What Actually Sets the End Date on Alimony

*Collaborative Post

Leaving ten-year marriages can end up with wildly different obligations, and the largest single reason is not the facts of either marriage. It is which legislature wrote the rules.

Some states now publish arithmetic. Others hand a judge the file and a list of factors. Writing that treats the country as one system misses the part that decides most cases.

Marriage Length Drives It, But Only Where the Legislature Said So

Florida rewrote its scheme in 2023, eliminating permanent alimony and replacing it with durational awards capped as a fraction of the marriage. Short-term marriages cap out at 50 percent of the marriage length, marriages of 10 to 20 years at 60 percent, and anything beyond 20 years at 75 percent. Separately, Florida statute 61.08 caps rehabilitative alimony at five years regardless of how long the marriage lasted.

California alimony can take different forms depending on the circumstances of the spouses and their financial needs. Alimony lawyer Erica Bloom provides guidance on the types of spousal support available in California, including helping clients pursue or defend against alimony claims.

California takes a third route. Family Code 4336 treats marriages of 10 years or more as long in duration, which keeps the court’s jurisdiction open rather than fixing a term, and the widely repeated half-the-marriage figure for shorter marriages is a rule of thumb rather than a statute. 

New Jersey limits alimony to the length of the marriage for marriages under 20 years and preserves open durational awards above that line and in exceptional circumstances. Colorado takes a more formula-driven approach for qualifying cases. Its statute contains advisory maintenance guidelines that calculate a recommended term based on the length of the marriage, with the table beginning at three years and extending through 20 years. At five years of marriage, the guideline term is 21 months, or 35% of the marriage length.

Connecticut Is the Counterexample Nobody Includes

A claim that appears in nearly every national piece on this topic is that state law has moved consistently toward time-limited awards. That trend is real in Florida, Massachusetts, Texas and elsewhere. It is not universal, and one of the states where it did not happen is worth naming.

The question of how long will alimony last after a Connecticut divorce has no single numerical answer. Connecticut courts have discretion over both the amount and duration of alimony, with awards ranging from temporary and rehabilitative support to permanent alimony in relatively rare circumstances.

Connecticut has no durational formula at all. Duration and amount both rest on judicial discretion applied to statutory factors, and permanent alimony remains available, though it is ordered rarely.

Any article that tells a Connecticut reader to expect a percentage of marriage length is describing a different state’s law.

The 2017 Tax Act Resets Every Negotiation

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated the federal deduction for alimony paid under instruments executed on or after January 1, 2019, and made the recipient’s side tax-free. IRS guidance on alimony sets out both regimes.

The arithmetic consequence is the one people miss. When payments were deductible, a given monthly obligation cost the payer materially less than its face amount, and that gap financed higher negotiated numbers. It no longer exists, which compresses what payers can agree to.

Pre-2019 orders keep the old treatment unless a later modification expressly adopts the new rules. Anyone renegotiating an older agreement is making a permanent tax election in the process, and unlike much of that Act, this provision does not expire.

What Ends It Early

Remarriage can terminate periodic or durational alimony, but the effect depends on the state and the type of award. Florida, for instance, expressly provides that durational alimony terminates when the recipient remarries.

Cohabitation is a petition, not an automatic termination. The paying spouse generally has to show the new household provides an economic benefit resembling marriage, and the burden sits on the person asking.

Retirement has become the live issue as more orders reach payers in their 60s. New Jersey codifies a rebuttable presumption that alimony ends when the payer reaches full retirement age, which is a far more concrete rule than the general observation that courts treat retirement as a shift in circumstances.

Death of the recipient ends the obligation. The same when the payer also dies, unless the decree requires the estate to continue or, as Connecticut judges sometimes order, insurance was put in place precisely to cover that gap.

In these instances, the question is not about how long the alimony lasts. It is discovering which state rule applies and whether this rule contains any arithmetic or discretion. It must also be understood when the instrument was executed for tax purposes and which category of award the order actually created. 

*This is a collaborative post. For further information please refer to my disclosure page.