Thrive & Decide Guide to Divorce and Beyond

Prenups Vs. Postnups

• Sarah Thress • Season 2 • Episode 5

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Paperwork isn’t romantic, but neither is spending years and a small fortune arguing over who owns what. We sat down with family law attorney and guardian ad litem Tara Price to demystify prenups and Ohio’s newer postnups, and to show how smart planning can actually protect love, stability, and sanity. If you’ve ever wondered whether an agreement means you’re “planning to divorce,” this conversation will change your mind.

We break down the real difference between prenups and postnups—timing—and dig into what they can and can’t include. Tara explains why courts won’t let you predetermine child custody or child support, and how full financial disclosure, separate counsel, and fair process make agreements enforceable. We get practical about classifying property, tracing equity when homes are bought, sold, and renovated, and deciding ahead of time whether a premarital house or a growing business stays separate or becomes marital. You’ll hear how clear spreadsheets and saved statements can reduce friction and legal bills years down the road.

Money decisions around housing are front and center: keeping the house, buying out a spouse, when a refinance or HELOC makes sense, and why you might assume a low-rate mortgage rather than start over at today’s higher rates. Tara also walks through spousal support in Ohio—there’s no calculator—covering the factors judges weigh, and how couples can thoughtfully include support terms in prenups or postnups without crossing into unconscionable territory. By the end, you’ll see these agreements not as a hedge against love, but as a plan to keep control, protect assets, and avoid letting a stranger decide your future.

If this episode helped you think more clearly about your options, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a quick review so more people can find the show.

To Connect with Tara R, Price:

Senior Associate Attorney

LANGHALS LAW, LLC

404 5th St.

Marysville, OH 43040

P: (937) 738-6700

OSBA Board Certified Family Law Specialist

https://marysvilleohiolawyer.com/about/

Hi and welcome to Thrive and Decide. I’m your host Sarah Thress. This podcast is intended to help women who are going through a divorce, continplating divorce or have lost a spouse feel seen, heard, understood and not alone. All the beautiful souls who share on here are coming from a place of vulnerability and a common belief that sharing your story will help others. You will also hear from industry experts on what to do and not do while going through a divorce.


Sarah Thress
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SPEAKER_00:

Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of Thrive and Decide Guide to Divorce. This week we have Tara Price on, and she's a family law attorney, and she uh specializes um in all things family law, but including divorce, dissolution, custody, parenting time, child support, spousal support, uncontested step parent adoptions, grandparent rights, and contempt. She's also a guardian at Lightham. And um, you know, I just recently got connected to her and thought, oh my gosh, I have to have her on the podcast because I just loved, you know, her energy and I loved, you know, her passion for helping women, uh, you know, well, helping everyone, but um, you know, especially women kind of navigating uh this, you know, this season of life. So uh we started talking and and she mentioned, you know, prenups and post-nups and you know, I obviously I feel like we've all probably heard of prenups, but I had never, you know, heard of post-nups until just recently. So I asked Tara if she would would come on and um you know, kind of talk to us about it. So Tara, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to come on and talk to us.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Um first for me. So I'm happy to be here and um answer some questions and give some information.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I love it. So yeah, I guess just if you could, could you kind of explain the difference between what a prenup and a postnup is, and maybe, you know, how a postnup came about?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. So Ohio has this newer law allowing the use of postnups, and um what that means is it's um done that during the marriage um as opposed to premarital. And that's where the term prenuptial agreement comes from. Sometimes people call them prenups, sometimes they call them premarital agreements. Um, so before you get married, you can enter into the prenuptial agreement, and as long as it's um valid, the court can enforce it then upon a party's death or upon a divorce or dissolution if they end up separating. Um, but Ohio is fairly new in having this post-nuptial agreement, as you mentioned. I think it's been maybe three years. Um, I could be completely wrong. I didn't look that up, but I remember in the last several years, um there was the Ohio State Bar Association was going through the process of supporting the passage of the bill because um I believe like pretty much all the other states follow that. And so it was really just kind of a last um thing that Ohio had introduced and started doing where they would acknowledge and enforce even one that you could enter into while you were married. They were saying, you know, you guys are valid, you're adults, you're able to make these voluntary decisions while you're married. Um, if it's before marriage, it should also be during the marriage. So that's really the main difference is the time frame of when you're signing this.

SPEAKER_00:

Nice. So a post-nup or a post-nuptial agreement, um, that is done after you know you're married. So are there differences between what you can include in a prenup and what you can include in a post-nup?

