If you and your spouse are getting a divorce, you might be worried about a lot of different things. You could be concerned about how your life is going to be impacted now that you and your spouse will no longer be together. You could even be worried about your finances. For example, if you have been a stay-at-home parent without your own income for the past several years, you might not be sure of how you're going to support yourself.

You'll Need to Hire a Solicitor

When going through a divorce, it's usually a good idea to work with a family law solicitor anyway. After all, you will want to make sure that your divorce is handled in the right way. Matters can get even more complicated if you are asking for spousal maintenance. You might stand to lose a lot if you don't end up getting the spousal maintenance that you are asking for, and you might not be able to support yourself without it. Because of this, you will probably want to hire a family law solicitor to help you with asking for spousal maintenance and handling other aspects of your divorce.

It's Separate From Child Support

If you have children and will have primary custody of them, then you might want to fight for child support. Child support is granted and paid separately from spousal maintenance, but your family law solicitor should be able to help you with requesting both.

It Might Only Be Granted for a Brief Period of Time

Typically, spousal maintenance payments are not granted for life. Instead, they are sometimes only granted for a relatively brief period of time. This is done to give the non-breadwinning spouse the opportunity to go back to school if necessary, secure employment, and get themselves on their feet. How long you might receive spousal maintenance depends on a few things, including how long you were married, how long it has been since you have had a job, whether or not you have disabilities or other issues that might prevent you from being able to easily gain and maintain employment, and more.

Spousal Maintenance Payments Vary

The amount that you will receive for spousal maintenance, if applicable, depends on things like how much income your spouse brings in, how much money you need to be able to live a similar lifestyle to the one that you are accustomed to, and more.

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