Understanding Prenuptial and Postnuptial Agreements
Prenups and postnups can seem confusing. I’m family law attorney Carl Birkhead with Wirth Law Office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve been practicing family law for about seven years, and I want to help you make law easy by just talking a little bit about a prenuptial agreement, a postnuptial agreement, and when and how you should go ahead and put those into effect.
So, you might be able to guess based on the names. A pre-nuptial agreement is a contractual agreement that you and your prospective spouse enter into before you get married. I mean, they can have a couple of different effects, but essentially it’s an agreement that you enter into beforehand about what’s going to happen if the marriage falls apart.
The Nature of Prenuptial Agreements
So, what assets are going to be split? What debts are going to be split? What are you bringing into the marriage that’s going to stay out of the marital estate and what’s not going to be touched in the divorce case if that happens? There are two schools of thought here. You’re about to marry the love of your life. You’re planning a future. You’re planning on building a life together. You don’t want to think about it, but it could fall apart. I mean, that’s a depressing thought.
The lawyer in me, though, really likes the proactiveness in, hey, so if it does go sideways, what are we going to do? There is a downside to it because, you know, things change. Life changes. Maybe neither one of you wants to abide by the terms of the prenup or whatever. You’ve got to be careful in what you put in there and how you structure it so it doesn’t, you know, come up to bite you in the tail on the back end.
Exploring Postnuptial Agreements
But let’s say you get married without a prenup, but you decide after the fact that you should have. You can do what’s called a post-nuptial agreement. It’s the same thing. The only difference is it’s happening after the marriage. So let’s say you and your spouse are sitting down like, hey, we just came into an inheritance and we need to be very smart with it, and maybe we just need to plan on what we’re going to do about this money if we get divorced.
You can do a post-nuptial agreement for that. It takes that issue off the table for when the if, and I hope it’s an if, the divorce gets filed. Or, you know, I’ve seen cases where maybe the marriage is on rocky ground or maybe one spouse betrays the other. Post-nup agreements are used in those situations just sometimes as a way to kind of resolve the conflict.
The Benefits of Prenups and Postnups
Like, hey, you messed up. We’re entering into this post-nuptial agreement again so you understand what’s going to happen if you mess up again. It’s absolutely useful, and sometimes it’s helpful in those situations for the marriage to reconcile. And sometimes it’s really helpful just to kind of bring it back into perspective of, hey, if we decide we’re going to file for a divorce, this is what we’re looking at as a result.
If you’re in a situation where you want a prenup or you’re in the middle, you’re already married but you think you might need a postnup, absolutely give us a call. We’re more than happy to talk over the pros and cons of it and help you out in making that decision.
Schedule a Low-Cost Initial Strategy Session
I’m family law attorney Carl Birkhead with Wirth Law Office, and I want to help you make law easy. Reach out today for a low-cost initial strategy session by calling 918-879-1681. Let’s work together to ensure your future is secure.
