Divorce

There are five types of alimony in Maine:

1. Interim support helps you during your pending divorce action.¹
2. General support helps you financially if you make substantially less money and have less potential to make money than your spouse. The purpose of this type of support is to let you have a reasonable standard of living after your divorce.

The length of your marriage affects whether you will get general support. The judge will assume that:

• they should not grant general support if your marriage lasted less than ten years; and
• alimony should last for half of the time you have been married for, or less, if you have been married between ten and 20 years.

If the judge decides that the spousal support award based on these considerations would not be fair, they can make a different decision.²

3. Transitional support helps you adjust to life after divorce. Your transitional needs may include:

• short-term financial needs due to divorce; or
• help to reenter or advance in the workforce, including physical or emotional rehabilitation services to address disabilities or barriers to employment, vocational training, and education.³

4. Reimbursement support helps make your and your spouse’s finances become equal if there are “exceptional circumstances,” which include but are not limited to:

• economic misconduct by your spouse;
• your substantial contribution to your spouse’s education, training, or advancement in the workplace during the marriage; and
• economic abuse by a spouse, as defined in Maine Statutes, title 19-A, section 4102, subsection 5.⁴

The judge will only consider reimbursement support if your financial situation does not allow the judge to order a fair and equitable financial outcome through the division of marital property.⁴

5. Nominal support is a very small amount ordered so that the judge will have the ability to grant you support in the future. In other words, granting nominal support allows the judge the right to revisit the question of spousal support later.⁵

¹ Me. Rev. Stat. tit.19-A, § 951-A(2)(E)
² Me. Rev. Stat. tit.19-A, § 951-A(2)(A)
³ Me. Rev. Stat. tit.19-A, § 951-A(2)(B)
⁴ Me. Rev. Stat. tit.19-A, § 951-A(2)(C)
⁵ Me. Rev. Stat. tit.19-A, § 951-A(2)(D)