I'm 74, my husband is 86. His ten children had me sign prenuptial. I'm now sorry I did as I care for him 24/7, do I have options?

JessieBelle: The man i was referring to in my answer was my ex-husband, not my Dad....although it is kind of funny because I do refer to him as Dad when speaking to my daughter.

An elderly friend of mine came up with the perfect phrase for these men seeking women to care for them....Referring to my ex she exclaimed...."He is looking for a nurse with a purse!"

That is pretty perfect!

I see there is a 12 year age difference between the two of you .. that is significant. I would have an attorney look over the pre-nup to see if it is legal and if it is I think you will have to have a meeting with his 10 children (and your husband) and make it very clear that if you are to remain his nurse/caregiver the original pre-nup is to be terminated and draw up a new one that has some benefit to you. Good Luck!

Raven - kinda has it spot-on!

Betty25 - OK I'm going to assume his kids basically find you to be a total threat to whatever future world that they think Dad will provide to them....so someone in that brain trust thought of a prenupt. & I bet that either one of them is an attorney so they did it (and they are not a divorce attorney) OR they pulled it off of something on-line. Either way is good for you because if they are an attorney they should know better and can be censured & the off the web stuff usually doesn't meet the legal standards required to be valid. Might scare you but not valid in the long run

Now prenupt's (I have one) have to be discussed and cannot be done under duress. Prenupts have to be a 2 way street so can't just list his stuff either.
Prenupt's to really be done correctly have to have a pretty specific listing of property or other items of value described within the document. Ours is 5 pages with 2 pages for signatures. Ours has to do with businesses & property and each property has it's specifics (parcel #, tax id # etc) within the prenupt.

BTW if you all were married before all that info should be within the prenupt too along with the listing of your kids births. A good prenupt is similar to a will.

Thrusting it in front of you a day or two before an event is UNDER DURESS. If your sweetheart allowed them to do this, well in the long run he is not your soulmate and has some sort of fear of his kids along with his fear of being alone.

If it's done under duress a good pittbull of a divorce attorney will have it tossed out. You need to get a good pittbull of an attorney and I'd suggest getting one BEFORE you have the come to Jesus meeting on Dad's health & care with his kids. I'd let the attorney guide you in what needs to happen. What he will likely suggest is:
1. establish boundaries of cost and time for Dad's care.
this will mean hiring of help. He will work up a list of home health firms and the kids can select one in tandem with you. Dad's assets pay for this. Just too bad for inheiriting that money.
2. review your future needs & provide for them, -
You can do some of this...like go on-line to see where you are your SS check. I'm assuming you have been married before, so how much can you get on your SS; your exhubby's SS and if you remain married to current hubby for another 6 years what you would get via his SS. (you have to be married to him for 10 years to get his SS) At 74 you could easily live another 20 years so your SS potential amount is super important. Understand?

Then what does his will provide for you? You need to be included in it. He may need to do a codicil to his will to include you in some way.

If this seems to be about property (like they want it and you get booted out), then what can be done is a USUFRUCT. I'm in Louisiana and usufruct is in our law but we are Napoleonic code. The rest of the US does English law so usufruct can be done but has to be done differently. What is so special about a usufruct is that it gives an "out" for him to say to the kids that he is leaving all to them but allowing you the use of all for the rest of your lifetime (based on your decision to stay in the house). Most excellent for second or third wife situations where the kids are pissed about Tiffany's getting the house, the beach house @ Perdido Key, the condo in Aspen and everything else from their old geezer of a dad. You don't sound like a Tiffany/wife #3, but you too could have a usafruct done so that you get to stay in the house after his death. The details on who pays for what (taxes, insurance, etc) are in the usufruct document. You want it to come from his estate paid on a sliding scale for a period of time based on your actuarial table. Even if you don;t want to stay in the house, you want to do this for at least allow 1 year more than whatever your state has as it's maximum length of probate. So if your state is a 4 year run for probate, then the usafruct is for 5 years. Just so they can't be sneaky. Understand? If & when you decide to move, your attorney sends them a letter on this as per the usufruct terms.

