the possibility of divorce.
With a properly prepared prenuptial agreement a couple can be guaranteed that should divorce become a reality there will already be in place the assurance of such issues as mentioned above. Temporary alimony, child support, parental timesharing, and attorney fees cannot be included in a Florida prenuptial agreement but other important issues can. Couples can enter marriage knowing they do not stand a chance of losing such things as a special pet, a cherished antique, reasonable alimony, assumption of another’s debts, and a family owned business.
Millennials are a generation of thinkers and planners and are noted for looking out for their own futures. Women, as well as men, strive to be independent and self-sufficient. And so. while romance is still in the picture, the seeking of a prenuptial agreement makes sense to them as a practical hedge against an uncertain future in a society where close to 50% of marriages end in divorce, many of these divorces in the first few years.