Overview: Alimony in Mississippi Divorce

Alimony is not awarded independently. It is awarded as part of a larger process, in which the marital property is identified, valued, and divided. You can read about that process in our Ultimate Guide to Dividing Assets in Divorce.

For the purpose of our examples and through this alimony section, we’ll use the situation of a husband paying alimony to a wife. Because in a majority of cases, we see it is the mother who has given up career opportunities to stay home with kids or work reduced/flexible hours. But we want to note, we recognize that this is not always the case in every family.

The very first thing you should know about alimony, the most important thing, is that judges have tremendous discretion when deciding whether to award alimony, and how much. Some states have rigid formulas that judges have to follow when calculating alimony. Mississippi does not.

Think twice about anybody who guarantees that you will receive (or that you will not have to pay) alimony. Accurately predicting what a judge is going to do on the alimony question in a particular case is one of the most difficult things that we do.

What can be predicted is a likely range of outcomes — that is, that alimony will probably be awarded somewhere between X and Y, and that it will last for thus-and-such number of months or years. But even so, you never really know.

That being said, a judge is required to review certain categories of evidence that will be discussed within this Guide. But before diving into the details, there are some “big picture features” of alimony that you should bear in mind.

We’ll say it again because this is really important: Alimony is not awarded independently. Think of alimony as one gear in a much larger machine. Alimony is awarded, or at least considered, by the judge as part of a larger process, in which the marital property is identified, valued, and divided. You can read about that process here.

By the time in the divorce process when a judge considers whether to award alimony, several things have already happened:

1. All of the assets have been identified and valued

2. The separate property has been segregated from the marital property

3. The separate property has been awarded to its owner.

4. The marital property has been divided and awarded to the husband and wife

5. The judge has decided that even after being awarded her fair share of the marital property, one spouse (usually the wife) has a deficit, and that this deficit might be addressed by awarding alimony

We point this out, because it is easy to lose sight of the fact that alimony is awarded in the context of property division. An important point: The more property that a spouse receives in the property division, the less her need for alimony.

At some point, a wife receives so much property and/or has so much income independently of alimony that she has no need for it. Think of alimony and property as opposite ends of a playground teeter-totter. The higher her share of the marital property and/or income, the lower her need for alimony. The lower her net worth and/or income, the higher her need for alimony.

There are a few other initial points to consider. Alimony is based not only on a wife’s need to receive alimony, but also on the husband’s ability to pay alimony. Especially in low-income situations, it is easy to prove that the wife needs alimony, but if the husband is already struggling to pay his bills, he has no income to pay alimony, so none will be ordered.

This can be heartbreaking in long-term marriages where the husband’s income is too low to justify an alimony award, despite the wife’s obvious need. There is nothing fair about a wife having to enter the workforce for the first time at age 60 when her husband is completely at fault in the breakup of the marriage. But if he simply cannot possibly pay alimony, the judge will not award it.