How Long Must You Financially Support Your Disabled Ex-Spouse After a Brief Marriage?
Couples take wedding vows to stay together in sickness and in health, but often, chronic ill health erodes relationships, and sometimes it leads to divorce. When this happens, this divorce court must uphold the principle of equitable distribution while accounting for the fact that one of the spouses cannot reenter the workforce, even though he or she is younger than the typical retirement age. The fairest way to do this is to award income-generating assets, such as real estate properties, including but not limited to the marital home, or interest-bearing investment accounts, to the spouse who cannot work, but the court can only do this if the couple owns such assets; it cannot make them materialize out of thin air. The court might also award alimony, since one of the purposes of alimony is to prevent the recipient spouse from relying on public benefits, but there is a trend in Florida family law against alimony awards which are burdensome to the paying spouse. If you need a fair divorce settlement or alimony award because you are getting divorced but are no longer able to work, contact a Boca Raton alimony lawyer.
When Disaster Strikes Shortly After Your Wedding
A 25-year-old man and a 32-year-old woman got married in 2017, thinking that they would have a long, healthy life together, but things did not go according to plan. The wife suffered a stroke the following year, and the effects of the stroke left her permanently unable to work. The parties filed for divorce in 2020, after three years of marriage, and the wife requested permanent alimony, citing her inability to earn employment income.
By the time the parties’ divorce was final, a Florida statute abolishing permanent alimony went into effect, so it was no longer an issue. The parties went through protracted litigation to determine the former husband’s obligations to support the former wife. The appeals court could not reach a unanimous decision, with at least one judge writing a dissent.
What none of the judges, nor either of the parties, seemed to mention in the case is that the parties were only together for three years before they filed for divorce. In brief marriages, the obligations of one spouse to support the other financially after the divorce are much less. When the marriage lasts less than five years, the divorce court’s priority is to return each party to the financial state that he or she would be in if the marriage had never occurred. A situation like this would probably leave a former spouse who is unable to work because of a disability dependent on public benefits.
Contact Schwartz | White About Building Financial Stability Out of Shattered Dreams
A South Florida family law attorney can help you if your ex-spouse cannot be financially independent, but you were only married to each other for a few years. Contact Schwartz | White in Boca Raton, Florida about your case.
Source:
scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6888108876785258095&q=divorce+stroke&hl=en&as_sdt=4,10&as_ylo=2015&as_yhi=2025
