Throughout a marriage couples work together to build a life together. Each spouse may assume different responsibilities to ensure everything run as smoothly as possible. This means one spouse may take on more responsibilities with the children, while the other has more responsibilities for providing the finances for the family. This works fine while the spouses are married, but if the couple goes through a divorce the spouses who did not earn as much income could find themselves in a difficult financial situation.
There are many different issues that couples need to resolve during a divorce and one of those issues is spousal support. This is generally a monthly obligation that one spouse pays to the other to ensure that both spouses have decent living standards after the divorce. This will not be an issue in every divorce, but in divorces such as the one described above, it can certainly be something that will be discussed.
Factors used to determine spousal support
If it is determined that spousal maintenance will be paid from one spouse to the other, the next step is determining the amount and the duration of the spousal maintenance award. To determine this, there are a number of factors will be analyzed. These factors include, but are not limited to: the length of the marriage; each party’s ability to work; their age; their standard of living during the marriage; the needs and health of the parties; each spouse’s ability to pay spousal maintenance and others.
There are many divorces that occur in Michigan each year. Each divorce is unique though and the outcome will depend on the unique circumstances of each marriage. Spousal maintenance is one of those issues. Analyzing the various factors that are used to determine spousal maintenance awards can be complicated. Experienced attorneys understand how to analyze them though and may be a useful resource.