Reframing Prenups: A Love-First Approach to Relationship Agreements
How do you introduce a prenup without making a couple feel they’re preparing for their relationship to fail?
For professionals who help couples create prenups and relationship agreements, that question is important. The way we describe our services, from our website to the first conversation, can help clients approach the process with curiosity rather than apprehension.
I believe these agreements can begin with love: the values couples share, the commitments they’re making and the future they want to build together.
That means we listen first. We invite couples to discover what they need and want, then offer a process for creating a relationship agreement that reflects the people signing it.
From protecting against the worst to discussing what matters
For years, I’ve been working to shift the conversation around prenups and relationship agreements. Some of the inspiration came from clients using our Our Family in Two Homes workbook during separation.
Many told us they wish they had done it sooner.
Some felt the reflections and conversations could have helped them during their relationship, long before they were navigating separation. Their feedback prompted a question: what if we helped couples have these conversations while they were planning their future together?
That led my daughter, Taylor Smiley, and me to create Designing Our Future Together: a workbook that helps couples prepare for meaningful conversations with their lawyer, mediator, financial advisor or therapist.
How Designing Our Future Together helps couples prepare
The workbook begins with personal reflections and fun exercises that create space for deeper discussions. It then moves into questions and information that help couples prepare to make thoughtful, informed decisions with their advisors.
The preparation gives couples an opportunity to explore what matters to each of them before they’re asked to reach an agreement.
Here’s what clients have told me:
“It helped us relax and feel less threatened when discussing the prenup.”
“We talked about things we hadn’t even thought of.”
And my favourite: “We laughed. We cried. We had the healthiest ‘fight’ ever!”
These conversations can be revealing. They give couples room to discover shared priorities, understand differences and bring more thoughtful questions to their professionals.
A different starting point for professionals
Working with couples on prenups and relationship agreements invites us to think carefully about how we guide the process.
Encouraging personal reflection and meaningful conversation beforehand can help ease defensiveness, open communication and clarify what couples want their agreement to reflect.
We still address difficult questions. But we can begin with the couple’s values and commitments, giving those questions a context that feels connected to the life they’re building.
If you help couples create prenups or relationship agreements, Designing Our Future Together offers a practical way to support that preparation.
Bring this approach into your practice with Launch Pad
You don’t need to develop a new process to help couples prepare for these conversations.
Designing Our Future Together is one of the client preparation tools available through Launch Pad, which guides you through choosing and using the right tool for your client’s situation.
It’s deceptively simple: choose a client, choose the workbook and email it to them. They complete the guided reflection before you meet, giving you a more thoughtful starting point for your work together.
No additional training required. Launch Pad walks you through getting started, so you can send your first workbook today (actually!).
Explore Launch Pad and prepare your clients for deeper conversations.