Why Couples Shouldn’t Leave Their Future Up to the State

Most people are surprised to learn that the moment they get married in Florida, they’ve entered a legally binding contract, one they never read, never negotiated, and almost certainly never discussed together. I often joke that if marriage licenses came with a terms-and-conditions pop-up, most couples would scroll right to the bottom and hit “agree” without ever realizing what they just signed up for.

And to be fair, why would they know? No one sits couples down before the wedding and says, “Here’s what Florida’s marriage and divorce laws will require of you.” So, they walk into marriage full of hope and love, unaware that the State of Florida already has a full rulebook waiting for them.

The problem isn’t the rulebook itself. The problem is that it may have nothing to do with your values as a couple.

That’s where a Marriage Planning Agreement comes in. It’s a collaborative, thoughtful way to create your own rules instead of relying on the state’s divorce laws. For an additional overview on them you can also check out Marriage Planning Agreements: Why Every Couple Should Consider One.

Why Leaving Your Marriage to Florida’s Divorce Statute Is a Problem

Florida’s laws are not personal. They weren’t written with your relationship in mind, your goals, your values, or your sacrifices. They certainly weren’t written with kindness or intimacy in mind. They may have been written a long time ago and not updated to reflect the world we live in.

Florida’s divorce statute is not designed to recognize:

• The cost of pregnancy and childbearing on the Mother;
• The lost career opportunities that comes from the decision to put a career on hold for the family—and the inability to ever catch up after a certain point;
• The benefit and cost savings to the family of an agreement that one spouse would stay home with the kids;
• The cost to stay at home in terms of future social security benefits and retirement savings;
• That significant student loans (a marital debt if incurred during the marriage) will disproportionately benefit the one who got the education after the divorce,
• That the business one of you built is the family’s primary stability, or that the business would not be what it is today if not for the non-owner spouse’s contribution
• That your idea of fairness is different from what a judge sees in a snapshot.

Most importantly, the law can’t see the emotional agreements that hold a marriage together, the things you’d never want to leave to a stranger’s interpretation.

Another issue couples rarely consider is that Florida’s laws can change at any time, and you don’t get to “grandfather in” the old rules. You’re bound by whatever the legislature decides.

In short: if you make no plan, the state makes one for you.

And in my experience, that plan rarely reflects what either person actually wanted.

Let’s talk about what actually happens if you let Florida make these decisions for you.

What Florida’s Divorce Laws Actually Say (In Plain English)(The Rule Set You Agree to If You Don’t Have a Marriage Plan).

After decades of practicing family law, I can say this confidently: most couples have no idea what the legal system does with their marriage. They don’t know what counts as marital property, what happens to their income, how debt is handled, or what discretion (if any!) judges have in dividing assets and awarding support.

So, let’s walk through the major points in clear, non-legal language.

1. Equitable Distribution

Florida has a statute that states that the court must begin with the premise that the distribution should be equal, unless there is a justification for an unequal distribution based on “all relevant factors”. Whether one person can overcome the presumption that “equitable” means “equal” is completely up to the judge’s discretion. What feels “fair” to a judge may be very different from what feels fair to the two of you. Why leave those important decisions up to someone who knows nothing about you? Someone who may know very little about family law? Someone who may know very little about complex financial instruments? Someone who may know very little about owning and operating a business?

2. Marital vs. Non-Marital Property

Anything earned or acquired during the marriage is generally considered marital, even if only one person’s name is on it. That includes income, retirement accounts, and many types of property. Couples are often shocked by how easily personal assets become marital without them realizing it.

3. Income and Debt

Your income during marriage is marital. Your spouse’s income is marital. Debt incurred during marriage is also marital. This includes credit cards, medical bills, and student loans. Even debt incurred by one person that the other did not know about becomes the responsibility of both in a divorce.

4. Businesses, Retirement Accounts, and the Home

This is where people are most surprised. Even if one spouse started a business before the marriage, any increase in value during the marriage may be marital. Retirement account growth? Marital. A home bought in one name during the marriage? Marital.

5. Alimony

Florida’s alimony laws have changed in recent years. There’s no formula, just a ceiling. Judges use discretion. Need and ability to pay are the anchors, but outcomes vary. Couples often assume they “know” what alimony looks like, but most assumptions are wrong.

