Wexford Pennsylvania Family Law Blog

Relationships are complicated. After people get divorced, they often look back and say they can't believe they missed all the signs and red flags. They should have known the relationship would never work. But, while they're in that relationship, it's very difficult to see these same signs.

Well, here are a few that you can spot even when you're dating, before the marriage. Some of them, naturally, last even after you tie the knot. Either way, they could mean that divorce is in your future:

The dissolution of a marriage can no doubt have a major impact on an individual's life and emotional well-being. For this reason, some individuals may look down on the idea of starting a brand-new career while going through the divorce process. However, jumping into a new job field may be a wise move for some divorcing spouses in Pennsylvania.

One reason why people may choose to switch careers during divorce is that they prefer jobs that are more family friendly. For instance, they want jobs that will give them the flexibility they need to take their children to the doctor. In some situations, people simply want to get home in a timely fashion for their children.

When individuals in Pennsylvania marry early in life, they often expect to stay married for decades. Because divorce is not readily on their minds, they might not think about drafting prenuptial agreements. However, drafting a prenuptial agreement may especially be expedient if two people with significant assets are getting married later in life.

In a late-in-life prenuptial agreement, two soon-to-be spouses can explain how they intend to financially support themselves going forward. In addition, they can highlight how they plan to withdraw their retirement assets according to their personal wealth levels. As an example, one person might have a big retirement plan, whereas the other person has a small one. They might agree to use the larger of the plans and just use the smaller plan for taking out small distributions.

The marital breakup process in many cases is inevitable, and it is often painful for those involved. For this reason, it may not come as a surprise that more millennials in Pennsylvania and elsewhere are opting to develop prenuptial agreements, or prenups, before they get married. In fact, new research indicates that more than 50 percent of attorneys recently saw a rise in these types of agreements among millennials, as members of this generation are increasingly interested in protecting themselves in the event of divorce.

In millennials' prenuptial agreements, they often cite their main reason for creating the agreements as the desire to protect their separate property. Other reasons for putting together these types of agreements include property division and alimony. Young adults value prenuptial agreements because they are generally settling down much later in life than previous generations did, so by the time they get married, they often have more assets to bring into the marriage than their parents did.