Are you going through the divorce process? Do you have reason to believe that you should receive spousal support once the divorce decree is issued? If you find yourself in this position, it’s a good idea to learn as much as possible about how the system works. First off, there are no official guidelines for spousal support in the state of Maryland. Instead, the court takes this into consideration on a case by case basis. Generally speaking, there are two types of spousal support: rehabilitative alimony and permanent alimony.
As you can tell by the name, these are different. With rehabilitative alimony, you only receive support until you get the training or education you need to support yourself. Conversely, permanent alimony is when you receive support indefinitely. Although each judge is different, here are some of the factors that come into play when deciding on details associated with spousal support:
- The ability of the person seeking spousal support to support him or herself.
- The time it will take for the person requesting spousal support to obtain an education or training to support him or herself.
- The standard of living enjoyed by both parties during the marriage.
- The length of the marriage.
- The circumstances that led to the divorce.

How to Avoid Paying Spousal Support
Wondering how to avoid paying spousal support? Well, there are numerous ways to avoid paying alimony. A spouse may undergo financial constraints when imposed on paying the spousal payment. This may negatively affect one’s lifestyle greatly. For a spouse to avoid alimony, one has to do it more carefully and with more concerns and ethics; this will help the spouse pay it and get rid of illegal ramifications that may arise from trying to get rid of the spouse x-spouse. Various ways to get out of paying alimony payments include:
Change Up Your Lifestyle
A person has to make some changes to shed light on the divorce. There are rare chances of a spouse with higher earnings to be given the spousal support payment. It will be better to calculate the money needed for monthly expenditure, the spouse who earns more will be likely to be responsible for the payment of alimony. For a spouse to how to not pay spousal support payments, it is wise to downgrade to a job to be lower earning spouse. The spouse to be responsible for the alimony has to reduce the income earned. This should be done with careful consideration of a well and budgeted plan where the spouse will be doing a low paying job with access to other sources of financial support, such as close friends and family. This will help reduce the constraints of spouse payment support.
To Make End of Your Marriage As Soon As Possible
Determining alimony that a spouse pays is going to be determined by the state. The payment is done based on the marriage’s overall length. If marriage length is long, the amount of alimony payment is likely to be huge. If a spouse is aware that the marriage will not last, he has to end it as early as possible because lengthening marriage time increases the amount of spousal support. The lengthening of a marriage that will end in divorce is just a way of increasing the alimony payment.
Keeping Tabs on the Relationships of Your Spouse
Some states like Maryland will end the alimony payments agreement in a case where the benefiting spouse starts to live with a new partner. The information may be included in the fine print on the agreement of the divorce. The paying spouse has to request the attorney to go through the alimony’s payment section while together to get the right and the best information. A new marriage will bring alimony payment to an end; therefore, the spouse should keep track of the divorced partner’s progress in their relationship. Keeping tabs will be made easier through friends and social media follow-ups. This will help the spouse paying the spousal support to get to know the occurrence of the new life changes of the other spouse to cease the payments obligation in case of getting into another marriage.

Seek a Judge to Evaluate the X-Spouse Capability to Work
Some spouse chooses to remain at home after a divorce. This leads to financial constrain problems which is an unnecessary reason for alimony payments. The judge may be requested to carry on a vocational evaluation to such a spouse, with the potential to work but remain at home. This will make the alimony temporary to support the x-spouse to either get a stable job or have time and space to build up a home or support the child custody. The ordering of alimony payment on a short-term basis will help avoid alimony payment for a longer period, thus reducing financial constrain to the spouse paying it.
Conclusion
As you can see, there is a lot of gray area when it comes time for the court to decide if you should receive alimony. For this reason, you don’t want to move forward alone. At our firm, our family law attorneys have given legal help to many people to how to get out of paying alimony after a divorce.