A new law puts an end to permanent alimony in Florida

1. Defined.
“Permanent alimony is financial support paid from one party to another after a divorce. Unlike other types of alimony or spousal support, permanent alimony is usually paid until one spouse dies. As the name implies, permanent (or lifetime) alimony means that even if the paying spouse retires and lives on social security, they must continue paying alimony to the receiving spouse.”
https://divorceandyourmoney.com/blogs/permanent-alimony/

2. The article.
“This year, however, the proposal received relatively little public pushback and got the blessing of Florida Family Fairness and The Florida Bar’s Family Law Section, which fiercely clashed over the issue in the past.

Along with eliminating permanent alimony, the measure will set up a process for ex-spouses who make alimony payments to seek modifications to alimony agreements when they want to retire.”

““He (DeSantis) has just impoverished all the older women of Florida, and I know at least 3,000 women across the state of Florida are switching to Democrat and we will campaign against him, all the way, forever,” Camille Fiveash, a Milton Republican who receives permanent alimony, said in a phone interview Friday.”
https://news.wfsu.org/state-news/2023-07-02/a-new-law-puts-an-end-to-permanent-alimony-in-florida

 

Supposing they decide they "want to retire" at age 32. What then? And are these Florida permanent alimony orders reciprocally enforceable in other States, should the obligated ex-spouse move? I guess that's moot. considering that they're slated to disappear.

 

And I wonder - why no pushback from the Bar Association or Family Fairness this time? That sounds odd, to put it mildly. Muffled phone calls in the middle of the night?

 

Generally good. This is 2023. I know of some egregious alimony cases.

One of the most bizarre public ones was John Cleese. His ex wife got an excellent attorney and ended up with more of Cleese's money than he did. And he owed alimony and had to embark on an alimony tour to pay it off. As I recall it was an approx 10 year or so marriage with no children.

The system is antiquated and sexist.

Some states have implemented case by case spousal support to help women who may have stayed home with children and need time to retrain and so on for the job market. In those cases I am fully supportive of that and the spouse getting part of the business assets or pension benefits.

 

And here's what Mr. Cleese had to say about it:

https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/john-cleese-quotes

 

Divorce in California:

• These apply to "long-term" marriages, typically those of 8 years or more
• Division of community assets; these are usually determined to be what was acquired/earned during the marriage
  • This includes retirement investments
  • Pensions are divided based on how much (prorated) was earned during the marriage
    • For example: a military retirement based on 20 years where the couple were married for 10 of them means they would split it 75/25%
• Child support (if any) is paid per child until each child becomes 18
• Spousal support (alimony) is paid based on the difference between the two parties' earnings and typically lasts for half the length of the marriage
  • The member receiving spousal support would stop receiving it if he/she remarried

All of this is negotiable, of course.

 

Alimony laws appear to be outdated.
The gap in employment between man and woman narrowed significantly.
Why a spouse in our day and time has to be punished if they earned more money during the marriage?
They usually divide the saving, property etc. Why pay - permanent alimony?
If one spouse gave up career and was stay at home spouse taking care of kids while the other spouse climbed the ranks, had career or business etc, then there can be a situation
when after the divorce the stay at home parent has disadvantage entering workforce etc.
States limiting the alimony to number of years to allow the ex spouse to improve their situation without suffering significant reduction in life quality.
But why this was made permanent?
Is it automatic, or judgement is made upon both incomes of spouses? What is both worked and had careers etc?

 

You're asking very good questions but the answers may be more complex and history driven than you realize. If you ever wanted to do a good masters thesis or even a set of journal articles for a JSD you could do worse than investigate the origins of spousal support and marital property. Warning! Some of your sources will be several thousand years old. A knowledge of Aramaic and old Arabic would be useful.

 

The "what" is relatively straightforward. It's the "why" that will drive you nuts.

 

Better add Classical Latin to the list.

 

ALWAYS a good idea. But if you haven't the time or inclination, here's the short text on Roman divorce. One difference: they were private - details didn't have to be recorded anywhere.

https://imperiumromanum.pl/en/curiosities/divorce-in-roman-times/

 

Hah! I'm so old we wrote our wedding vows in hieroglyphs!

(No; when we went down the aisle we we did not walk like Egyptians.)