Rachel Alexander, ESQ.
Postnuptial Agreement Mediation
Alexander Mediation Group is a professional divorce mediation firm serving couples and families throughout New Jersey, New York City, and the Hamptons. Our mediator can help you work through your divorce's financial, emotional, and legal issues.
Rachel Alexander, ESQ.
Alexander Mediation Group
Rachel Alexander is a family law attorney and professional mediator specializing in family-related matters. For over 20 years, Rachel has handled various family law cases, including divorce, child custody, child support, prenuptial agreements, and more. Learn more about Rachel.
Postnuptial Agreement Mediation for Changing Circumstances
Define What the Postnuptial Agreement Needs to Accomplish
Spouses may enter a Postnuptial Agreement during any period after their marriage has commenced. Nuptials means “wedding” or “marriage ceremony,” and post simply means “after.” The agreement can state how couples will handle property and financial responsibilities during the marriage and if the marriage ends. It may also guide interim arrangements while the couple decides what should happen next.
Mediation relies upon the active participation of both parties in determining the issues to be negotiated and the contents of the Postnuptial Agreement.
Changes in Property and Finances
A significant financial change may raise questions that the couple did not anticipate when they first married. The couple may need to clarify how they will treat a new asset or manage existing property differently.
Often spouses seek Postnuptial Agreements to address a specific transgression and its consequences. In postnuptial mediations, the harm (or perceived harm) is discussed openly, and, when needed, reparative measures are devised, implemented, and reduced to writing. Mediating a prenuptial agreement provides a marital scaffold. It supports spouses in managing a material change or overcoming a marital breach, so they can move forward together.
Establish Interim Arrangements During Separation
Spouses may need an immediate plan before deciding whether to divorce or take another course of action. A Postnuptial Agreement can state who will remain in the marital home. The agreement can document parenting schedules, support arrangements, and managing joint expenses, among other things.
A written interim arrangement provides the family structure during an unsettled period. Spouses clearly outline how they will share responsibilities and design parenting schedules. These efforts increase stability and predictability, set expectations, and keep the family functioning while the couple develops longer-term plans.
Prevent Temporary Conduct from Creating an Unintended Status Quo
A spouse may move out or change a financial arrangement to reduce conflict without considering how this could affect future options and rights. When a new arrangement continues, absent a written agreement to the contrary, this intendedly temporary arrangement could become the family’s new status quo. Once a status quo is established, a court could be reluctant to change it without good cause.
A Postnuptial Agreement provides the terms and intentions of the parties. It explains that any arrangements intended to address emergent circumstances or provide short-term relief are not intended to establish new norms. A written agreement prevents temporary conduct from being misinterpreted as final, agreed-upon terms.
Develop the Postnuptial Agreement Together
Mediation helps both spouses define the problems that require attention. They separate immediate needs from later decisions and consider how each proposed arrangement will work in practice.
The mediator helps the spouses review financial information, household needs, and parenting responsibilities. The spouses make the decisions. The resulting Postnuptial Agreement may establish an interim solution that they can review when circumstances change.
Monthly Divorce Support Groups
A welcoming space for individuals navigating divorce, separation, or the contemplation of significant relationship change.
Postnuptial Agreement Mediation FAQ
Can We Create a Postnuptial Agreement and Remain Married?
Yes. Spouses create a Postnuptial Agreement during their marriage. The agreement can address current issues without requiring the couple to proceed with divorce. Couples often enter Postnuptial Agreements with the intention of remaining married.
A Postnuptial Agreement can also provide an interim structure, often used during a physical separation, while the spouses consider how best to proceed.
How Does a Postnuptial Agreement Differ from a Prenuptial Agreement?
A Prenuptial Agreement is completed before marriage. A Postnuptial Agreement is completed after marriage.
Both agreements can address financial expectations and property. The couple might create each document at a different point in the relationship and under different circumstances.
Can a Postnuptial Agreement Address an Inheritance?
A Postnuptial Agreement can document how the spouses intend to treat an inheritance or another new asset. Mediation allows both people to discuss the available information and explain their expectations.
The agreement can then record whether the couple intends to keep the asset separate or treat it as marital.
Why Should We Document an Arrangement After One Spouse Moves Out?
