Preparing to ask for alimony requires getting creative. You must pay attention to financial matters and career issues that you may have put aside when you decided to stay home or take lower paying jobs in order to follow your spouse’s career. Many stay-at-home spouses intentionally ignore financial information and cultivate an attitude of naivete about the cost of the big picture of their lives. But you no longer have a partner to split the responsibilities of maintaining a household with. Your soon-to-be ex spouse will have to do his own grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning, and you will have to take care of your own car and figure out how to bring enough money into your household to make ends meet. And to do this, you need to know how much it takes to make ends meet, and what resources do you have. These are similar to the things you’d need to know if your spouse passed away. The basic question the judge will have is, “how do you plan to finance your life, now that the job of stay-at-home spouse is no longer available?”
Even before the initial shock of the separation and imminent divorce is over, you need to start figuring out what your expenses will be. What will your mortgage or rent and utilities be? How about medical expenses? Transportation? Food, clothing and entertainment? Your lawyer will have worksheets to help you estimate how much you need. Unless the two of you together were able to save money like crazy, you will never get enough money to support your whole lifestyle, from your ex. You will likely have to reduce your expectations, as will he. And they will never demand that more than half of his paycheck go to support you. You may need to have a roof over your head and food. But he also needs those things, plus he needs to do his own cooking and cleaning now that you’re gone, and he probably needs transportation and work clothes. The job of staying at home to take care of his house and kids, is no longer yours and you must make plans to pick up some of the slack in terms of bringing in money. One income simply will not split into two households, so things need to change.
Do you have a job yet? If now, then the judge will ask why not? When you found out about the separation, why did you not run straight out to get work? Have an answer to this question available, even if it does not sound like a pretty answer, so that the judge will understand that you tried, or why you could not try.
Figure out what your career requires in order for you to rehabilitate it. If you were licensed to perform work, but gave up your license because you were not working at that occupation, what will it take to get that license back? Do you quit college or give up other schooling in order to get married or raise children? If so, what will it take to finish your education and get up to speed in your career? Have you moved around the country to follow your spouse’s job opportunities and lost your own opportunities in the process? What would it take to fix that? If you have been unemployed for so long that you do not know what is available to you, start talking to people, make connections, find work. If you are lucky enough to have other sources of income (like a trust fund or savings accounts), this will help you get by. Tell the judge that you are counting on it, and also remind the judge that you have the right to come out of the marriage with just as much STUFF as your ex does, without having to sell all the furniture to finance the rehabilitation of your career. Do not try to convince a judge that you have been living off of zero for the past year during a separation, and that you have no resources and must live 100% off your ex. Tell the judge how you supported yourself during the separation and why this source of support should not be counted on as a continuing source.
If you are unlucky enough to be disabled and unable to work, and you hope for the judge to agree with you, then please go apply for disability now, if you have not done so already! A disability determination in social security court will certainly help persuade the judge in your divorce, that you are unable to work. If, on the other hand, your disability is that you have frequent migraines and must stay in bed 20 hours a day (I had one client whose ex tried to convince the judge of this), remember that this will mean you might be telling the judge that you cannot be a fit mother to your very active children who need supervision more than 4 hours a day (my client’s ex did not count on this).
Whatever you do, make some plan to support yourself. If the only work you can find is as a greeter at WalMart, take the job to show that you are being industrious and trying to make ends meet in your separation. Figure out how to work the child-rearing around your job, and if this means making your ex step up to the plate and share in these duties, make sure he is aware of this and has enough advance notice that he can arrange his own time off work when it’s his day to maintain the kids. Do not count on a judge agreeing with you that your children should never need daycare, sitters, or after school care.
Figure out how much you will need from your ex to make up the difference between your pay and your expenses. If your way of supporting yourself happens to be finding a new lover, understand that the courts are not likely to agree with you that your soon-to-be ex should support you and your new lover. Calculate child care expenses separately, because those will be requested as part of the child support amount. Don’t try to get daycare and babysitters paid for by your alimony. You don’t want this, anyways, because you have to pay taxes on your alimony, but you don’t get taxed on the child support that you receive, so you want your ex to pay for child-issues in a separate amount than in your spousal support check.
Gather information about what you did to support your ex’s school or career, and how his career or your support caused a detriment to your own career. Be prepared to explain what it will take to rehabilitate your career. Be realistic. If your career cannot be rehabilitated, don’t expect the judge to order him to pay for it. If you were a 110 lb world class prima ballerina who has gained 150 lbs, had 3 kids and is now 20 years older, it’s going to be different than if you were a hair stylist who stopped paying for her license just last year and has only been away from work for 5 years. If you were a teacher who married a doctor and were in divorce court 2 years later, do not expect the judge to make your doctor ex husband make up the difference between your teacher’s salary and his doctor’s salary, for live. Getting a man to say “I do” is not like winning the lottery. It’s more like getting a job, and if the marriage is over, the job is over. The judge needs to hear your realistic plan for your new life. Everyone in the courtroom knows it will not be easy. It’s called “work” for a reason. But divorce means that the opportunity to have someone else support you while you make sure the house is spotless and the kids’ homework is done, is gone. As a career choice, "stay at home housewife" only exists for as long as the marriage exists. More on that later.
The judge hears from many people daily about how easy or difficult it is to get a job today, and will have an idea of how long it should take YOU to get something new going, so if you exaggerate or procrastinate, the judge will know. And will give you less than you request. If you go ahead and make a realistic plan and start to follow through on it, the judge will know that you are being realistic and will be more likely to give you what you need.
Your best bet in convincing a judge to give you as much alimony as possible is to figure out how much you need, make a plan for how to get to where you are self supporting, show that you are being industrious, and calculate the difference between what you can earn and what you need.
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