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Jason Kohlmeyer
When a couple is in the process of divorcing, the spouse who earns a higher income may be ordered by the court or required by the divorce settlement to pay support to the spouse with a lower income. Spousal support, also called alimony or maintenance, is intended to ensure that a lower-earning spouse does not experience a dramatic decline in the quality of his or her life when a marriage ends. An order to pay spousal support may not be a desirable outcome for the higher-earning spouse, but the goal of the divorce process is to be fair to all parties involved. Still, the higher-earning spouse, the payer of the alimony, likely will want to know how long he/she will be required to pay support. The answer to this question varies depending upon the circumstances specific to the divorce and an experienced divorce attorney can provide assistance in understanding the duration of a support obligation.
Permanent alimony, on the other hand, is alimony that is awarded on an ongoing basis with no end date because the income gap is likely never to be closed. For example, if a man was married to a woman who was a doctor and the man had never had a career but had instead stayed home with the couples children for 20 years, there would likely be no way the earning gap would ever close. In this case, the wife might be ordered to pay permanent alimony to the husband (it is important to note that either spouse could be ordered to pay alimony).
Situations where permanent alimony is most likely to be awarded include marriages where one spouse is disabled/ has health issues; where one spouse has given up his or her career in service to the family and/or the other spouses professional aspirations; and in situations where a couple had a very long marriage and there is a wide earnings gap between the husband and wife.
However, permanent alimony is not always permanent in every single situation. Typically, permanent alimony payments will end if the recipient spouse remarries or, in some cases, begins to cohabitate with another romantic partner. Death will also obviously end a permanent alimony obligation. If the circumstances of the paying spouse and the recipient spouse undergo a dramatic change, such as the payer losing his job and being unable to find a new one, it may also be possible to petition the court to have the alimony order changed. An experienced divorce law attorney can help in situations where a change needs to be made to a spousal support agreement.
One of the founding partners of Rosengren Kohlmeyer, Law Office Chartered, Jason has already had a distinguished career that many lawyers would be envious of. While at Hamline University School of Law, located in St. Paul, Minnesota, Jason was elected to sit on the American Bar Association-Law Student Divisions Board of Governors. Despite rigorous demands traveling the country representing the law students of 8 states he still made the Deans list while at Hamline. During law school, Jason was a certified prosecutor under the MN Supreme Courts Certified Student Attorney Rules. Prosecuting for Dakota County, the then fastest growing county in Minnesota, Jason prosecuted nearly every offense in Minnesota including criminal sexual assault, 5th degree assault, a variety of drug crimes as well as first-degree murder.
Rosengren Kohlmeyer Law Office 150 St. Andrews Court, Suite 110 Mankato, Minnesota 56001 www.Rokolaw.com
Rosengren Kohlmeyer | Divorce in Minnesota: How Long Do I Have to Pay Support?