The wording of your decree decides more than the number does.
In several states a decree that is merely silent ends the court’s power for good. Here is every one of those rules we found, with the statute.
Almost every guide to alimony is about the amount. The amount is negotiable, reviewable, and in most states modifiable. What is very often not modifiable is a sentence somebody did or did not put in the decree.
This page is the other list. It is drawn from our fifty state alimony pages, each read against that state’s own statute or court rule, and it collects the places where the drafting — not the number — decides the outcome. Where a state has no rule of this kind, it is simply not on the list. That is a finding too.
Every row links to the state page it came from, where the section is quoted in full with the date we last read it.
OneSilence can end the court’s power permanently
These are the most consequential rules on this page, because nothing about them looks like a decision at the time. In each of these states the court loses the power to act later unless the decree does something specific now.
| State | What the statute does |
|---|---|
| Alabamas. 30-2-57(c) | The court “permanently loses jurisdiction” over alimony if the decree neither awards it nor reserves it. The question is decided once, at the decree, and cannot be reopened. |
| HawaiiHRS s. 580-47(a) | The power to award or revisit support after the divorce depends on the decree having reserved jurisdiction, “by agreement of both parties or by order of court after finding that good cause exists”. The same trap as Alabama’s, reached by different drafting. |
| OhioR.C. 3105.18(E), (F)(2) | For a divorce determined on or after 1 January 1991 the court “does not have jurisdiction to modify” unless circumstances changed and the decree or incorporated agreement specifically authorizes modification. Both. And (F)(2) forbids the court to modify its own reserved jurisdiction later absent agreement. |
| Kansasthe 121-month cap | A single award cannot exceed 121 months, and the reinstatement mechanism works only if the original decree reserved the power and each successive motion is filed before the current term runs out. Miss the deadline and the jurisdiction is gone. |
| Virginiareservation of the right | A reservation of the right to seek support later carries its own presumptive duration — 50 per cent of the time between the date of marriage and the date of separation — and once granted, its duration cannot be modified. |
“If my circumstances change in five years, does this decree let a judge do anything about it?” In these five states that is a question about a specific clause, not about fairness, and the answer after the decree is entered is final.
TwoNothing ends by itself unless the decree says so
The belief that support stops on death, remarriage or retirement is close to universal. In these states the statute does not supply that rule, or supplies it more narrowly than people assume.
| State | What is actually missing |
|---|---|
| Kansas | No statutory termination on death or on remarriage. A Kansas decree that says nothing about those events has not, on the face of the statutes, provided for them. |
| OhioR.C. 3105.18 | The words “remarriage”, “remarries” and “cohabitation” do not appear in the section at all. The only stated termination is on death, and even that is a default the order can displace. |
| NevadaNRS 125.150(6) | The termination provision ends “all the payments required by the decree” on death or remarriage — but its subject is the spouse “to whom specified periodic payments were to be made”. An award made as a specified principal sum sits outside those words. |
| Wisconsinss. 767.58(1r)(c), 767.59(3) | Remarriage does not end maintenance by itself. It obliges the payee to notify the court and the payer within 10 business days, and obliges the court to vacate the order on application or on receiving that notice. Wisconsin has no cohabitation provision at all in its maintenance sections. |
| Connecticuts. 46b-82(b) | Death and remarriage are referred to as something a court may order, not as a rule that operates of itself. Cohabitation is the one living-arrangement event the chapter addresses, and it is a ground to modify rather than an automatic end. |
| CaliforniaFam. Code ss. 4337, 4323 | Death and remarriage do terminate, unless the parties agreed otherwise in writing. But cohabitation only shifts a burden, and there is no statutory retirement trigger at all. |
The contrast that makes the point
Massachusetts is the one state in this set where reaching a defined retirement age terminates the obligation by force of statute rather than merely opening the door to a motion — and the definition at s. 48 is drawn tight: not early retirement, not delayed retirement, but the payor’s Social Security full retirement age. Virginia legislated it too, as a material change as a matter of law, again excluding early retirement age.
Everywhere else, retirement is an argument. If it matters to you, it belongs in the decree.
