AARP Hearing Center
Do You Need a Prenup?
Five questions to consider before you say ‘I do’
5-minute read
Paige Vickers
Key takeaways
- Older adults often have homes, retirement savings and other assets that may warrant legal protection before marriage.
- A prenup can help clarify how assets are handled in divorce, death or blended-family situations.
- The process of crafting a prenup often encourages deeper conversations about money and financial expectations.
In your 20s and 30s, the idea of a prenuptial agreement might have sounded unrelatable — like something only gray-haired executives asked for when they were marrying swimsuit models half their age. (The Jackie Collins miniseries plots of our ’80s and ’90s youth live rent-free in our brains.)
But times have changed, you’ve grown older, and what once seemed like an unromantic and unnecessary legal document to many is now often a good idea — especially for soon-to-be-wedded couples who are in their 50s or beyond and have accumulated significant assets before the marriage.
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Today, more couples see prenups as a planning tool that allows them to decide how their assets will be divided in the event of a divorce, rather than letting state law or a judge make those decisions for them.
“People are more comfortable with prenups,” says Hilary Hendershott, a California-based wealth adviser. “They’re sort of transcending their reputation.”
Thirty-seven percent of married Gen Xers and 39 percent of millennials have a prenup, compared with just 4 percent of boomers, a 2025 LegalShield survey found.
For older adults — and for couples entering a second marriage — their financial situation and family obligations may be more complicated than they were at age 25.
“Unlike couples marrying in their 20s or 30s, older adults bring houses, cars, savings, mortgages, student loans, children and aging parents into the marriage,” says Jacob Brown, a licensed marriage and family therapist based in Sausalito, California.
They might also have inheritances, business interests or retirement accounts that took decades to build. “They bring their whole life with them, which makes the emotional and financial picture far more complex,” Brown says.
To decide whether a prenup is right for you, ask yourself these five key questions.
Have you spent years building assets you want to protect?
Financial advisers and attorneys say one of the strongest reasons to consider a prenup is simple: You’ve spent years building wealth and want control over what happens to your assets if the marriage ends.
Many people assume a prenup is necessary only when one partner is substantially wealthier than the other. In reality, couples with comparable assets often benefit just as much from having clear agreements in place and set in stone in a legal document, says Carla Donnelly, a family law attorney in Pittsburgh. The issue isn’t necessarily how much money each person has, she says, but whether they have assets or obligations they wish to protect.
“When you’re older, what you have is often what you’ve earned,” Donnelly says. That may include not only common assets like retirement accounts, investment portfolios and real estate but also collectibles you’ve accumulated. And by this stage of life, you might already have specific plans for those premarital assets.
For example, perhaps you want a family home or heirloom passed on to your niece. A prenup can help ensure that takes place.
Do you have children from a previous relationship?
“If you have kids and you want to protect your money for them, you need a prenup,” says Lisa Browning, a trained divorce mediator and attorney in Kendall Park, New Jersey.
A prenup is important not only in the event of a divorce but also in the event of your death, Donnelly says. Without a clearly written legal agreement, your surviving spouse might have inheritance rights that conflict with your intentions to leave assets to your children. A prenup can help shape these kinds of estate planning decisions and reduce the likelihood of family disputes later. (Before you tie the knot, consider creating or updating your will to reflect the prenup’s terms.)
Do you own a business?
Business owners face another layer of complexity. Without a prenup, a divorce could require extensive business valuations, financial disclosures and forensic accounting. The whole process can be expensive, time-consuming and intrusive.
A prenup that establishes how your business will be treated can help avoid years of litigation and scrutiny, Donnelly says. It can also spare you from having to disclose years of financial records, tax returns, ledgers and other sensitive information during divorce proceedings.
Do you own a home?
Many older adults enter marriage already owning a home. About 3 in 4 Americans ages 55 to 64 are homeowners, according to data analyzed from the Census Bureau’s Housing Vacancy Survey.
While property purchased or inherited before marriage may receive some legal protections under state law, the situation can become more complicated once a new spouse moves in, contributes financially to the home, or puts money or labor into improvements that increase the home’s value. In those instances, the property could become a joint asset, Browning says.
A prenup can spell out whether a pre-owned home remains separate property in the event the marriage ends or one spouse dies. Hendershott says that some couples may want a house to eventually pass to their children while still ensuring a surviving spouse has housing security. For example, a couple might agree that the surviving spouse can remain in the home for a certain number of months or years before ownership transfers to the deceased’s children.
Do you want to avoid future conflict?
For many couples, a major benefit of drafting a prenup is the financial transparency it provides. “The goal is to help both partners understand each other’s expectations and prevent future conflicts,” says Brown.
Drafting a prenup typically requires both individuals to disclose assets, debts, income sources and financial obligations. For some couples, it’s the first truly comprehensive conversation they’ve had about money.
“Couples who go through that process come out knowing more about each other’s fears, priorities and financial history than they did before,” Brown says. That transparency can strengthen the relationship by creating a shared understanding before problems arise.
Browning has seen this dynamic play out in her practice. “Numerous people have told me they learned how to talk about money in a different way from the negotiations of the prenup,” she says. “And they were very grateful for that because they felt, going forward, they could talk to their spouse about their finances in a way they never would have envisioned.”
How to start the conversation
If you decide a prenup makes sense for you, experts recommend broaching the topic early — long before you walk down the aisle.
Brown suggests approaching the conversation as a broader financial planning discussion, rather than immediately jumping into talk of a prenup. “The mistake most people make is leading with ‘I want a prenup,’ ” he says. One way to open the conversation, he suggests, is with “I think we should talk about how we’re going to handle money when we’re married.”
Ultimately, a carefully crafted prenup provides, as Hendershott puts it, “clarity and comfort” — two things every couple hopes to bring into a marriage.
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