Spousal maintenance

Family Law

Eligibility comes first, and most people do not meet it.

Court-ordered spousal maintenance in Texas requires the spouse seeking it to lack sufficient property to provide for their minimum reasonable needs, and then to fall into one of a small number of categories — most commonly a marriage of ten years or longer where they cannot earn enough to meet those needs, an inability to work because of a disability, caring for a child of the marriage with a disability, or family violence by the other spouse within the two years before filing.

The caps are statutory

Where maintenance is ordered, Texas limits the monthly amount to the lesser of a fixed statutory ceiling or a percentage of the paying spouse's average gross monthly income, and it limits the duration by the length of the marriage — with longer marriages supporting longer terms and disability cases capable of running as long as the condition persists. Courts also start from a presumption that maintenance should last no longer than is needed for the receiving spouse to become self-supporting.

Contractual alimony is the other route

Spouses can agree to payments that a court could not have ordered, in amounts and for durations outside the statutory limits, as part of an overall settlement. It is a contract rather than a maintenance order, which changes how it is enforced and how it interacts with the property division — and it is frequently the mechanism that makes a difficult settlement work.

What courts consider

• Each spouse's financial resources and their ability to provide for their own minimum reasonable needs independently.
• Education, employment skills, and the time and cost needed to acquire them.
• The efforts the spouse seeking maintenance has made to find work or obtain training.
• Misconduct, including adultery and cruelty, and any financial wrongdoing such as concealing or dissipating assets.
• The duration of the marriage, and the age, employment history, earning ability and physical and emotional condition of the spouse seeking maintenance.
• Contributions as a homemaker, and contributions to the other spouse's education or earning power.
• Marital misconduct, including adultery and cruelty, and any history of family violence.
• Property brought to the marriage and the division of the community estate.

What the work looks like on either side

If you are seeking maintenance: demonstrating your actual needs with documentation rather than assertion, and gathering evidence of disability, of caregiving responsibilities, or of the gap between what you can earn and what you need. If you are defending against a claim: making sure your income is calculated correctly — bonuses, commissions and self-employment income are frequently overstated by the other side — and that exaggerated or fabricated claims of need do not go unexamined. Both sides come down to numbers that can be proved.

Modification and termination

A maintenance order can be modified on a material and substantial change — most commonly a significant increase or decrease in either spouse's income — and it terminates on the death of either party or on the receiving spouse remarrying or cohabiting with a romantic partner on a continuing basis. Contractual alimony follows its own terms, which is one reason those terms deserve attention when they are drafted rather than when they are disputed.

Common questions