Florida’s alimony laws were written back in the day — when women had little economic power, when divorce was uncommon, and cohabiting was scandalous. Those days are long gone, but the old-fashioned alimony laws — favoring permanent alimony, until death — linger on.
Current Alimony Law in Florida causes immense hardship for those who must support an ex-spouse until he dies or she dies, even for marriages of less than 10 years, even to healthy women who begin collecting at 33 years old. Hard to believe, but true.
Too many alimony payers are forced into bankruptcy, into foreclosure, and into returning again and again to divorce court, when life circumstances change and they need to modify payments. Those who receive permanent alimony are never obligated to work. Never required to become self-sufficient, even if they live with a new boy/girlfriend, work, and finished raising their kids years ago.
We, at Family Law Reform, Inc., think that’s unfair, not just to the payers but to their children, their new spouses — and even the recipients, who are told to never move on with their lives, who remain on lifetime welfare. The public thinks it’s unfair — and so do most of Florida’s legislators. In the 2013 legislative session, both the Florida House and Senate passed the proposed alimony law with a super-majority vote that allowed new law with new limits and plenty of room for judges to make decisions in unusual cases.
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