SPEAKER_01:

No, the um the gist of it is is that you can't include child-related provisions in these, um, but you like you can't address like who's gonna get custody of a child or you know, what the parenting time schedule is gonna be like, that sort of thing, um, what the child support is, because the child's best interest is always at heart for the court. Um, and so the big thing is that they are gonna do the same thing. It's really just the timing. So they're gonna address, um, typically they're gonna address how parties are gonna um uh separate and divide up their assets, their debts, um, address maybe spousal support, that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Now, does that um address things like uh, you know, if you have um, you know, obviously if you have a shared primary residence and then, you know, maybe you have like additional uh, you know, home somewhere or rental properties or anything like that, can that all still be included in the postnup, even if it was, you know, yours prior to marriage or?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely great question. So I would just say, I guess going back to kind of the prenups, um, the way that we um see the courts saying, yes, this is valid, we should enforce this with either prenups or postnups, um, is what you do is you disclose voluntarily between both of the spouses all of your assets and debts and income and everything to the other one. You know, in writing, usually there's a balance sheet exchange. Um, we, in my opinion, if um it's a good attorney, they're gonna require the other side to have an attorney as well to make sure it's fair and everybody has that chance to do that and seek legal counsel um and and making sure they review it. But basically you're you're disclosing all of those assets and debts, whether they were premarital or whether they were earned during the marriage. So even if it's a post-nuptial agreement where you're saying, hey, by the way, it's you're just recognizing what those are. And really that's the important part about prenups and post-nops, in my opinion, is you are um helping classify for the court later so that it's not at such a disagreement. What was premarital, what was yours, you know, if it's just in your name, does it remain yours? You know, if uh if you own a business, for example, or a house, like you mentioned, you know, does all of the equity that's created even during the marriage, how does that get treated? Because the the issue becomes what I see more and more in today's world is as you know, people are buying houses, they're selling houses, they're using down payments for the next house. They may have owned one prior to marriage or one during a divorce, and then you know, they bring that money into it. Maybe they've got children. And so we see that equity increasing in those prenups and postnups can address how do we, you know, classify that? Is that going to be what we call separate property or is it gonna be marital? So um, that's a big uh difference when you're divorcing. If uh, you know, the court's saying we need to divide something equitably, that's what Ohio is, it's an equitable distribution state. We usually start with equal. And then if there's some other big reason why that wouldn't be, that's what the court's gonna do, absent a prenup or post-nup saying something otherwise. So those are the exact situations that we want to try to address is something that was owned before marriage, something increasing during the marriage, and how are we gonna classify those things?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Now, what if somebody uh decides to do the postnup and then decides, you know, hey, this marriage actually isn't gonna work and they want to file for a divorce? Is there like a a time limit or like a you know a minimum amount of time, like, you know, after you've done your postnup, you can't have a divorce for like six months or a year or whatever? Like, is there any any type of stipulation? Because I'm just wondering if anybody listening here is like, wow, that would be so much easier if we could get everything figured out with the postnup before entering, you know, I feel like you kind of address a postnup with less animosity than you would if you're trying to, you know, do it for a divorce. So I just wondered if there was some sort of, you know, law or rule or, you know, is that a red flag, you know, anything like that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Um, I think because it's such a newer law, at least in Ohio, I'm sure that perhaps there's other states, I'm not aware personally, of there being like a limit of what that is. I'm sure the court would take that into account when determining the validity of it and whether to enforce the postnup. Certainly if one party starts to say, yeah, but here's this evidence that she was actually planning this and this was like manipulative. Um, but generally speaking, if it's something that you guys are voluntarily entering into, you're disclosing everything, there's not something that's being withheld information-wise. Um, because the really the negotiation of the postnup would really be the same as it would be for what we call the separation agreement and for the divorce terms. Um, so in that sense, if you're disclosing everything, even if it was kind of for a nefarious reason, perhaps the court would take that into account in determining whether it was, but I'm not aware of anything, you know, limitations in the law that says you, you know, it's got to be six months before somebody files or what have you. I'm sure that people do use it for those sorts of reasons in other states. So maybe it would be a situation where we could look at and look into their case law too, if we don't have any yet.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. Not that I'm like, you know, advocating for that. I just, you know, I as you were talking, I was like, wow, it seems like you it might be advantageous, you know, if you did that, because then you're having that conversation without the animosity of, hey, we're, you know, splitting up because a lot of big emotions that come along.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and that's exactly the the helpful part about prenups. You know, they sound so unromantic, right? Um, same thing with postnups, though they sound unromantic. We're in the middle of our marriage, you know, we're buying this huge house. Why would we go ahead and, you know, do all of this um planning for divorce? That's what people like to think of it as. But really, you're you're, you know, you you go and you buy health insurance, you go and you buy dental insurance, you buy car insurance, house insurance, you do wills, right? We go, we go do our wills with our spouses often, you know, people will do that or if solo. Um, so you're planning for that and you plan a wedding. I consider them really planning for the marriage. And so I wouldn't want my spouse, you know, if it was me later at the end, and I would hope they would want the same for me is we're not sitting here spending money on, you know, unnecessary attorney fees, expert witness fees, calling in, you know, getting all these documents and from 20 years ago. Um, and so I I think it just is a planning thing as opposed to just being unromantic. I I wish people would kind of reframe their mind around that. But that's that's what we see is I think people are like hesitant and they think it's off limits. Let's not talk about money, you know, before that's kind of icky. Um, but reframing it in that way, I think is helpful. So I think that's a great point.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, and I like the the way that you reframe that because um, you know, that is true. Like a lot of times you hear it and you're like, wow, like, okay, so they're just preparing to get divorced, you know, like is this your starter marriage? Like, is that why this prenup? Um, but I love that because it actually is just planning. And, you know, it's not it's not anything like, hey, I don't trust you.