If this already feels confusing, that’s because it is. Most couples don’t learn these rules until they’re sitting in my office, scared and overwhelmed, hearing them for the first time.

If you need a little context on why so many people avoid discussing prenups, 5 Myths About Florida Prenuptial Agreements covers the emotional and cultural barriers beautifully.

What a Marriage Planning Agreement Lets You Do Instead

A Marriage Planning Agreement is exactly what it sounds like: you and your partner sit down and decide what fairness looks like for your unique relationship.

You can decide:

• What belongs to whom
• How you want to treat income earned during the marriage
• How to protect premarital property
• What happens if one partner pauses their career
• How you want to handle big financial decisions
• How to support a lower-earning spouse
• How to protect a business or family asset
• How you want to prepare for future children, caregiving, or aging parents

And all of it happens collaboratively—with support from a neutral attorney (me), a mental health professional to guide communication, and a financial expert to organize the numbers.

If you haven’t read How a Marriage Planning Agreement Strengthens Your Relationship, that piece goes deeper into why this process often brings couples closer, not farther apart.

What This Can Look Like in Real Life

Here are three very common scenarios.

1. The Stay-At-Home Parent

A woman paused her career to stay home with two young children. Years later, the marriage changed. Without an agreement, her financial future rests entirely on judicial discretion. Here’s how it usually happens. A couple decides one partner will stay home. That parent provides childcare, manages the household, plans meals, does the food shopping, prepares the meals, cleans the home, washes the laundry, manages the social calendar and saves the couple thousands a month in labor costs. The wage-earning partner builds assets, retirement, seniority, career advancement. The relationship falls apart and a divorce happens. The courts and culture ask: “What have you contributed?” And the answer, decades of invisible labor, is treated as nothing.

Her contributions at home were enormous, but the law evaluates those contributions as not much of anything of value. Without a marriage agreement, her financial future rests entirely on judicial discretion. With a Marriage Planning Agreement, the couple could have built in financial and career protections before she stepped away from the workforce.

2. The Older Couple Who is Divorcing

A couple agrees that the woman will stay at home with the children. They end up having several kids spaced far apart and before anyone knows it, the couple are in their fifties and divorce when the last kid leaves home and they realize that they have nothing in common anymore.

Although the couple will split their retirement account equally, the Husband’s social security benefit will be two or even three times what the Wife’s will be. Even if the Wife takes advantage of claiming under the Husband’s account, she still only receives one half of his total amount. So, in retirement, the Husband is likely to be financially stable while the Wife will struggle-for the rest of her life. The couple had very different ideas of what “fair” meant. With a Marriage Planning Agreement, they could have defined a structure that honored both contributions without later arguments.

3. The Debt Surprise

One spouse had significant student loans and quiet credit card debt. The other assumed “that’s your responsibility.” Without an agreement, most that debt is treated as marital, regardless of who benefitted from it.

A Marriage Planning Agreement facilitates a conversation about debt early, when both people are willing to be honest and generous.

Clarity Today Protects Your Marriage Tomorrow

The couples who do best long-term aren’t the ones who avoid hard conversations, they’re the ones who learn to have them early, with kindness and clarity.

A Marriage Planning Agreement gives you:

• Emotional safety
• Practical clarity
• Financial transparency
• A shared understanding of responsibilities
• A roadmap for stressful or confusing situations

And perhaps most importantly, it eliminates the fear of the unknown.

If you want to dig deeper into the emotional benefits, check out: Marriage Planning Agreements: Why Every Couple Should Consider One to connect all the dots.

You Don’t Have to Leave Your Marriage Up to Chance

Florida has a set of rules for married couples, but you’re not required to just accept them without question. You can decide what feels fair for the two of you and put that in writing. You can create a plan that reflects your values and how you actually want to take care of each other, instead of relying on how the law would divide things if something went wrong.

If you and your partner want clarity and a shared understanding of what you’re building together, a Marriage Planning Agreement is a thoughtful way to do that. My office can walk you through the process step by step—calmly, respectfully, and with the benefit of many years of experience helping couples build and protect healthy relationships.

When you’re ready to talk about it, I’m here.