The divorce was finalized in 2023 with a clear agreement in place. He would pay two and a half years of alimony, and the court had already addressed his ex-wife’s employment situation by imputing income to her at minimum wage after finding she was able-bodied and capable of working. She hadn’t held a job since 2021. The imputed income was the court’s way of acknowledging that her earning capacity existed even if she wasn’t using it.
That was two years ago. She still hasn’t worked. Now she’s back in court seeking an increase in both child support and alimony, and he’s trying to figure out whether a judge will look at five years of voluntary unemployment and hold it against the increase request or simply adjust the numbers and send him back to work.
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What He’s Willing to Accept and What He Isn’t
He’s separated the two requests in his own mind and landed in different places on each. The child support increase he can accept. Kids cost more as they get older, circumstances change, and he understands that child support adjustments happen. What he can’t reconcile is the idea of paying more alimony to someone who hasn’t worked in over five years while he puts in six-day weeks to cover his own bills and the obligations from the divorce.
The original alimony agreement was built around a version of the situation that included a court finding she could work. That finding didn’t change her behavior. She hasn’t entered the workforce, hasn’t documented any barrier to employment, and is now asking for more financial support from a man who is already working as hard as he can to meet what he already owes.
Whether the Judge Can Push Back
Alimony modification is possible in most states when there’s been a material change in circumstances since the original order. The argument he has available is that her continued refusal to seek employment despite being found capable of working represents exactly that kind of change, or at minimum, a reason the court should decline to increase what she receives.
The imputed income finding from the earlier family court proceeding is a meaningful piece of his case. It establishes that a judge already looked at her situation, determined she was capable of supporting herself at least at minimum wage, and factored that into the existing support structure. If she’s now asking for more while still not working five years later, that prior finding gives his attorney something concrete to point to.
Whether the judge reduces, holds steady, or increases the alimony depends heavily on state law, the specific terms of their agreement, and how the court weighs her employment history against whatever she argues justifies the increase. Some states take voluntary underemployment seriously in alimony modification hearings. Others give more weight to the original agreement and are reluctant to reduce below what was negotiated.
What the Timeline Looks Like
The alimony agreement was for two and a half years, which means it’s running out sometime in the next several months depending on when payments started. If the termination date is close, contesting the increase becomes more pressing because any upward adjustment the court grants now extends or expands an obligation that was almost finished.
He should be tracking that timeline carefully and making sure his attorney is framing the proximity of the end date as part of the argument against an increase. A judge considering whether to extend or raise alimony payments for someone who hasn’t worked since 2021 and was already found capable of employment is a different conversation than a modification request filed years before the agreement was set to end.
What He’s Really Up Against
The frustration underneath this situation is straightforward. He made an agreement based on a set of circumstances. The court backed him up by imputing income to reflect what his ex-wife should be earning. She responded by continuing to not work, and now the financial structure built around her theoretical earning capacity is being revisited in her favor while the underlying behavior that made it necessary hasn’t changed at all.
Whether the court sees it that way depends on how aggressively he makes that argument and how receptive the judge is to holding a capable adult accountable for choosing not to work. It’s not a guaranteed outcome in his favor, but it’s a legitimate argument with prior court findings to back it up.
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