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Maintaining Your Lifestyle After Divorce

Last updated on October 5, 2023

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When a long-term marriage is ending, questions of spousal support (often referred to as alimony) often come up. This is particularly true when one spouse has earned most of the income throughout the marriage and the other spouse has been in a dependant, often supportive role. If you are an older wife (or husband) who has depended on your spouse’s income, meanwhile forgoing a career of your own, and you now face divorce, contact an empathetic, skillful divorce attorney to learn about your options.

Laura Dale & Associates has helped many spouses in the Houston area who are emerging from long-term marriages and need solid legal representation to maintain lifestyles they had been accustomed to in those marriages. Long-term spousal support was more common in past generations when wives often did not work outside of the home.

Today, society expects women to be able to work and support themselves after a divorce. (The same can be said of a man who has depended on his wife’s income.) Lifelong or long-term spousal support for the sake of maintaining a lifestyle carried over from a marriage is increasingly rare. Two to three years of spousal maintenance at most is typical of most divorce decrees.

There are always exceptions to the rule. Our skillful Texas divorce lawyers can help you develop a promising strategy for pursuit of a reasonable divorce decree. As you prepare for divorce mediation, settlement negotiations or trial, we can help you take into account special factors such as:

  • A long-term disability that prevents you from working to support yourself
  • A history of direct personal support that you provided to your spouse, such as working to put him or her through medical school or working in his or her business without your own salary
  • A willingness to “exchange” property that you might otherwise receive through asset division for a court order providing you with a steady income
  • Complex property division issues

During thoughtful, comprehensive consultations, Laura Dale & Associates, can help you determine your priorities in your Texas divorce. We can help you with divorce planning and advise you on ways to avoid giving up on your property rights while you seek to maintain the lifestyle to which you have been accustomed — for your children’s sake and for your own.

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