Just as an fyi, a lot of gay couples have used usufruct's to be able to provide for their long term partner as their family often won't have anything to do with them or gets all "you don't exist" with them after they die.

I totally understand your need to take care of him but you also need to take care of yourself. Get an attorney, give him or her a deposit and start to get your paperwork together. Good luck.

JessieBelle after reading your comment I laughed. I will be thinking about Oliver all day "please sir, I want some more". Lol

Hard to opine on fairness without knowing the details of the prenup, so I refrain from judgement.
It is a contract and can be renegotiated. If your husband is of sound mind you need to discuss it with him and have him change it.
Read the prenup, maybe by moving assets today to your name, you get some security without looking for a "salary". Maybe you are the beneficiary of a pension? 10 kids is a lot, so unless hubby is fairly wealthy they are not looking at very much money a piece.....which says something about someone who would butt into their dad's life to push for a prenup.
I would say this, spare no expense in caring for hubby and having your respite , he has end of life money, and you will not benefit from it......so benefit by using it today. Do not be frugal to protect someone else's inheritance if they are not helping. This is your only leverage to renegotiate this contract.

a maid with benefits...that is it, isn't it JessieBelle!

Raven, excellent thoughts. As I read, I realized that what you wrote can be true for caregivers in general. Very few of us have anyone who is thinking about us at the end, and we feel selfish is we even request a crust of bread.

I have known a few men like your father that don't grasp the quid pro quo when it comes to relationships. I guess you should tell him Dad, what you really want is a maid.

I am sure this is a very touchy situation however if I were you I do think I would find an attorney to look over the documents and see if there are any "loopholes" that could help you with obtaining some compensation. It seems that you mush have money to live your ongoing lives each day and pay for necessities. So do you want to be paid a salary so to speak for caring for your husband? Were you working and had to stop working to care for him?

Personally I think I would probably talk to an attorney first and see what he had to say about the matter before I asked the kids for a sit down meeting. I would let them know that their father now requires full time care and you honestly do not mind giving it, but you need compensation for all the work...especially if you had to stop working to care for him. Otherwise if the children refuse and the attorney says there is no way around the pre nup then I would tell the kids that you are hiring an in home caregiver to help care for their father. You need some assistance I would believe and an in home care giver would allow you to get out of the house for a while each day.

It is really too bad you did not think about all of this prior to signing the pre nup, it is something we should all think about.

I had this conversation with my ex husband as he is looking for a woman to spend his final years with. He is concerned that there needs to be a woman there to care for HIM in his old age. I asked him what he planned on doing for her because he has 3 children and 2 grandchildren. He asked what I meant and I said, "You want a woman to care for YOU but what happens to HER when you die? Are you making arrangements for her to be taken care of? Are you thinking about how that will affect your children and their inheritance?" I wanted him to think about what he was doing, he was ONLY interested in finding a woman to care for HIM but he did not care what happened to that woman once he was gone. This ticked me off because he wants someone to hold his hand and care for him until he dies but he didn't care if he left this woman penniless and with no one to care for her.

No one wants to live out their last years alone, we all want someone to be there for us, but we fail to have those very hard conversations about money and fairness in all this.

Good Luck and Best Wishes to You!

You need to sit down with the entire family and discuss his care. I am surprised you didn't consider this before, as declining in health was clearly obvious at your ages.

Tell the children (and your husband) that you are unable to give him 24/7 care - without any financial compensation, given you have a prenup. Set boundaries. Stick to them. Be strong. Peace to you.

I have to add, though, the question is if you really want to change it. I don't really know if it is worth the hardship with the children to change the agreement and the will. Perhaps there is a better way to handle things. If you will need money, your husband can take care of that while he is still alive. That will keep the conflict down.

Who did you have the prenup with? Usually it is between husband and wife, and both can change the agreement if they are deemed to be of sound mind.