One of the first questions people ask me about alimony is simple: "How long am I going to have to pay this?" And, of course, the spouse receiving alimony usually wants to know the opposite: "How long can I expect to receive it?"
There is no single answer.
New Jersey does not use a formula that says a marriage of a certain length automatically results in a specific number of years of alimony. The length of your marriage is important, but it is only one part of the analysis.
Your income, your spouse's income, your respective earning capacities, the lifestyle you established during the marriage, your ages and health, and your overall financial circumstances can all affect the result. New Jersey law requires courts to consider the statutory alimony factors rather than relying on marriage length alone.
The easiest place to start is with 20 years. For a marriage lasting less than 20 years, the total duration of alimony generally cannot exceed the length of the marriage unless exceptional circumstances justify a longer award.
But this is where people often misunderstand the law.
If you were married for 13 years, that does not mean you will automatically pay or receive alimony for 13 years. It means that, absent exceptional circumstances, 13 years generally represents the maximum duration. The actual term could be considerably shorter.
For marriages lasting 20 years or longer, open durational alimony may be available. Open durational alimony does not have a predetermined end date when it is awarded, but a 20-year marriage does not automatically guarantee it. The financial circumstances and statutory factors still have to support the award.
The court looks at the financial circumstances of both spouses rather than simply counting the years they were married.
Some of the important factors include:
New Jersey law specifically requires the court to consider the statutory factors and make findings based on the evidence. No single factor automatically decides the issue.
Alimony is not determined by simply comparing your paycheck with your spouse's paycheck.
The court also considers the standard of living you established during the marriage and the likelihood that each spouse can maintain a reasonably comparable standard of living afterward. Neither spouse has a greater entitlement to that marital standard of living than the other.
That can include the home you lived in, your regular expenses, travel, transportation, savings, entertainment, and other aspects of how you actually lived during the marriage.
Of course, divorce creates an obvious financial problem: the same household income now has to support two separate homes.
There may simply not be enough money for both people to continue living exactly as they did while married. That reality is part of the alimony analysis, which is why accurate financial records and a properly prepared Case Information Statement can become so important.
For a marriage under 20 years, it can, but this is the exception rather than the general rule.
New Jersey law identifies exceptional circumstances that may justify extending alimony beyond the length of the marriage. Those can include the spouses' ages, a significant period of economic dependence, chronic illness or unusual health circumstances, giving up a career or career opportunity, the effect of the marriage on a spouse's ability to become self-supporting, substantial childcare responsibilities, tax considerations, and other circumstances the court considers equitable and relevant.
So if you were married for ten years, you should not automatically assume that alimony must end after exactly ten years. But someone seeking a longer term would need circumstances that justify departing from the normal limitation.
No. The old term "permanent alimony" was replaced with open durational alimony when New Jersey's alimony law was amended in 2014. Open durational alimony has no fixed termination date when it is initially awarded, but that does not necessarily mean payments continue for the rest of both spouses' lives.
Depending on the circumstances and the terms of the agreement or court order, alimony can potentially be affected by retirement, remarriage, cohabitation, changed financial circumstances, or other events. Death can also terminate the obligation, subject to the applicable agreement, order, and other legal requirements.
This is one reason the language in your divorce settlement matters so much. An alimony provision should not simply tell you what you are paying today. It should address what happens when circumstances change years from now.
Retirement deserves special attention because it is one of the most common questions I hear in long-term alimony cases.
Under New Jersey's current statutory framework, there is a rebuttable presumption that alimony terminates when the paying spouse reaches full retirement age, although the receiving spouse can seek to overcome that presumption based on the statutory factors. Different standards can apply to older alimony orders entered before the 2014 amendments.
Early retirement can present a different issue. You generally cannot decide to retire early simply because you would like your alimony obligation to disappear. The circumstances surrounding the retirement and its reasonableness can matter.
And whatever you do, do not simply retire and stop paying. If an existing agreement or court order requires alimony, you may need to obtain a modification or termination of that obligation.
Potentially. A significant change in circumstances can sometimes support a request to modify alimony. Depending on the case, that might involve a substantial change in income, job loss, disability, serious health problems, retirement, or cohabitation by the spouse receiving support.
Limited duration alimony can also be modified under certain circumstances, although New Jersey law distinguishes between changing the amount and extending the original length of the award. Extending the term generally requires unusual circumstances.
The important point is that a change in your life does not automatically change your court order.
If you are ordered to pay $4,000 per month and lose your job, you generally should not decide on your own that you will start paying $2,000. Until the obligation is legally modified, the existing order can remain enforceable.
An alimony provision can affect your finances for years, sometimes decades. Before you agree to an amount or duration, you should understand both spouses' actual incomes, realistic earning capacities, the marital lifestyle, retirement expectations, and what events can modify or terminate the obligation.
Pay particular attention to the language in the agreement.
What happens if your former spouse remarries? What happens if they cohabit with someone? What happens when you retire? Can the amount be modified? Is the duration fixed? Is life insurance required to secure the obligation?
These questions may feel distant while you are trying to get divorced. Five, ten, or fifteen years later, they can become extremely important.
There is no universal answer to "How long does alimony last in New Jersey?" A marriage under 20 years generally gives you an outside limit rather than a guaranteed term, while a longer marriage may make open durational alimony available. The actual result depends on the financial circumstances of the people involved.
If you are considering divorce and want to understand alimony, property division, custody, and the other decisions that can affect your financial future, my free Divorce Smarter Course explains the New Jersey divorce process in plain English.
Until next time,
Steve