Spousal Support

Hello everyone,

I have been separated from my wife for almost a year now and since the split I have been paying her Spousal Support. There are no kids involved and we did not own any property. We came to an agreement through a mediator for the duration and amount of Spousal Support. Without telling all of the numbers, we came to the agreement that I would pay her half of my take home wage for a year and a half. We were married just shy of three years and together almost ten. She has contacted me recently pursuing more money. (not more per month, but a further year on top of what we already agreed to).

The main reason she is asking for more money is because she has been trying to start her own holistic healing business from home for the past three years and it is not bringing in enough money to support her. While we were together she worked full time while I went to university to get my degree. Now, I have a degree in engineering (a more practical, predictable profession). She has been using the argument that I have the rest of my life set up with this new career while her future was taken from her in the break-up. She planned on pursuing her business while I would be the primary bread winner.

Another complication to this situation is that we were together in Australia and I have moved back to Canada after the split to be with my family. Seeing as I moved across the planet, I was unable to bring much home with me except some clothes and small nic nacks. In other words, she got the car, furniture and all other assets.

As a sign of good faith (in my mind at least) I also agreed to take our joint credit card debt as she does not make a lot of money.

I feel that I have been MORE than generous in this situation and also feel that she might be trying to manipulate me by seeing my kindness as weakness.

Is there any advice any of you can provide me? Have you had to pay Spousal Support? If so, how much and how long?

I had a similar situation to you, but I was married for almost 40 yrs.!
I don't know what the laws are in Australia. And if there are implications with you moving to another country I was divorced in the states ( which by the way have different laws even state to state ).

Anyway I also had no children involved. I had a signed agreement that we agreed on before the final decree. It had all the conditions of the divorce in it including spousal support.
She can " ask " for more but I'm not legally bound to give her anything more outside that agreement.

Here a judge ,or jury if it goes to trial , decides how much SS to give ,if any ! There are a lot of factors involved !

In the end I also felt I was more than generous. I basically left with nothing. She got everything. I didn't care , I just wanted out. I ******* hate the way marriage is so easy to get into but so hard to get out of. At least here in the US.
It's because of the $ involved.
They want it all.
TRYING to manipulate you ? She'll try and hit on your sensitivities as hard as possible.
Show weakness and your dead.

Watch out. That's just from my experience.

How long did she support you while you were in school? For however long that was, I think it is fair for you to provide that for her. What she does while receiving spousal support is up to her. If she had not supported you, I'd say tell her she's lucky to get what she got and so long. BUT you two had an agreement that she would support you through school and then you would support her while she worked on her business. She fulfilled her end of the bargain. I don't think your move factors into it at all, you chose to move to another country and anything you left behind was by choice.

Factor the debt into it, ie if she supported you for 3 years at X number per month then you will take the debt into account and subtract the number of months that number equals. So if she supported you 3 years at $500 a month and you have $2000 in debt that's 3 years minus 4 months. You say "seeing kindness as weakness" well first off so far you're only doing what you agreed to do. That's neither a kindness nor a weakness, that's a legal obligation. I don't know how the courts work in Australia, but I think she could easily paint it like you used her to get free rent and expenses while you got a degree where you will be making a lot of money, then once you had that degree you dumped her and moved on and want to not pay her back as you'd agreed. I'm not saying that's what happened, I want to make that really clear!!! Only that I think it would be a compelling story to tell a court. I hope it does not get ugly like that. I'm just trying to look at it from all sides. I hope it works out in a way that you can both feel is fair.

I think whomever wants out the most gets shafted. My boyfriend got completely screwed over by his exwife but he agreed to all kinds of ridiculous stuff just to get it over with. For example, he took on all the debt that she had run up on credit cards she had opened in HIS name and not even told him about! Then once he agreed to pay that debt he called and canceled the cards and she called him later that day screaming at him because she had gone to Victoria's Secret trying to max it out and stick him with the bill... She is such a sick horrible awful person!

You are lucky that you didn't have kids with her. My boyfriend's ex uses the kids to try to get more money. Even when his son came to live with us because his mom is abusive and horrible, my boyfriend still had to pay her child support for BOTH kids for 3 months until their court date came up. Then she had the nerve to try to get more $$ and I'm thinking, well you only had one child the last 3 months but got support for both while he shelled out all the money to move the kid a thousand miles, get a bigger apartment, and take him to the doctor because mom had not bothered to get him his ADHD medication for a YEAR. But told him what a big stupid loser he was for having difficulty in school. I could go on and on, I don't know if I believe in evil but this b**** sure comes close.

Hmmm... three years trying to get a business going and not yet able to support herself with it. If she's been doing it right, putting in the time, building the business the way a business gets built, then there are other resources available to her. In the states, a person would seek financing from banks, help through the Small Business Administration and SCORE, etc.

I left my ex common law husband and got nothing. No division of assetts. No support.

Does your wife work? Did she work during the relationship? While I'm for support, I don't think you should be paying half your wage - unless you supported her 100% in the marraige.