When Paul and I decided to get married, we pretty much threw our lot in together. In order to blend our large family, we made the decision to sell my house and remodel and move in to Paul’s. Conventional wisdom and stepparenting advice  books always suggest it is best to begin life as  a combined family by moving into a neutral house that is new to everyone.  That was not feasable for us. With the current real estate market being what it was, it was hard enough selling one house, let alone two. Paul was also very attached to his house which he had owned for 15 years and on which he had done extensive remodeling. The final contributing factor to our decision was the property tax structure in California. You pay a certain percent based on the purchase price of the home, so the taxes on a newly purchased  house would be so much higher today than the taxes on one you have owned for a while.

Prenuptual Agreements. Paul and I never even discussed the need for a prenup.California is a community property state and since we were both bringing roughly the same amount of assets into the marriage  it did not seem necessary. What did concern me was the protection of my assets and my children’s inheritance in the event that I died before Paul. I was very direct about this with Paul and after conferring with my financial planner, told Paul my conditions on which I would agree to marry him. These safeguards would give all of us, me, Paul and the children, financial security and peace of mind. Since I was selling my house and giving Paul lots of money to start the remodel on his house, I asked that he add my name to the title on his house and he agreed. I also wanted a  trust and a will.

The trust was set up to protect the children. When either Paul or I died, half of our assets would go into the trust for our respective children. We each named an executor to oversee our  half.  We have right of survivorship to stay in the house which could only be sold with the permission of the executors and if so, half of the proceeds from the sale would go into the trust. If the surviving spouse remarried, the new spouse could not be added to the title. It all sounds tedious and complicated, but I wanted to avoid the horror stories I had heard where the wife dies, the husband remarries and then he dies and his new wife gets all the money and the kids get nothing. We also made sure that the assets would be divided equally among the five children rather than my two girls getting my half and Paul’s three kids getting his half. I thought that would create hard feelings and I did not want Paul’s children to feel short changed.

Life Insurance: Paul and I each took out additional life insurance policies on each other. This supplemented the life insurance policies we already had with our ex-spouses which were set up originally to benefit the children.

Wills: We had our attorney draw up a will that listed our assets like jewelry and family heirlooms and  who we would like to have them. I wanted to make sure my girls got things from my family and my first marriage and Paul did the same. We also had a living will to clarify our wishes in case either of us were to become incapacitated and could not make our own own decisions, particulary with regard to health. In addition, we stated our desire that in the event of our death, our ex-spouses would have full custody of our children and requested our ex-spouses would allow our surviving spouse to  still have visitation of each other’s children.

The Catch-22 in all of this was that we could not set up a trust until we were married. Since I was selling my house and giving Paul all my money  I wanted security.   Our wedding/family blending ceremony was planned for August 5th of 2006, but on April 25th of of that same year, we eloped and were legally married by the Justice of the Peace at the foot of the  lighthouse in the harbor. After the ceremony, we went out to dinner and then went home to our separate houses and kept the marriage a secret. It was odd living apart when we were actually married, but we both felt it was necessary in order to start planning our future together. Which anniversary do we celebrate? Both.