Legal Question in Family Law in Maryland

Child support is based on the respective incomes of the parents. The income of a step-parent is not added to the parent's income in calculating support. However, two caveats. First, the court can impute income to a parent who is underemployed or voluntarily impoverished. If you are unemployed for legitimate health reasons, that should not be an issue. Second, if someone else is supporting you (e.g. your new husband) the court has discretion to treat that support as income to you. The issue was first addressed in the case of Petrini v. Petrini, where the father in a child support case was not working, and he in turn lived rent-free in a home owned by his parent. The court treated the fair rental value of the home as income to the father in calculating his child support obligation. In your case, there is at least an argument to be made that if your husband is supporting you, some portion of the household expenses he pays should be treated as income to you. But with your son already 17 years of age, is child support really likely to become an issue?