The financial ramifications of divorce can be significant. Although you’ll receive your fair share of the marital estate, sometimes this simply isn’t enough, especially if you’ve sacrificed your career to help raise a family or support your spouse while they sought a higher education or career training.
Although that can be incredibly stressful, you should take comfort in knowing that you can advocate for the financial support that you need, which might come in the form of spousal support. However, if you want to successfully obtain the alimony that you need to be financially stable, then you’re going to have to know how to build strong arguments to support your request.
How can you argue for alimony?
The first step is to keep in mind the statutory factors that the court will take into consideration when determining this issue. These include:
- The length of your marriage
- Each spouse’s health
- Each spouse’s earning capacity
- The marital standard of living
Once you have a firm grasp on these factors and others that will be relevant in your case, you can start to craft your legal arguments.
How do you do that?
There are various ways to approach your spousal support argument. However, here are a few key steps that you can take to help advance your position:
- Gather key records: Sure, you’ll need to obtain bank accounts and other financial records, as those will be key in your property division dispute, but you’ll also want records that demonstrate your marital standard of living. This can include everything from grocery receipts to payments made for vacations and other leisure activities. These records can help you demonstrate what the court will need to order to protect the kind of lifestyle that you enjoyed during your marriage.
- Show your liabilities: Remember, alimony is ordered when you need it to become self-sufficient. If you took on a significant amount of marital debt, then you may need alimony to help you offset those debts so that you can become more financially stable.
- Demonstrate your employment problems: Most alimony awards are temporary in nature, lasting only until you reach the point of becoming self-sufficient. This means that to obtain an order for spousal support, you’re probably going to have to demonstrate that you either can’t obtain gainful employment or that the employment that you’ve secured is insufficient. You’ll want to make a record of your efforts to obtain appropriate employment, as that may be persuasive in court.
- Have a plan and identify your needs to reach your goals: A court is going to be more persuaded by your request for alimony if you can demonstrate that you have a plan to become self-sufficient, as this plan will likely lay out what you need in order to obtain your goal. This might include obtaining higher education or training, or it may simply require time for you to gain experience.
Don’t miss out on your opportunity to secure support
A lot of people who go through divorce choose not to seek alimony because they don’t want to create conflict, or they simply think that they don’t have the ability to obtain that kind of support. Sadly, a lot of these individuals are leaving money on the table.
You don’t want that to happen to you. You want to explore every possible avenue to set you on the path to a financially successful post-divorce life. An attorney who knows how to effectively handle divorce cases like yours may be able to give you the guidance that you need to position yourself for a successful outcome in your case, which is why you might want to consider having one of these legal allies on your side as you enter