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Congratulations! You have found love again after your peaceful (or not-so-peaceful) divorce from spouse #1. You have decided that you want to marry again and blend your lives together, just like in your first marriage when you were fairly young.

You (and your fiancé) believe marriage is an institution that will support your high level of commitment to each other. You want to do more than just date, or live together without being married.  You see your relationship as permanent and wish it to be life-long and supportive throughout old age.

You believe you learned some lessons from your first marriage – both in terms in your choice of a spouse and how you can create a peaceful marriage.  You feel you are now better prepared to support a marriage through its ups and downs and handle the inevitable conflict that goes along with marriage

However, there’s a little fly in the ointment.  Both you and Mr. Right #2 have children from your previous marriages. They are in high school, college, or are in the process of launching their young adult careers.  You both also have assets accumulated during your first marriages – you each have a home, retirement accounts, and other assets. You’re not particularly rich (or maybe you are), but you do wonder, what happens if you divorce again. You also may be wondering how to leave a legacy to your children if your marriage stays together, but you die before your new Baby Boomer spouse.

Central issues in Baby Boomer second marriages

Most people would like to leave a financial legacy to their children when they die. And many of our grown (and semi-grown) children need some financial help from you while you’re still alive, both in securing their education, and helping them embark on their adult lives. Our parents helped us, and we want to help our children.  It’s a natural inclination, and an embodiment of parental love, which is fierce and protective.

But you also have another intention that you want to fulfill – providing security for your new Baby Boomer spouse. You love that person, too, and with love comes a sense of protectiveness.

You are remarrying in your 50s, 60s or even 70s. One of the aims of a “gray” marriage is to support each other as you grow older, enjoy retirement together, and care for each other as you age. This is part of a long-term marriage. Your allegiance and commitment to your new spouse must be very strong because you’ve decided to marry. And it must be very strong in order for the marriage to succeed. That includes, in many cases, a financial commitment to your new spouse.

There are many challenging issues in Baby Boomer second marriages. Primary among them is how to balance the competing interests of our new spouse and our children. We want to support the well-being of our new spouse (who we love), and also may want to help our children by giving them a financial “leg up” during our lifetime and after our death.

Prenups can provide certainty on these issues:

• What happens when one of you dies.
• What happens if there is a divorce.
• How to make a potential future divorce peaceful.
• What grounds rules will you make in spending money during your marriage.
• What sources of income will you use, and whose?
• What to do about withdrawing from retirement accounts.
• What estate planning documents (wills, trusts, powers of attorneys) will you create, and what will be in them.
• Under what parameters will you financially assist your children from your previous marriage.
• What you will tell your children about the prenup.

Not everyone needs a prenup, but if you do, answering these issues in the prenup can help to provide certainty and peace in your marriage, and also peace within the extended blended family.

Beware of the process. Negotiating prenups can often cause painful conflict between people who love each other at the very time when their feelings are the most tender. They pit people in opposition with each other, and often under the guidance of attorneys, the result ends up being extremely unsupportive of the financial needs of one of the new spouses, to the advantage of the other.

It's good to start with mediation to set the terms of a prenup.

Pick an attorney/mediator who is experienced in family law, divorce and prenuptial agreements. You can find a suitable person by searching Google under “mediator attorney collaborative law prenuptial” and your geographic area.

The mediator can help you formulate a “term sheet” which will form the basis of the prenup. The mediation process will be done face-to-face, in real time, without dueling attorneys aimed at trying to get the most financial advantage for their client. A mediator’s client is both of you, and in a sense, the health of the marriage. Since caring and compassion for each other (and good communication) is at the core of a successful marriage, mediation supports these values and is a good way to start the process if you’ve decided having a prenup is right for you.

Prenups are generally enforceable, so the terms you choose will not be changeable unless you mutually agree on the changes. In this way, people entering into them can have peace of mind as to what will happen during their lives and after their death. But the downside is situations may change, and one of the spouses may be unwilling to change the terms of the prenup when the other spouse feels it’s appropriate to do so.

So, congratulations on your Baby Boomer second marriage.  You have some choices to make –including whether or not to have a prenup.  Also, you may want to have some serious discussions about the terms of your marriage and how you will handle your estates if one of you dies at a time when your marriage is intact. Be sure to get the guidance and information you need to understand the issues involved and how to address them. This will help make things clearer between you and will serve to make your marriage stronger when you tie the knot again.

© 2018. Laurie Israel.  All rights reserved.

Laurie Israel is a Massachusetts lawyer who works with clients planning for second marriages. Her writings on prenuptial agreements have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Huffington Post. She is the author of “The Generous Prenup: How to Support Your Marriage and Avoid the Pitfalls,” available on Amazon.