Spousal support — alimony — is meant to address the financial gap that can result when one spouse earned significantly less or stepped back from a career during the marriage. How it's calculated and, just as important, how the terms are drafted determine how much friction it causes down the line.
Factors that typically drive the amount
Courts generally weigh the length of the marriage, each spouse's income and earning capacity, the standard of living during the marriage, and each spouse's age and health. States vary widely in whether they use formulas or judicial discretion to arrive at a figure.
Duration and type of support
Support can be temporary (during the divorce process), rehabilitative (for a set period while a spouse becomes self-supporting), or in rarer cases, permanent. The agreement needs to state clearly which type applies and for how long.
Modification and termination triggers
The events that end or change support — remarriage, cohabitation, retirement, a significant income change — should be spelled out explicitly rather than left to whatever the default state rule happens to be, since defaults don't always match what either spouse actually intended.
Tax treatment has changed
For divorces finalized after 2018, alimony is no longer tax-deductible for the paying spouse or taxable income for the receiving spouse under federal law — a shift that affects how support amounts should be negotiated compared to older agreements drafted under the prior rules.