Court-ordered spousal maintenance in Texas lasts at most five, seven or ten years, depending on the length of the marriage, and is capped at $5,000 a month or 20 percent of the payer’s average monthly gross income, whichever is less. Disability cases can run longer.
Texas calls it maintenance. Most people say alimony, and the same limits are the honest answer to how to avoid paying alimony in Texas.
Is Texas an alimony state
Yes, with narrow limits. A judge can order maintenance only when the spouse asking will lack enough property after the divorce, counting separate property, to meet minimum reasonable needs (the law’s phrase for basic living costs). That spouse must also fit one of four routes. The first is family violence: the other spouse was convicted of, or got deferred adjudication for, family violence committed during the marriage against the spouse asking or that spouse’s child, and the offense happened within two years before filing or while the case is pending. The other three are an incapacitating disability, a marriage of ten years or longer with no ability to earn enough, or care of a disabled child of the marriage. All four routes sit in one section (§8.051). Miss either part and the court cannot order it.
The firm’s page on how a Texas divorce is handled shows where support sits alongside the property division.
How long alimony lasts in Texas depends on the length of the marriage
The Family Code sets a ceiling on years, and the ceiling rises with the length of the marriage (§8.054):
- Five years at most, if the marriage lasted less than ten years and eligibility rests on the family-violence route, or if it lasted at least ten years but not more than twenty
- Seven years at most, for a marriage of at least twenty years but not more than thirty
- Ten years at most, for a marriage of thirty years or more
Those are maximums, not defaults. The same section tells the judge to limit the order to the shortest reasonable period that lets the receiving spouse earn enough to meet minimum reasonable needs, unless a disability, the care of an infant or young child of the marriage, or another compelling barrier stands in the way. The clock starts on the date of the order.
Disability cases can run for as long as the need lasts
Two routes escape the ladder. Where eligibility rests on the receiving spouse’s own incapacitating disability, or on caring for a disabled child of the marriage, the court may order maintenance for as long as that spouse keeps meeting the test, and the court may set periodic reviews of that order if either party asks, or on its own (§8.054).
The monthly cap is $5,000 or 20 percent of gross income
A court cannot order more each month than the lesser of $5,000 or 20 percent of the paying spouse’s average monthly gross income (§8.055).
Gross income is defined widely (§8.055). It takes in wages and salary with commissions, overtime, tips and bonuses; interest, dividends and royalties; self-employment income; net rental income after expenses and mortgage payments; and other income actually received, such as severance, pensions, capital gains, unemployment benefits, gifts and prizes. It leaves out return of capital, accounts receivable, public assistance, VA service-connected disability compensation, SSI, social security and disability benefits, and workers’ compensation.
When maintenance ends early
Three events end the duty to pay future maintenance (§8.056). Either party dies. The receiving spouse remarries. Or, after a hearing, the court finds the receiving spouse is living with a dating or romantic partner in a permanent home on a continuing basis. Death and remarriage end it on their own; cohabitation has to be proved in court. Payments already accrued are still owed.
Changing the amount takes a motion, not a conversation
Either side can ask to change the amount by filing a motion in the court that made the original order (§8.057). After a hearing, the court can change the number on a proper showing of a material and substantial change in circumstances since the order. Until a new order is signed, the old one stands.
The honest answer on how to avoid paying alimony in Texas
Once a judge has signed a maintenance order, it is a court order. The amount changes only through the motion above, and the duty ends only on the events listed under §8.056.
The alimony rules in Texas do give you real limits. Eligibility is narrow (§8.051). The years are capped and the judge must pick the shortest reasonable period (§8.054), and the monthly amount is capped (§8.055). The duty ends on remarriage or proven cohabitation (§8.056). And a premarital agreement can modify or eliminate spousal support before the marriage begins (§4.003), which settles the question in advance.
Spouses can also settle support between themselves during the divorce, and a mediated settlement agreement that meets the Family Code requirements is binding once signed. In the mediations I run, support is negotiated as a number and an end date both spouses can live with.
Work out the ceiling before you negotiate
Four facts decide most of this: how long the marriage lasted, the paying spouse’s recent gross income, which of the four eligibility routes applies, if any, and whether a premarital or marital agreement already says something about support. Bring those four to your first conversation with a lawyer, or to mediation, and the maintenance question gets much narrower.
