Understanding Alimony in Oklahoma
I’m Tulsa divorce attorney Palmer Johnson and this is my video series on answering frequently asked family law questions that I get from my clients and today I’m going to generally just talk about how do I get alimony. So I think a lot of people have misconceptions about alimony, what it is, really what it’s for and and so what I’m going to talk about is really what is alimony in Oklahoma and the basic standard is need and ability to pay.
So if you are seeking alimony the first thing you’re going to do is put together your monthly expenses monthly budget and present that to show that you need that there’s a deficit between your income and how much it costs for you to maintain a similar lifestyle to what you had and then the other part is ability to pay. So it really just depends in large part on the ability to pay because if you’re getting a divorce and you haven’t been working but the other party worked in a relatively low-paying job their ability to pay is going to be very very low because if they’re if they’re barely earning enough to take care of themselves then how do they support your household and that would so that would be a situation where you would really need to be making a plan for yourself to be able to earn income such that you could still maintain some kind of reasonable lifestyle.
Factors Affecting Alimony Awards
If your former spouse has a far more much higher income than you do or perhaps you didn’t work and they make a very substantial income maybe you were the person who is the primary caregiver for the children there could be a lot of things and that was and you know that was set up by agreement that hey you’re gonna go do this so you left the workforce and now it’s been 20 years and you’ve been out of the workforce their careers gone up up up and now you’re getting a divorce and you’re just getting started so what could you expect in a case like that?
Well the again the courts gonna look at the need and the ability to pay they’re gonna kind of balance that I in line with all the other property and asset division within the within the the actual divorce and make an award so unless the parties agree typically you’re gonna see an award that’s three to five years and the amount is gonna be to adjust from what you your current earnings to what you need and unless the other party really just makes an extremely high high high income there’s gonna there’s gonna need to be some support coming from the the other party for themselves so to speak or at least a plan to be able to do that even if it’s not initially at the time it’s filed so it’s it’s not a forever thing.
Seek Legal Advice
If you are contemplating divorce and you think that you’re need advice about alimony and what you could expect in your case please reach out to me at moms.law and schedule your low-cost consultation. Contact 918-770-7117 today!