Alimony

In addition to receiving flowers and cards this Mother's Day, an increasing number of moms will also be setting aside time to send out child support and alimony checks.

By Patricia Reaney NEW YORK, May 10 (Reuters) - Tables have turned in U.S. divorce courts with more women paying their former husbands...

For women, divorce over 50 can present unique challenges: financial, emotional, social, medical. These women are entering their new lives often on particularly treacherous ground.

"Why do some women do well after divorce, while others get stuck?" a divorcing client asked me, confronting her worries head on.

The new Massachusetts law -- and those proposed in other states -- does not do away with alimony. To the contrary, it's awarded more like child support, with guidelines based on the length of the marriage and the income of the parties.

In both Florida and New Jersey -- and formerly Massachusetts -- the default position is lifetime permanent alimony, which means the higher earner pays the lower earner even if both are working full-time and making good money, until death.

My boyfriend and I haven't even been dating a year and we're already fighting about a divorce settlement. Not our divorce settlement, but everyone else's

I am not encouraging divorce, but you should not let a poor economy prevent an inevitable break up. In the stock market, you buy low and sell high. Why would you divorce high and not low?

Instead of allowing people to end a failed relationship, the antiquated laws in Massachusetts, Florida, and New Jersey states force them to become permanent adversaries, returning to divorce court whenever circumstances change. They endure a lifetime of legal fees and divorce that never ends.

Walking papers in hand, laid-off workers must return to divorce court, plead for relief in their alimony payments, and hope against hope that it's coming. It helps to show up with a lawyer, and it helps to expect the worst.

I believe lifetime alimony has to be restored as the default for women who spent their lives as homemakers. How much would it have cost their husbands to hire someone to cook, clean and raise the kids for 40 years?

The institution of marriage is certainly grabbing the news these days -- with homosexuals getting the right to marry in New York, gay marriages being offered via lotteries, and J.Lo and Marc Anthony splitting up.

In every corner of the country -- California, Massachusetts, Florida -- spousal support is in the news. These last two weeks have been a crash course ...

With the end of the NFL strike there will no doubt soon be a flurry of trades and movement by free agents. As these individuals make decisions that wi...

It seems that of late, Massachusetts is the state that leads the rest of the country when it comes to family law issues.

Reforming the alimony system has been an issue in states across the nation. The rest of the country has been less reluctant to reform than my home sta...

Last year there were approximately five million stay-at-home moms in the United States. (The number decreased slightly from 2008, statistically insig...

CALGARY - The lawyer for a local woman who split with her common-law husband failed to adequately identify his assets, a $14-million lawsuit claims. ...

BOSTON (AP) - Massachusetts lawmakers are set to take up a bill intended to reform the alimony system in the state. The bill scheduled for debate i...

Dan V. Nicolas is the star of a recent tax court decision.  Mr. Nicolas was divorced in 2003 .  He was ordered to pay spousal suppot to Ms. Nicolas ...

Over the past few years, an alimony reform movement, of sorts, has taken shape across the nation, and now many consider "lifetime alimony" a thing of ...