If My Ex Remarries Does That Affect Child Support or Maintenance?

When people move on with their lives after a divorce and remarry, there can be some significant financial changes that may impact the previous spouse as well.   How it impacts you depends, more than anything, on whether there is a court order for maintenance (formerly alimony) or child support, or both.

If you are paying maintenance to your former spouse, your dissolution judgment likely states that maintenance ends when he or she remarries. That is an easy one and should make you very happy for the newly married couple! There are some people that don’t remarry just so they can continue to collect maintenance, but they reside with their significant other. While you don’t need a court order to terminate maintenance if your ex remarries, you would need to go to court if he or she is shacking up, so that you can prove to the court that the person your ex resides with is paying household bills and contributing financially.

If you are collecting maintenance and your ex, the payor, remarries, your maintenance will not be affected.

Missouri law states that a new spouse’s income may be considered in the calculation of child support. In most cases, it is not. However, if you are paying child support based on your spouse having a very low income and the new husband or wife is a high earner, your attorney may be able to convince the court that the child support needs to be changed to reflect that in some way.  Be aware that it may take a while to ascertain the new spouse’s income, as it is not required to be disclosed in initial filings, so your attorney may need to do discovery in order to find out that information.

If you have questions about any of these issues, contact an experienced family law attorney.