I read through the thread on pre-nups and it got me thinking about how different my situation is from most of the posters on this board.
My situation is almost the opposite of a pre-nup. I met my partner almost 18 years ago. Neither of us had much in the way of assets, but my salary has always been a lot larger. About three years ago I started to realize that we were creating a good size nest egg and almost everything was in my name.
So, we went to an attorney and had a domestic partnership drafted (amongst other things) which splits everything 50/50 in the event that we spilt up.
I think this is the fair way to do things and it is important to have clarity.
I must say, there are a lot more complications in gay relationships because of the lack of civil unions than what married counterparts have. There are a lot of inequities like lack of spousal health insurance, lack of survivorship benefits in Social Security and pensions, and estate tax exclusions that ignore same sex couples which can't be resolved by a domestic partnership agreement. What this boils down to is that my partner and I require a larger nest egg than what a married couple would require.
I shudder to think how many more years the lack of a civil union is keeping me in the workforce.
-helen
My situation is almost the opposite of a pre-nup. I met my partner almost 18 years ago. Neither of us had much in the way of assets, but my salary has always been a lot larger. About three years ago I started to realize that we were creating a good size nest egg and almost everything was in my name.
So, we went to an attorney and had a domestic partnership drafted (amongst other things) which splits everything 50/50 in the event that we spilt up.
I think this is the fair way to do things and it is important to have clarity.
I must say, there are a lot more complications in gay relationships because of the lack of civil unions than what married counterparts have. There are a lot of inequities like lack of spousal health insurance, lack of survivorship benefits in Social Security and pensions, and estate tax exclusions that ignore same sex couples which can't be resolved by a domestic partnership agreement. What this boils down to is that my partner and I require a larger nest egg than what a married couple would require.
I shudder to think how many more years the lack of a civil union is keeping me in the workforce.
-helen