SPEAKER_01:

It's just, hey, like, let's just plan it out, just like you do with your estate planning and your, you know, your life insurance planning and what worst case scenario, you know, you've got something there that we don't have to necessarily worry about arguing and costing a bunch of money and you know, paying, you know, the attorney's kids to go to college as opposed to your own. You you don't want that situation. So I think it helps limit those sorts of fees, of course. Um, but that that's just where I where I stand in terms of how it's helpful and reframing it. Um, and you know, I do see a lot of couples um when they are coming in for these sorts of things where they're mature, usually the maturity does, you know, uh impact whether or not they're able to get to this point where they are wanting to do the prenup. And so I think that's some um some of the help with the post-nup as well is sometimes people weren't as, you know, mature back then, but they recognize right now we've had 10 years to go through the ups and downs, and I'm not, you know, completely oblivious to the fact that there might not be, you know, it might not be forever, but it might be. And so regardless of if it is or isn't, I want to have this plan and so that way I don't have to worry, you know. If you make it through one bad stage, you're like, okay, I just want to have that so that I don't have to worry about that. I don't think that that's coming down to that, but it's there if we need it. So um, I think even another point I guess I just mentioned is is even if somebody is not wanting to go the route of a prenup and they don't ever get to the postnop, um, before they get married, I just say just seek advice, at least a consultation from a family law attorney. I think that's huge. Um, or if you're making like a big decision, you're starting a business and then you're getting married, if you're buying a house and getting married, I think those are just um helpful things to do is talk to an attorney to say, you know, what could I be doing? Again, planning for this just in case there's something that, you know, doesn't work out. Um, having records of things and having at least the disclosure of assets and debts and agreeing what those are, even if we don't agree how to divide them and we don't get to the prenup stage. It's excellent for me as an attorney and helpful for me to be able to look at my client and say, Do you have records from 20 years ago? Do you did you keep those? Do you know what that 401k was worth? What was that house? What did you sell it for? You know, we can try to track down records, we can figure out what the mortgage was before there was a renovation, but it makes it really hard when it's been such a long time. And so I think that planning um piece is helpful too for people just to know um to do their due diligence and and go and figure out, get a spreadsheet and figure out what are your assets, what are your debts, where are you at, and then what records can help. Um you can save those and and and have those, put those in a file and and have them in case something happens.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. That's smart. I like that. And I I like the um, you know, that you're saying, you know, consulting with an attorney, you know, just to kind of know everything, you know, before um before you get married. So I think that's great. Um so when doing like the um the postnup, or even if you don't do, you know, prenup or postnup, a lot of times when it comes down to um, you know, the settling of assets and things like that, a lot of times people just assume, you know, okay, I want the house. So, you know, I'm just gonna like pull out some equity, pay you off, and like, and we're good. Um, you know, so I'd love for you to kind of talk about, you know, how, you know, either wording the prenup, postnup or wording in your divorce decree, you know, whatever. Um, how can you, you know, make sure that you are protecting, you know, like your assets, protecting your buying power, things like that. Like how I guess I guess my question really is, what are some tips that you have for figuring out the best way to have like buying power? You know, is it always the smartest thing to take the 401k and pay off the house? Is it always the smartest thing to, you know, or is it all just, you know, based on everyone's different situations?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's a good question. I think the um question is always it depends, right? Favorite lawyer response. I think the facts will drive the answer, and that's why it depends, just because it matters what else is on the balance sheet. And so you always want to talk to your financial advisor. Um, if you don't have one, you always want to get one. You need to have some sort of person to say it because I can tell you what is probably likely to happen in the court, but I don't know if that's what's best for you financially. Now, what I can say is what the court will or won't do and what they'll consider to be fair in terms of the finances. And so is it best to, you know, always, you know, liquidate your 401k and go forward. Well, how old are the parties, right? Do they, are they getting close to that age where they can't rebuild that nest egg? Um, if there's, you know, a house, depending on what the current mortgage is, are they refinancing and pulling out the equity to buy out the other spouse? Are they going to be able to afford that, even if, you know, feasibly, even if the lender