Family Law,Separation,Anulment and Divorce

Alimony/Maintenance
What is alimony or maintenance?
Alimony, maintenance, or spousal support is money paid from one spouse to another for day-to-day support of the spouse with fewer financial resources. Sometimes alimony also can be used to pay back a debt.
When do courts award alimony?
A court will order alimony on the basis of one spouse's need or entitlement and the other spouse's ability to pay. Although most alimony payments are made from men to women, it is possible that a well-off woman could be required to pay support to her economically dependent husband. Alimony is awarded less often now because there are more two-income couples and fewer marriages in which one person is financially dependent on the other. A person who pays support may deduct it from his or her income for tax purposes; the one who receives it must pay taxes on it (unless the parties agree otherwise).
What is rehabilitative support?
A common type of spousal support is rehabilitative support. It is intended to provide a chance for education or job training so that a spouse who was financially dependent or disadvantaged during marriage can become self-supporting. Rehabilitative support is designed to help make up for opportunities lost by a spouse who left a job (or did not pursue a career) in order to help the other spouse's career or to assume family duties. It may also be awarded to a spouse who worked outside the home during the marriage, but sacrificed his or her career development because of family priorities. Rehabilitative support is usually only awarded for a limited time, such as one to five years.
What is permanent support?
Courts award permanent spousal support to provide money for a spouse who cannot become economically independent or maintain a lifestyle that the court considers appropriate given the resources of the parties. A common reason for ordering permanent maintenance is that the recipient, because of advanced age or chronic illness, will never be able to maintain a reasonable standard of living without the support. Some courts will order permanent support be paid to a spouse who, although working, will never have earning power at a level near the earning power of the more prosperous spouse. When deciding the amount of permanent support, courts often use the same criteria as for dividing property.
Although it is called permanent support, the level of support can change or cease if the ability of the payer or the needs of the recipient change significantly. Support generally ends if the recipient remarries, and it may end if the recipient lives with someone else.

Side Bar - When Should Alimony Be Permanent? Of course, it depends on the facts of each case. Here is how one court decided a case. A wife and husband, both fifty years old, had been married for twenty-nine years. During the first three years of the marriage, the wife worked as a high school physical education teacher. The parties then had four children, and the wife left her full-time job to take care of the home and children for twenty-five years. The husband worked continuously during the marriage, and at the time of divorce, was an administrator for a charitable organization earning $77,000 per year. The wife had resumed teaching and her salary was $30,000 per year. Her salary would have been significantly higher, and she would have had substantial retirement benefits, had she continued teaching full-time during the marriage. On these facts, the Illinois Appellate Court held that the wife was entitled to permanent maintenance (alimony) in the amount of $600 per month. The court said: "Marriage is a partnership, not only morally, but financially. Spouses are coequals, and homemaker services must be recognized as significant when the economic incidents of divorce are determined. The [wife] should not be penalized for having performed her assignment under the agreed-upon division of labor within the family." Source: In re Marriage of Drury (Illinois Appellate Court, 1980)
If one spouse supports the other through graduate or professional school, does the supporting spouse have a right to be compensated for increasing the earning capacity of the other spouse?

Some courts offer compensation for putting a spouse through school. For example, one spouse may have supported the other through graduate or professional school. The supporting spouse may have expected that both would benefit from the educated spouse's enhanced earning capacity, but the marriage ended before any material benefits were earned. In some states, the professional license of a spouse or many forms of enhanced earnings may be treated as a valuable asset if acquired during the marriage.
The supporting spouse does not need rehabilitation because that spouse has worked during the entire marriage, and there is no significant property to be distributed because marital resources went to the educational effort. In cases such as this, the courts may award compensation, usually as periodic payments, to the supporting spouse. The amount paid may be based upon the contributions of the supporting spouse to the educational expenses and general support of the spouse who leaves the marriage with an advanced degree. In some states, support also may be based upon a portion of the increased earnings of the educated spouse. The courts may change or end such payments if the expected increased earnings do not occur, but the payments are not ended by remarriage of the recipient. This type of payment sometimes is often called reimbursement alimony or alimony in gross.