Alimony (also called maintenance or spousal support) is a legal obligation to provide financial support to one's spouse from the other spouse after marital separation or from the ex-spouse upon divorce. It is established by divorce law or family law in many countries and is based on the premise that both spouses in theory have a legal obligation to support each other during their marriage (or civil union) or upon separation or/and divorce.
Alimony terms are among the most frequent issues causing litigation in family law cases. Eighty percent of divorce cases involve a request for modification of alimony.
When I got married, I had four credit cards, all in my maiden name, and all but one were paid off. One or two even owed me money. My new husband had filed for bankruptcy within the last three years, so he didn't have any credit cards and not very good credit. He believed...and stupidly I went along with him...that the credit cards were there to be used and so we did...within the first year of marriage all of them were maxed out.
He left me before our two-year anniversary and I made sure in the divorce decree that he was paying me so I could at least try to make a dent in my credit card debt...especially because I was not a one-income household and was getting no child support as both kids were from previous relationships. So he paid me a nominal amount every month for a year.
Well...this amount of money was set up as "maintenance"...the same as alimony to the IRS...so I had to count it as income and pay taxes on it and he didn't pay taxes on it. Unfortunately, this was a case of learning after the fact, but now whenever anyone says they want alimony or spousal support, I tell them to see if there is a different thing to call it so they don't have to pay taxes on it.