A move can change the family’s living arrangements, parenting schedule, and financial responsibilities. A written agreement records what the spouses intended when they made those changes.
Without that record, each person may remember the arrangement differently. A temporary pattern may, by default, become the family’s working status quo, inadvertently dictating the future arrangement.
How Does a Postnuptial Agreement Relate to a Later Divorce?
A Postnuptial Agreement records decisions made during the marriage. If the spouses later divorce, they will rely on the Postnuptial Agreement to address all issues it covers.
The final divorce document may be called a Property Settlement Agreement, Marital Settlement Agreement, or Stipulation of Settlement. Mediation gives the spouses a place to develop the appropriate agreement at the particular stage of the marriage.
Subscribe to Our Monthly Newsletter
When navigating the unfamiliar terrain of divorce, it’s important to be accompanied by both fellow voyagers and expert guides.
By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: Alexander Mediation Group, 37 Bay View Drive East, Sag Harbor, NY 11963, United States. You can revoke your consent to receive marketing emails at any time using the SafeUnsubscribe® link found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact. Our Privacy Policy.
Postnuptial Agreement Resources
50-50 parenting still requires 100% from both parents
Custody can be a loaded term, filled with implicit threats of loss — loss of control, loss of time, and loss of one’s children. Custody, both a legal and colloquial term, can render images of wailing children wrenched from the arms of panicking parents. One of my tasks as a mediator is to challenge antiquated, […]
What About the Pets?
What about the pets? It's not a foregone conclusion that separation or divorce means divorcing or forsaking your pet. That would be too heartbreaking for words, is avoidable, and is therefore unacceptable. Pets are a topic that folks often raise sheepishly, appreciating that when it comes to matrimonial law, divorce, and equitable distribution, animals are […]
Is This Marriage Viable & How to Evaluate
Couples’ counselor Meredith Keller explains how the willingness to discuss difficult relationship issues can help determine whether a marriage is viable. She also examines the important difference between an unwillingness to communicate and a lack of communication skills.
Are We as Modern as We Think? Gender Role Reversal in Divorce Doesn’t Necessarily Add Up
What happens when the father is the stay-at-home spouse and the mother is the primary earner? Can we simply swap out the term husband for wife and expect an equitable outcome? Let’s see. In cases where the mother is the stay-at-home parent and the father is the full-time working parent, the children typically reside with […]
Status Quo
to the best of your ability, keep on keeping on. Status quo has an important legal meaning for people going through a divorce. Status quo, meaning “the existing state of affairs,” informs divorcing parties what they are expected to do while they are in the process of divorcing. This interim time, the pendente lite period (pendency of […]
Don’t Weaponize the Children
In a recent divorce negotiation, a father raised several concerns about entering into a custody and parenting agreement for their nine-year-old son. His concerns are both legitimate and pertinent to most divorcing couples who are also parents of young children. Below are two of his concerns with my responses. Father’s Concern: “If I agree to […]
A Couple Walked Into a Marriage Counselor: The Problem & The Solution
Couples often struggle when one or both partners expect the other to manage their difficult emotions. Marriage counselor Meredith Keller explains how personal responsibility, space for both voices, and healthier communication can help couples respond more constructively.
The Good News About Infidelity – Parts 1 – 3
This article, part of the series with our partner and friend, couples therapist Meredith Keller, LPC, ACS, explores unfaithfulness and infidelity, challenging the misconception that they always necessitate the end of a marriage. While an affair usually signals marital issues requiring attention, infidelity need not necessitate divorce. There has long been the belief that divorce is the […]
Gottman: “Oh S^%&T, Your Marriage Is in Trou-ble”
In this article, we continue our series with colleague Meredith Keller, LPC, ACS, couples’ therapist, who explores with us the primary reasons couples come to her in the first place. Meredith identifies one of the primary issues in struggling marriages as this: one or both parties are unable to monitor – and moderate – their own […]
Preventing Trauma – A Guide
Because trauma is painful, complex, and difficult to resolve, what can we do to prevent it? How can we intervene in the place between hurt and harm? This is the space where we can make a difference. The healing is in the quality of listening. The power is in the relating. The same unhappy event […]