ThreeThe label on the award decides what can be done to it
In these states the practical question is not what the number is. It is which box the award goes in — and in several of them the statute puts the duty to say so on the decree itself.
| State | What has to be designated, and what turns on it |
|---|---|
| Missouris. 452.335.3 | “The maintenance order shall state if it is modifiable or nonmodifiable.” An order stated to be nonmodifiable with a termination date cannot afterwards be decreased, increased, terminated, extended or otherwise modified. |
| Illinoiss. 5/504(b-2)(3) | The judgment must designate the award fixed-term, indefinite, reviewable or reserved. The label is part of the judgment and controls what can be done later. A “reserved” judgment keeps the claim alive without ordering any money. |
| Oklahoma43 O.S. s. 134(A) | The court “shall plainly state, at the time of entering the original decree”, the dollar amount of each payment designated as support and the amount that is a property division payment. That designation, not the label the parties use, decides whether the payment can ever be modified. |
| Tennessee | The class decides everything. Transitional alimony is presumptively non-modifiable; alimony in solido is non-modifiable and survives both death and remarriage; alimony in futuro is fully modifiable and ends automatically on remarriage. |
| New Mexico | Five named award types, with modifiability and survival of death keyed to which one the court picked. Rehabilitative and transitional support can be made nonmodifiable by express designation; indefinite support cannot. One type survives the recipient’s death. |
| South Carolinas. 20-3-130(B)(2) | Six forms, each with its own termination and modification rule. Lump-sum alimony survives the recipient’s remarriage — it ends “only upon the death of the supported spouse” and is “not terminable or modifiable based upon remarriage or changed circumstances in the future.” The opposite of the ordinary rule. |
| Maryland | A warning in the other direction. “Rehabilitative alimony” is not a statutory category — the word does not appear anywhere in Family Law ss. 11-101 to 11-112. It is the practicing name for an ordinary fixed-term award, and the label carries no separate statutory test. |
FourWhat cannot be undone once it is signed
Some terms are one-way doors by statute. These are the ones we found written in those words.
| State | The one-way door |
|---|---|
| Wisconsins. 767.59(1c)(b) | “A court may not revise or modify a judgment or order that waives maintenance payments for either party.” So a maintenance award of $0 held open and a waiver of maintenance are two entirely different outcomes in a Wisconsin judgment — and they can look almost identical on the page. |
| CaliforniaFam. Code ss. 3651(d), 3591(c) | Support may not be modified or terminated to the extent a written agreement, or an oral agreement entered in open court, specifically provides that it is not subject to modification. |
| Connecticuts. 46b-86(a) | Non-modifiable alimony is expressly permitted, and the authority is the section’s opening words: “Unless and to the extent that the decree precludes modification”. Particular contingencies can also be frozen by agreement. |
| Massachusettss. 49(e) | One-way finality: alimony cannot be reinstated after the recipient remarries except by the parties’ express written agreement. Remarriage is a harder stop than cohabitation, which under s. 49(d)(2) can be reinstated. |
| Missouris. 452.335.3 | See above. Nonmodifiable plus a termination date is final in both directions — it cannot be increased either. |
“Which terms in this document can never be changed, by anyone, for any reason?” That is a short list in every decree, and it should be a deliberate one.
FiveYour own agreement can displace the statute
This cuts both ways, and it is the reason a settlement is worth reading with more care than a judgment. In these states the parties’ own words beat the statutory rule.
| State | How far the agreement reaches |
|---|---|
| Connecticuts. 46b-86(b), closing sentence | Where the judgment incorporates the parties’ own agreement about what modifies or ends alimony, “the court shall enforce the provision of such agreement”. Your trigger replaces the statute’s financial-needs test entirely. |
| New JerseyL.2014, c.42, s. 2 | The 2014 reform is expressly non-retroactive as to duration and bargained terms: it “shall not be construed either to modify the duration of alimony ordered or agreed upon or other specifically bargained for contractual provisions” already in a final judgment or enforceable written agreement. A pre-2014 New Jersey permanent alimony judgment keeps its duration. |
| ArizonaAdmin. Order 2023-119 | Whether the Guidelines apply at all can be reversed by stipulation, in both directions — they apply to petitions filed on or after 24 September 2022 “unless the parties stipulate otherwise”, and do not apply to earlier ones “unless the parties stipulate otherwise.” |
| MarylandFam. Law s. 11-112 | The exception that proves the rule. This is the one place in Title 11 where a Maryland court may override the parties’ own settlement — the section opens “notwithstanding any agreement between the parties”, and it applies where two or more physicians competent in psychiatry testify that a party is permanently and incurably insane. |
SixDates that split a state’s law in two
In these states, two cases with identical facts are decided under different law depending on one date. If your matter is near a line, it is worth knowing which side you are on — and in one of them, the choice is still open.
