Couple’s Prenup Paperwork Never Filed – 5 Year Mistake

This actually happened last month but I’m still dealing with the fallout.

My wife and I got married 5 years ago. Before the wedding we had a long conversation about a prenup. She has a business she started before we met and I was inheriting some property from my grandparents. We both agreed we wanted to keep certain things separate just to avoid complications down the road. We found a lawyer, went to the appointment together, talked through what we wanted. The lawyer drafted everything and sent us the documents to review and sign. This was like 2 months before the wedding so we were both swamped with planning stuff.

I printed them out, read through them, made some notes. Then I left them on the kitchen counter and told my wife they were ready whenever she wanted to look at them. She said okay. Fast forward to last month. My wife is refinancing her business loan and the bank asked for documentation about what assets are hers vs marital. She mentioned the prenup and they asked for a copy. She called me asking where I put the signed documents. I said I thought she handled getting them notarized and filed after she reviewed them. She said she thought I was doing that since I printed them out.
We never signed them. We never filed anything. The documents have been sitting in a folder in our office for 5 years.
The lawyer said we can do a postnup now but it’s going to cost more and take longer because we’re already married and there are different rules about what we can and can’t include. Also my wife’s business has grown a lot in 5 years so now there’s way more to protect and it’s more complicated.

We’re not fighting about it but we both feel like idiots. We had the hard conversation, we paid for the lawyer, we did all the work and then just.. forgot to finish it.

TL;DR: Agreed on a prenup 5 years ago, both assumed the other person filed the paperwork, found out last month neither of us did and now we have to start over with a more expensive postnup.