Updating an existing marriage contract/prenup? - please advise me if you can

TBagpuss

Pollycat said:

For clarity:

if your partner has committed adultery, you will not get any more money than if the marriage had simply broken down.

That's how I read the post anyway.

Correct. The financial settlement is about reaching a settlement fair to both parties, it is not about punishing (perceived) bad behaviour.
Behaviour / conduct can be taken into account but only where it's so serious that it would be unjust to ignore it, and typically that is where it is financial or has a direct financial impact so is directly relevant to a financial settlement. 
The remedy for someone behaving badly in the context of a marriage, e.g. someone who has an affair, is that you get to divorce them and move on in your life. You don't get financial compensation on top. 

And from this autumn divorces will all be on a no-fault basis .

TBagpuss

Also, a pre-nup or post-nup which sought to include punishment's for 'bad' behaviour would be unlikely to be seen as fair, so it's unlikely that it would be followed by a court. 

AskAsk

TBagpuss said:

Pollycat said:

For clarity:

if your partner has committed adultery, you will not get any more money than if the marriage had simply broken down.

That's how I read the post anyway.

Correct. The financial settlement is about reaching a settlement fair to both parties, it is not about punishing (perceived) bad behaviour.
Behaviour / conduct can be taken into account but only where it's so serious that it would be unjust to ignore it, and typically that is where it is financial or has a direct financial impact so is directly relevant to a financial settlement. 
The remedy for someone behaving badly in the context of a marriage, e.g. someone who has an affair, is that you get to divorce them and move on in your life. You don't get financial compensation on top. 

And from this autumn divorces will all be on a no-fault basis .

i had heard that divorce no longer requires one of the party to admit to unreasonable behaviour even if this is not true and the divorce is amicable.  i thought it was already introduced but looks like it is not yet law.

at the moment you can not get a divorce if your spouse does not agree to the divorce, will this remove the need to separate for 5 years if your spouse won't agree to the divorce?

TBagpuss

AskAsk said:

i had heard that divorce no longer requires one of the party to admit to unreasonable behaviour even if this is not true and the divorce is amicable.  i thought it was already introduced but looks like it is not yet law.

at the moment you can not get a divorce if your spouse does not agree to the divorce, will this remove the need to separate for 5 years if your spouse won't agree to the divorce?

currently you give one of 5 reasons:
-adultery (not  same sex couples)
- unreasonable behaviour
- 2 years separation if both spouses consent
- 5 years separation (no agreement required)
- desertion (rarely used as the definition is quite specific, and it needs to have been ongoing for 2+ years, so usually easier to use behaviour instead) 

So you can get a divorce even if your spouse doesn't agree, either on the basis of behaviour, 5 years separation, or desertion, but when the new law comes into effect all divorces will simply be based on one party stating that they consider the marriage has broken down irretrievably. 

Also, the spouse being divorced doesn't have to admit the unreasonable behaviour, (they never did have to, or at least not  within the last 50 years or so. I'm less familiar with the pre-1973 laws!)

The question asked on the acknowledgment of service is whether they intend to defend the divorce, i.e. whether they are saying that the marriage has not broken down. It's quit common to answer that question by saying that you don't intend to defend the divorce (because you agree the marriage has broken down) but that you don't agree with all the allegations made. It's legally meaningless but lets the respondent put on record that they aren't admitting to the allegations made. 

In practice, it is common to try to agree the details which are to be given as examples of unreasonable behaviour, to try to avoid unnecessary acrimony, ad it is good practice to keep this to the minimum possible. 

MalMonroe

After 22 happy years together, If I were you I'd simply be glad I'd lost that old document and carry on living happily with my spouse.

If anyone had mentioned any kind of pre-nuptial agreement to me, I'd have called the whole thing off and told them where they could store it. If you don't trust each other, there doesn't seem to be much point. And to want to revise such an agreement is just a waste of time.

To my mind, you would be far better off visiting a solicitor where you could spend time, money and effort revising your wills. 

All of the above is just my own opinion, of course but why would you want to waste your money trying to devise a self-made document that carries no weight here, when you could both have wills instead - especially as it seems that you have been happy for your entire married life?