Alimony isn’t awarded as much today as it was decades ago, but it’s still an existing part of divorce even in this day and age. When a dependent spouse ends a marriage or their partner ends a marriage, it can be a financial crisis for them and they may not be able to support themselves. For someone in a very long-term marriage (Over 17 years), this is something that the courts take very seriously. A marriage of this length often requires sacrifices on the part of the dependent spouse that makes them vulnerable to financial difficulty after the marriage has ended. For marriages of these lengths, courts are likely to award some form of alimony on perhaps a permanent basis.

For shorter marriages, especially short-term marriages (less than 7 years), there will be something called durational alimony. In regards to durational alimony Florida courts consider it to be a more short-term arrangement that will not proceed throughout the dependent spouse’s life. When there is going to be an extreme difficulty financially on the part of a spouse who was dependent during even a short marriage, a court can take a look at durational alimony and see if it should be applied to the divorce decree.

Lawyers are best able to tell you if you’re going to be able to get any type of alimony at all. Most spouses will not get permanent alimony, but there will be those rare instances where people who are married such a long time may be able to qualify for this type of alimony. And durational alimony is even less likely to be awarded because it’s typically considered in cases where the marriage lasted less than 7 years.

No dependent spouse should overlook the possibility of alimony. When you’re married to someone and sacrifice your own financial freedom, you have the right to at the very least discuss alimony with a lawyer to look out for your best interests. While some people choose not to even address the subject of alimony, there’s always a chance that your lawyer might want to pursue alimony for you if you’re a dependent spouse. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with durational alimony. It’s a good way to compensate a dependent spouse for the financial security they sacrificed, but only for a short period of time in relation to the length of time married.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 8th, 2017 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Law, Laws, Legal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.