Modifying child support and spousal support

1) Does it matter for purposes of child support and spousal support whether one of us remarries or has more children? The child-centered answer is “Take care of the family you have before you go make another one.” The law-based answer is “Yes, your child support can go down if you have a change of circumstance.” It’s hard to make the case that you’ve loved your children unconditionally if as soon as you could, you went out and made a new family and used that family to justify paying your first family less.

2) What if one of us has a job change or job loss? Voluntarily deciding to quit your job or to go from being a surgeon to being a newspaper delivery person is manipulative, fraudulent, and harmful to your children. Legitimate job changes are quite another story, and they can qualify as a change of circumstance that would cause child support or spousal support to be modified.

3) Is cohabitation considered the same way as remarriage for purposes of child support and spousal support? Don’t be greedy. If the purpose of spousal support is to contribute to your standard of living and you now have a new partner who is doing so, don’t try to live better than you’re entitled to. But here’s nothing in the law that mandates the end of child support or spousal support upon cohabitation or remarriage.

4) Does having a tenant count as cohabitation? If you’re just trying to shack up with your boyfriend or girlfriend, collect a dollar a month from him or her as token rent, and slide under the spousal support radar, think again. Having a tenant who can share the rent is a good idea if you need help with the expenses, but you have to be sure that he or she is a solid citizen and a good financial risk.

5) What happens when we have more than one child and one child stops receiving child support? The child-centered answer is to sit down and recalculate the budget for the newly-constituted family. The law-centered answer is to go back to the child support calculator and plug in numbers. The wrong answer is simply to reduce the child support by a half or a third or however many children you have left in the home.