| State | The line | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Florida | 1 July 2023 | Permanent alimony abolished by ch. 2023-315. Reaches initial petitions pending or filed on that date — but not an award already entered. |
| California | 1 Jan 2026 | SB 711. California did not conform to the federal alimony tax change for instruments executed 2019 through 2025; it does for instruments executed on or after this date. Two orders signed either side have different California treatment for the life of the order. |
| Arizona | 24 Sept 2022 | Administrative Order 2023-119: the Guidelines apply to petitions with an original filing date on or after this date and not to earlier ones, either way subject to stipulation. Two bodies of Arizona law are running at the same time. |
| New Jersey | 2014 | L.2014, c.42 replaced “permanent alimony” with “open durational alimony” — and left the old term standing in the termination section, 2A:34-25. |
| Illinois | 1 Jan 2019 | Illinois runs two maintenance formulas side by side: the current one stated in net income, and a parallel gross-income formula preserved at s. 5/504(b-1)(1)(A-1) for modifying pre-2019 orders that kept the old tax treatment. |
| Vermont | 1 Jan 2019 | 2019 Act No. 40 lowered every band of the statutory guideline table and applies to actions filed on or after this date. The 20-year-plus band went from 30–50% to 24–41%. |
| Utah | 1 May 2024 | The standard-of-living equalization presumption “may not be applied to or used as the basis to modify an alimony award if the petition for divorce was filed before May 1, 2024.” Utah also recodified in 2024: anything citing Utah Code 30-3-5 is citing a repealed section number. |
And the one that is not a date at all
Alabama rewrote its cohabitation definition by Act 2022-430, and the definition now covers “a private heterosexual or homosexual relationship”. Published summaries still quote the earlier opposite-sex wording. If a cohabitation clause in an Alabama decree was drafted from a summary rather than from the statute, it may be describing a rule that no longer exists.
SevenSix questions to take into the room
Not advice, and not a substitute for a lawyer who knows your file. These are the questions this page exists to make askable.
| Ask | Because |
|---|---|
| 1 | Does this decree reserve the court’s power to revisit support? In Alabama, Hawaii, Ohio, Kansas and Virginia the answer decides whether a judge can ever act again. |
| 2 | What ends this, in writing? Do not assume death, remarriage, cohabitation or retirement are covered. In several states they are not. |
| 3 | What is this award called, and what does that name do? In Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, Tennessee, New Mexico and South Carolina the classification controls everything that follows. |
| 4 | Which terms here can never be changed? A Wisconsin waiver and a $0 award held open look similar and are not. |
| 5 | Is the tax treatment right for the state, not just the federal return? Four states do not follow the federal rule: Arkansas, California, New Jersey and New York. |
| 6 | Which side of a dividing date is my matter on? And if it is close, does anything turn on when the petition is filed? |
How this page was made, and what is not on it
This is a compilation, not new research. Every row is drawn from our own state alimony page for that state, where the section is quoted at greater length with the date we last read it against the state’s own statute, court rule or official publication. Follow the state link for the full text and the source.
States are absent from a section because we did not find a rule of that kind, not because there is none. We compiled this from what fifty state pages say; we did not re-read fifty statutes looking for traps we might have missed. Where a state page is marked partial, or where we could not confirm something from an official source, that is said on the state page and it is not converted into a claim here.
No case law is cited anywhere on this page. Several of these rules have been interpreted by appellate courts, and those interpretations matter enormously. We quote statutes because statutes are what we have read from primary sources. If we have something wrong, tell us — corrections are published with the date and how long the error was live.
The companion page, and it is the other half of this. This page is about state alimony law and the words in your decree. Before you sign is about the things that are simply missing from an agreement that looks finished — the retirement order that has to exist separately and is different for every kind of plan, the sixty-day health insurance clock, the fact that a decree does not bind the bank. Between them they cover the two ways a settlement goes wrong without anybody arguing about the number.
Where else to go. Every state’s full alimony page is linked from the row it appears in above. The fifty-state comparison of what it costs to file is at what a divorce costs, and the forms and deadlines for your state are in the divorce kits.
Free, no account, nothing to sign up for. If somebody you know is about to sign, the six questions in section seven are the part to send them.
The Cusp is not a law firm and does not provide legal, financial, or tax advice. This page quotes and summarizes state statutes; it is not advice about any particular case, and whether a given rule applies to you depends on facts this page cannot know — including case law that this page does not cite. Anyone about to sign a decree should have a lawyer in their own state read it. How this site makes money is published in full.