says yes, you can afford it, is that something that they can actually manage based on the other things that are happening in the negotiations? And so sometimes parties have to kind of see before they're getting approval from that lender, what are the other things that are going on? And maybe you want to do a little bit of both. Maybe it's not just all one or the other. Um, and certainly putting something in the prenuptial agreement, you know, addressing a premarital home and saying, I'm gonna keep the house, I'm gonna keep all the equity, even if it's something that's purchased, you know, and or not purchased, but paid down during the principal is paid down during the marriage, for example, using your income. That's generally, if there's not a prenup, that's generally going to be considered partly marital. And so it would have to have a buyout for the spouse. But if we have a prenup or a post-nup where the parties have gone in voluntarily, um, you know, and and they've got counsel, they've disclosed everything, they're going into it with open eyes and they agree to that, you know, what the courts are saying is as long as it's not unconscionable at the time that they're divorcing, yeah, you can keep 100% of that. Um, that's the choice that you guys made. The courts are going to enforce those bad deals. What they aren't going to enforce, and it was just a little side note to what your question was, but um I think it's important the the prenups and pro postnups, what they can do is really um change, I guess, who is making the decision and what the analysis is, right? So if things fall apart, if you have no prenup and no postnup, it's the judge in there, and they're gonna be the ones. Um, I mean, absent, you're gonna have an agreement, but they have to approve it. They're gonna look at what's equitable and what that says in Ohio is equal unless there's some other reason, right, to make it inequitable. And the difference between that and then if you have a prenup and a postnup is if you have a prenup and a postnup, they're gonna look at is that a valid and enforceable agreement as a result? And so the the validity really hinges upon unconscionability. So it's a different standard. They can even, as long as it's not striking your conscience, it's it's something that's enforceable, and so it can be unequal and it may not seem great, but it's different than when the court's looking at it to divide it up. So to answer your question, I think there are, you know, times when you know, keeping the house and buying out in, you know, the other party and taking liquidating 401ks and all that makes sense. Just depends on the situation. And then I think um, along with that, you just have to consider, you know, how you're getting there. And if it's a prenup post-nup, you're looking at, you know, the unconscionability of it and is it valid and enforceable versus is it fair for one party to take the whole house and all the equity in it and that sort of thing? Um, and not doing the buyout, I guess is what it would entail.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah. That's interesting that you can uh, you know, include that stuff in uh, you know, in the prenup or the postnup, uh, you know, and and just kind of have that all figured out. Um and I I like that you, I like the way you answered that because uh, you know, I had to, I had to imagine that it would be based on, you know, each person's individual, you know, situation. Uh, you know, that's how I always approach it too, is, you know, if somebody is like, hey, I really want to stay in the house, I'm like, great. Have you talked to the financial planner to figure out if that makes sense? Have you talked to your mortgage company to figure out if you can just assume the mortgage? Because a lot of times people um, you know, they think, oh, I can't just assume the mortgage and because it's conventional or whatever, and uh that's not actually, you know, the case. Like uh, you know, there's actually a law out there um that says that, you know, any anytime that, you know, you can assume the mortgage under certain circumstances and divorce is one of those. So whether it's conventional, FHA, VA, whatever, you know, like you, you could do that. And so I've, you know, I've helped some people where that made sense. And some people it was like, even if you assume that mortgage, you know, you're still gonna have to like take out a HELOC, you know, like a home equity line of credit. You know, the other spouse, and you know, is that really worth it? And and things like that. So I love that you approach it the same way, you know, that I do. It's like every everyone is different. We got to figure out what's gonna actually make the most financial sense. Um, right. You know, and then if you give the facts and they're like, I don't care, I still want the house, and they still want to just, you know, pull the HELOC or pull from their 401k, then you know, it's on the other.