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At Mattox Wilson, we regularly meet with clients who wish they had reached out to us sooner about spousal support. The timing of when you hire an attorney can directly impact the financial outcome of your divorce and your ability to maintain stability during one of life’s most challenging transitions.
Indiana handles spousal maintenance (also commonly referred to as alimony or spousal support) differently than many other states and understanding these unique aspects early in the process gives you a significant advantage. We’ve seen firsthand how early legal guidance can mean the difference between securing adequate support and struggling financially for years to come.
If you need assistance seeking spousal maintenance or if you have received a request for spousal maintenance, we invite you to call our office at 812-944-8005 to schedule a consultation with an experienced spousal support attorney.
No, Indiana does not automatically award spousal support in divorce cases. Unlike states with formulas that calculate alimony based on income differences and marriage length, Indiana courts evaluate each situation individually based on specific qualifying circumstances.
This is precisely why early legal representation matters. We need time to build a compelling case that demonstrates your need and your spouse’s ability to pay. The court will only award maintenance if an individual meets certain statutory criteria, which we’ll help establish through proper documentation and presentation.
Indiana recognizes three primary types of spousal maintenance:
If you’re unsure whether your situation qualifies for spousal support, contact us at Mattox Wilson for a confidential consultation. We’ll review your circumstances and provide clear guidance on your options.
Contact us immediately when you or your spouse decides to pursue divorce, or as soon as a separation begins. Waiting can cost you in multiple ways.
Once a petition for dissolution is filed in Indiana, a mandatory 60-day waiting period begins before the court can finalize a divorce. We use this time strategically to:
We have represented clients who waited to seek legal help, only to discover their spouse had depleted bank accounts, transferred assets, or taken other steps that complicated their case. By the time they reached out to us, undoing the damage required additional time, expense, and legal maneuvering that could have been prevented.
Yes, and securing this temporary support (often called provisional maintenance) is one of the most important reasons to hire us early in the process.
During the divorce proceedings, you may need immediate financial assistance to pay rent, utilities, groceries, and other living expenses. Indiana courts can order temporary spousal maintenance to help maintain a reasonable standard of living while a case moves forward.
However, these temporary orders don’t happen automatically. We must file the proper motions, present evidence of your need and your spouse’s ability to pay, and advocate for you at a hearing. The sooner we begin this process, the sooner you can receive the financial support you need.
Temporary maintenance serves several purposes:
Don’t struggle financially while your divorce proceeds. Call Mattox Wilson today at 812-944-8005 to discuss temporary support options. We’ll move quickly to help you secure the resources you need.
Reach out to us immediately if you notice unusual financial activity, accounts you can’t access, unexplained transfers, or any indication your spouse is concealing assets or income.
In our practice, we’ve encountered numerous tactics spouses use to hide marital property, including:
The longer these activities continue without legal intervention, the harder they become to trace and recover. When you hire us early, we can:
Indiana courts consider all marital assets when making property division and spousal support decisions. If your spouse successfully hides significant assets or income, it can directly reduces what you receive in both property settlement and ongoing support.
Significant income differences between spouses create one of the strongest arguments for rehabilitative maintenance, but only if we present your case properly.
If your spouse earns substantially more than you do, or if you sacrificed your career to raise children or support your spouse’s professional advancement, you may qualify for support that gives you time to become financially independent.
Indiana courts particularly consider:
In our experience representing clients at Mattox Wilson, we have found that courts respond well to specific, realistic plans for rehabilitation. Rather than vague requests for support, our dedicated spousal maintenance lawyers work with clients to develop detailed proposals showing exactly how they will use the maintenance period to gain employment skills or education that will make the individual self-supporting.
This approach requires time to develop properly. We may need to consult with vocational specialists, research training programs, and calculate realistic timelines for your transition to financial independence.
If there’s a significant income gap in your marriage, don’t assume the court will automatically understand your need. Contact Mattox Wilson to build a compelling case for rehabilitative maintenance.
Indiana law strictly limits rehabilitative maintenance to three years, though courts can extend other forms of maintenance in certain circumstances. For example, caregiver maintenance may be awarded if a spouse is the custodian of an incapacitated child, making working impossible.[1] As another example, if a spouse is physically or mentally incapacitated and unable to work, a court may order incapacity maintenance that extends past three years. The relatively short window for rehabilitative maintenance makes it critical that we get the initial order right.
We have seen clients receive inadequate maintenance awards because they did not have legal representation to properly calculate and justify their needs. Once the court issues a final order, changing it requires proving a “substantial and continuing change in circumstances,” which sets a high bar.
