After your divorce, you may be required to pay alimony to your former spouse. Alimony, also referred to as spousal maintenance, is usually awarded in cases where one party would need additional funds to be able to maintain a similar quality of life after the divorce is finalized. The order may say when the payments end or when the arrangements could be modified.
If you wish to get your payment responsibilities reduced, you will need to prove that there has been a change in circumstances in either your life or your spouse’s that would make such a change necessary. Although either spouse is allowed to submit a request for alimony modifications, you can safely assume your former partner would never request to receive less money, which means if you want your payment responsibilities reduced, you’ll need to take action yourself. In most cases, spousal maintenance will end when your former spouse remarries, unless the parties agreed otherwise.
Some types of situations in which judges are likely to be agreeable to changes in alimony arrangements include:
- An involuntary wage reduction or loss of a job
- Any type of disability or illness preventing you from working
- The spouse receiving the payments deciding to cohabitate with a new partner
- An increase in the income of the former spouse
Court officials generally will only agree to alimony modifications when the circumstances have significantly changed, so you likely won’t be able to get a reduction based on a very minor change in either the life of you or your former spouse.
To learn more about how alimony is determined and how pursue a modification, contact the experienced Minneapolis family law attorneys at Appelhof, Pfeifer & Hart, P.A.
