When Does a Marital Settlement Agreement Become a Postnuptial Agreement?

You can read the statistics about getting divorced, but almost getting divorced and then reconciling with your spouse is more common than you think. It’s hard to find data about it because, from a legal perspective, an almost divorced couple is a married couple. When someone in the midst of a pending divorce dies, the probate court interprets the will as if the parties had never filed for divorce; the court assumes that, if the decedent had lived one more day, he or she would have withdrawn the divorce petition. When couples file for divorce and then reconcile, the reconciliation usually happens quickly, before the divorce case gets very far. Cases where the parties sign a marital settlement agreement (MSA) and then reconcile are the exception to the rule, but this can also happen. The silver lining of an almost divorce is that it requires you and your spouse to talk to each other about your financial values and the conflicts arising from them. No matter how far you get with your steps toward divorce, it is a good idea to sign a postnuptial agreement after you reconcile; it can serve as a financial roadmap for your eventual divorce case, or else for your lifelong marriage and eventual probate case. For help navigating your marriage or divorce after separating from your spouse and then reconciling, contact a Boca Raton prenuptial and postnuptial agreement lawyer.

Postnuptial Agreements Can Help You Avoid the Phil Collins Problem

Some couples constantly break up and then get back together, while others separate, reconcile, and then stay together for a long time. Miami’s famous couple whose relationship had a long afterlife is the British singer Phil Collins and his ex-wife, the Swiss translator Orianne Cevey, the mother of two of his five children. The couple divorced in the early 2000s, but they got back together and lived in a mansion in Miami with their two sons until the boys were grown up. Then they broke up again with spectacular drama, about which journalists and the courts wrote volumes.

You don’t have to be a celebrity to deal with post-reconciliation drama, though. A Miami-Dade County couple filed for divorce after three years of marriage. Their case got as far as signing an MSA, but they reconciled and withdrew their divorce petition after the husband was diagnosed with cancer. He apparently recovered, because they stayed together another 15 years, at which point they filed for divorce again. There was a dispute over whether the couple’s prenuptial agreement or the MSA, if either, would determine their division of property. The best solution would have been to sign a postnuptial agreement after they reconciled.

Contact Schwartz | White About Getting Divorced After a Reconciliation

A South Florida family law attorney can help you if your financial situation changed during a marriage where you and your spouse separated and reconciled multiple times.  Contact Schwartz | White in Boca Raton, Florida about your case.

Source:

scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3479605453364403702&q=divorce+jewelry&hl=en&as_sdt=4,10&as_ylo=2015&as_yhi=2025