When we represent you, we carefully calculate:
We also document why the requested duration is necessary and reasonable. Courts are more likely to grant adequate support when they understand the specific path an individual will follow to self-sufficiency.
Remember, rehabilitative maintenance ends when the specified period expires or when a person remarries (it also terminates upon death). We need to ensure the initial award provides sufficient time and resources to complete training and establish stable employment.
Physical or mental incapacity that prevents self-support forms the basis for incapacity maintenance, which unlike rehabilitative support, can continue indefinitely as long as the condition persists.
If you or your spouse has health conditions affecting earning capacity, we need to gather substantial medical documentation to support a maintenance claim. This includes:
Indiana courts take these cases seriously, but they require proper medical foundation. We work with healthcare providers to ensure the court understands the full impact of the condition on our client’s ability to earn income.
Similarly, if you are caring for a child with a physical or mental incapacity that prevents you from working, Indiana law recognizes this as grounds for caregiver maintenance. We’ll help document the child’s needs and the time and attention required for their care.
Health-related maintenance cases require careful preparation and presentation. Call Mattox Wilson to discuss how we can build a strong case based on your specific medical situation.
Absolutely. Never sign any separation agreements, maintenance proposals, or divorce documents without having an attorney review them first.
As New Albany spousal maintenance attorneys with decades of experience, we regularly consult with people who signed agreements without legal representation, only to discover they:
Once you sign an agreement, it becomes much harder (and sometimes impossible) to change the terms, even if you later realize they are unfair or unworkable. Indiana courts generally enforce agreements parties enter voluntarily, assuming both sides understood what they were signing.
At Mattox Wilson, we review proposed agreements with a critical eye toward:
Even if you and your spouse are trying to work things out amicably, having legal review protects both parties and helps ensure the agreement will hold up in court.
When you and your spouse can no longer have productive conversations about finances, it is time to let us handle the negotiations.
We understand that divorce brings out strong emotions. Financial discussions can quickly become heated, especially when one spouse feels entitled to keep everything while the other faces financial uncertainty. Some spouses use money as a control mechanism, threatening to withhold support or making negotiations deliberately difficult.
In these situations, having an experienced spousal maintenance attorney communicate on your behalf:
We have represented clients whose spouses made threats about finances, claimed there was “no money” for support while maintaining expensive lifestyles, or simply refused to engage in any discussion about maintenance. In each case, we used legal tools to compel disclosure, protect our client’s interests, and move the case forward when cooperation wasn’t possible.
If financial discussions with your spouse have become impossible or intimidating, don’t try to handle it alone. Contact Mattox Wilson and let our tenacious spousal maintenance lawyers advocate for you.
Modification of spousal maintenance in Indiana is possible, but it requires showing a substantial and continuing change in circumstances that was not anticipated when the original order was issued.
This high standard makes it crucial that we get the initial order right. Courts will not modify maintenance simply because an individual wishes they had negotiated better terms or because minor changes have occurred in income or expenses.
Examples of changes that might justify modification include:
However, normal fluctuations in income, predictable career progression, or circumstances that existed but were not properly presented during the original case typically will not support modification.
We have handled modification cases on both sides, representing people seeking to change support orders and defending against modification attempts. These cases can be complex and expensive. The better approach is thorough preparation and negotiation at the outset to create an order that accurately reflects the circumstances and accounts for foreseeable changes.
In our years of practice at Mattox Wilson, we’ve observed a clear pattern: clients who hire us early in the divorce process consistently achieve better financial outcomes than those who wait.
Early representation allows us to:
Protect your rights from day one. Once you involve us, we immediately take steps to preserve assets, document income and expenses, and prevent spouses from taking actions that could harm a case.
The reality is that spousal maintenance cases involve complex factual and legal issues. Indiana’s case-by-case approach means every detail matters. We need time to understand your unique situation, develop your narrative, and present your case in the most favorable light possible.
Timing matters in spousal support cases. The decisions you make today and the speed at which you secure legal representation may directly impact your financial security for years to come.
At Mattox Wilson, we understand the financial anxiety that accompanies divorce. We have helped countless clients navigate Indiana’s spousal maintenance laws to achieve outcomes that provide stability and hope for the future.
Whether you are just beginning to consider divorce, in the middle of proceedings, or facing difficulties in an existing support arrangement, we’re here to help.
Contact Mattox Wilson today for a confidential consultation. Call us at 812-944-8005 to schedule an appointment. Don’t wait until options narrow or opportunities pass. Let us start protecting your financial future right now.
[1] See Coleman v. Atchison, 9 N.E.3d. 224 (2014).