Our DDs in particular need to understand marital contracts

[autocollantes]

I have a DS too and want him also to know, but given how things seem to work post kids, DDs are the priority.

When we get married we're not encouraged to think of the contract as much more than a legal document binding us together in love. Which is nice, but nonsense in the cold hard reality of life.

My DH is Catholic and we had to do a "marriage preparation" course (it wasn't that bad, just talking about what we expected in different areas of marriage). Before we have children we're encouraged to do birth preparation courses of some sort to educate ourselves and to read books to educate ourselves about baby's development.

But before we get married and sign what could be the most important document of our lives, there's NO INFORMATION.

AIBU that we need to teach our DDs - children - what a marriage contract contains, what it means for their rights during marriage and their rights in divorce? And that this needs to be done long before they're in a serious relationship.

I'd even go further and say that this education should be provided by the experts, who are divorce lawyers. In hindsight, now that I'm trying to divorce, I wish I'd been informed about all of this by someone knowledgable about what can go wrong. Knowing what it all means when everything is going well is actually useless - you don't usually need to protect yourself when everything is good!

There's sooo much I didn't know about what was involved and what the legal process itself entails. It's been an "in at the deep end" education. But for my lawyer, some if it appears to be "common sense". I absolutely agree about that, IF you know the legal system, how contracts work etc. The absolute worst way to learn about the law and your rights is via divorce.

So, anybody agree, or AIBU?

How many young people are realistically likely to recall a lesson on this back from when they were 14/15/16? And indeed, considering how the law and court view has moved in recent years regarding things like pre-nuptial agreements and divorce settlements, how likely is it that what they were taught as a teenager will even remain correct legal knowledge when they’re 45? You still see MN posters confidently advising others that a woman has a legal right to remain in the marital home until her child is 18 because this is what happened to their aunt when she divorced in the ‘80s - something which was relatively common for courts to decide back then but far less the case now.

I suppose it plants a seed of information. If they know there is a difference legally between cohabitation and marriage, they are more likely to go and research current law before moving in.

If they have no idea then why would they look it up.

But OP wants the risks of getting married to be spelt out - how divorce works etc. If there is only limited time to teach things, that isn't a priority to me. The lower income earner is decently protected in a divorce. It's the higher earner who stands to love our, and that's how it should be if it has to fall one way or another.

*lose out. Most definitely not love!

Nope. I disagree entirely. All of this should be parental.
I have talked to ds1 about relationships, how it's for the long term, through thick and thin.
I also know enough about my rights to not be scared of getting divorced, god forbid my 20 year marriage ends anytime soon.

Why did you not look it up and prepare yourself? Talk to your dc about these things?

It's like talking to your kids about self worth, relationships changing and ourselves changing over time, about how we all chase money but that being satisfied comes from within, pensions, mortgages.

Those conversations can be had. Easily.

The difficulty with framing the issue as OP has is that the problem isn't limited to people who are already considering getting married. As well as some people not understanding the legal nature of the marriage contract they're contemplating, there's also an issue with lack of understanding about what not having a marriage contract means. Any process that only kicks in at the point where people are considering getting married/having a CP misses that whole cohort. Choosing to live with and have children with someone without being married to them is as potentially significant a decision as choosing to do it whilst being married.

That said, I'm not sure how far school is the answer either, for the various reasons mentioned.