by Grace Weinstein

Remarriage can be a financial and emotional minefield, especially when one or both partners have children from prior marriages.

Keeping secrets is a sure recipe for disaster. In Money Advice for Your Successful Remarriage (ASJA Press, 2000), author Patricia Schiff Estess suggests that there are basic financial facts you should each know about the other before you tie the knot:

• Current income and assets
• Current debts and liabilities
• Anticipated future income and assets (inheritances, pensions, etc.)
• Financial history (including any events that affect how you see money)
• Legal and moral financial obligations (including support payments, pledges to charity, and so on)
• How much life insurance is owned and who the beneficiaries are
• Existing wills and beneficiaries
• The financial institutions and people who handle your money

Estess concludes, "Remarriage presents a rare opportunity to start again, to right what was wrong with the financial arrangements of a former life, to turn chaos into order." The message can apply to a first marriage as well.