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Right. At least they know. And then I I think that's a good point too. It's um amazing in this market, right? We haven't had a lot over my career at least, where assuming was a thing. And I think with the rates and and of whatnot of the the mortgage, it it makes sense sometimes for my clients. And I always tell them that now, too. I never really had to before because they were just gonna go get a new one and now it's like, well, we have this really good rate from 2020, and now it's six, you know, whatever. And I I'm gonna that means my payments can go up, whatever. And so um, just in terms of being able to afford and and what that looks like for them, that's definitely important. So it's kind of a newer thing, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, so I I know that we didn't talk about this ahead of time, but I would just love to kind of pick your brain. Um, so with uh, you know, with us being here in Ohio, being, you know, a dower state and all of that, um, you know, I have a lot of clients that uh that come to me and they're freaking out because, you know, they've been, they they haven't worked outside of the home, you know, so the the husband has always been, you know, the breadwinner and things like that. Um how how does that affect like, like, is there just a standard um, you know, spousal support uh like calculator that you do in a situation like that? Is it, you know, is it also just one of those things that it just kind of depends on the situation and all the other things that go into it? Um, you know, I just I just was curious. Um, and I know I didn't prep you with that question, so sorry to put you on the spot.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh no, it's no problem. So Ohio has spousal support, is what we call it. Um some people call it alimony. And what that entails is a full analysis of the whole picture. And so the courts are gonna look at anything that is gonna play into that in deciding. What amount is reasonable and fair for one spouse to give to the other, how long it should be, that's going to be dependent upon that as well. So it is very fact specific. They have, you know, there's a statute and it outlines all the different factors. They look at income, how long they've been married, that sort of thing, but they don't have a specific calculator for it. So it's different from child support in that respect. Um, child support, as we know, you can go to, you know, whatever the website is for child support um agencies in Ohio. There's a state website, JFS Ohio, and they have a little calculator there that you can technically use for child support purposes, but there's not one like that for spouse of support. So it really depends on what county you're in, which judge or magistrate you're before, and then along with that, what facts you have.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Now, is that something you could include in your postnup or prenup? Is like if we were to separate, since I've been a stay-at-home mom, you know, or you know, not worked out of the home because stay-at-home moms are working 24-7. So, you know, like they're not getting a break. Um, is that something you can include in your prenup or post-nup though?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Um, the one thing that I'll go back to just as we talked about with prenups and postnups being enforceable. Um, the only thing is that it has to be something that's a cons, you know, it can't be unconscionable at the time that they separate. Um, but you can absolutely put it in there as to what the spell support's gonna look like and how that's going to look. You're gonna again disclose your income beforehand and make sure that everybody is on the same page about what that looks like. So you want it to be, you know, fair in the respect that the court's not gonna find it to be unconscionable later. You don't know what the facts are gonna be later, um, but you you try to set it up for even now while you're entering into that and and figuring out what that looks like. Um, and you can get creative, you know, you can say, you know, for so many years, while you if you stay home for this, this is what you would have earned, you know, and and try to get creative in analyzing what you're going to put into the prenup. You don't have to put all that in there, but certainly that can be part of the negotiation and discussions you guys are having when you're putting in the provision for swaddle support in there.

SPEAKER_00:

Nice, nice. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for taking time out to answer all these questions. Um, I definitely learned a lot. So hopefully everyone else did. Um, that's listening, if they're like, man, I want to work with Tara, um, how would they get a hold of you? What does that process, you know, look like? You know, do you offer any type of consultation? You know, um, all the things.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it as always. Um, I have good conversations with you. It feels more like a just a conversation between us. Um, kind of forgot we were recording here. But the um way, best way to contact me is to uh reach out to my assistant Amber. And um, she's got uh 937-738-6700 is her phone number. And so she can schedule um on my calendar, uh, she's got my availability to schedule consultations, and I can do those um in person or by phone. A lot of people prefer phone, um, but she she does all that calendaring and she's great at it. So shout out to Amber.

SPEAKER_00:

Excellent. Yes, and I'll make sure that all of that is in the show notes so that way if someone is is driving and wasn't able to write down that word number, um, they'll still have that. Yeah, if you're driving, please don't uh try and write that number down. It will be in the show notes. I promise you can go back and get it.

SPEAKER_01:

So thank you again.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you next time on Thrive and Decide Guide to Divorce.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you.