Learn To Love The Prenup

"You find yourself wondering, 'Well, if we're talking about a prenup, then why are we getting married?'" says one newly engaged woman, who has had a few tense conversations with her fiancé about the subject. "If you're looking for an escape hatch, then let's not do it." Engaged & Confused: Overcoming My Fear Of Marriage

"It's a very, very heated and difficult issue for most people," agrees relationship therapist Janis Altman, who, in her three decades of practice in New York, has seen engagements broken over prenups. "Though it really is about finances, it's riddled with emotion. People think, 'Oh my God, doesn't he trust me? Doesn't he love me? Does he think we're going to get divorced?' Some look at it as a paper filled with doom and gloom."

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Doom and gloom is right. Statistics be damned; why plan for the end if you're determined it's never, ever going to happen to you?

As a recent headline in Psychology Today asks: "Is it possible that a prenup, while pretending to be your ally, can actually 'sow the seeds' of divorce?" If that's not enough to drive even the most optimistic among us to a box of chocolates and a sad movie, not to mention a really bad date with our favorite person, I don't know what is. How in the world can something be so right, but feel so wrong?

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Nuptials are supposed to be some kind of bacchanalian lovefest of food, dancing, fabulous formalwear, and socially sanctioned sex. Anything "pre" that seems like it should at least involve fresh flowers and a punch bowl.