Spousal Support and the Arizona Law

The award of spousal support, (alimony), is discretionary with the Court and depends on many factors. Generally, spousal maintenance is not awarded for marriages of short duration (for example, less than five years), but this is not a hard-and-fast rule. While the length of marriage and the earnings of each spouse are important considerations, an award of spousal maintenance depends on the "reasonable needs" of the requesting spouse.

With mediation spousal support can be agreed to as part of the negotiations. If both parties agree, the maintenance order and a decree of dissolution of marriage may state that its maintenance terms shall not be modified.

Spousal support is essentially a two-tiered process. The first issue is whether one spouse is entitled to spousal maintenance. If this is true, then the second issue is the amount and duration of the support.

No other area of the divorce process is more uncertain than spousal support.  Judges often say that no two judges looking at the same set of facts will come up with the same alimony amount.  To try to take some of the guess work out of calculating alimony the court did prepare guidelines but these guidelines have not been adopted.  These guidelines look at the years of marriage and the difference between the parties’ incomes to calculate an alimony.  But the court should not be relying solely on the guidelines and must take into account the factors expressed in the Arizona Revised Statutes governing spousal maintenance.

Arizona is what is known as a rehabilitate state when it comes to alimony.  Meaning that the purpose of the spousal maintenance should be to enable the other spouse to get back on their feet and be self-sufficient.  Thus alimony awards in Arizona may be for less number of years than what other states would award.

A spouse might wonder if fault in ending the marriage can disqualify someone from receiving alimony. For example, a husband or wife might want to limit alimony for an unfaithful spouse. In the dissolution of a regular marriage that is not a covenant marriage in Arizona, the only ground considered is whether the spouses have an irretrievably broken marriage. Although Arizona divorce laws allow for a discussion of each spouse's conduct during the dissolution of a covenant marriage, the state's alimony factors do not specifically include a factor for marital misconduct and other fault grounds. Accordingly, a spouse's marital misconduct does not automatically lead to disqualification from alimony.

Mediation maybe your only chance to reach an agreement that you can have some influence on the spousal support terms.

At WHYmediate?, we give you the tools you need to resolve your Divorce conflicts in a positive learning environment. 

WHYmediate? Mediation Services
4500 South Lakeshore Drive Suite 300 
Tempe, AZ 85282 
(480) 777-5500
http://whymediate.solutions