Legal Question in Family Law in Massachusetts

Alimony cessation

I was married for 22 years, am the mother of 4 children and my occupation is that of a registered nurse. During my marriage I financed my ex-husband's education through medical school, internship, residency and fellowship, working 40-60 hrs.per week.When we had our first child, I decreased my hours to care for my children at home. I returned to work on a part-time basis and became actively involved in my children's academics,sports and extra-curricular activities. The divorce was the result of a physically abusive relationship. My divorce was in 1998. The alimony given to me was 3,643.75. One year ago, my ex-husband filed a motion to cease my alimony. The decision of the court was to afford me 6 months of alimony at 1000.00 per month and to cease at 6 months. At the time I was representing myself, since I had no funds. I paid my attorney 40,000.00 in fees, yet I feel she truly failed. Two days before the court ruled on this, I retained a lawyer who had minimal experience, did nothave an idea of previous events, and because my ex is very powerful being chief of anesthesia at a major hospital, making an income of 14,000.00 per week motion was accepted. Is there any recourse which I can take to regain alimony?


Asked on 12/29/05, 1:16 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Raymond P. Bilodeau Law Office of Raymond P. Bilodeau

Re: Alimony cessation

Your question is confusing. You say you represented yourself, but you paid your attorney $40,000 and retained a lawyer just 2 days before the hearing.

You say nothing about your income or any child support.

You say nothing about the evidence presented in court.

And you say it was a year ago.

You have to know it would have been better to appeal the judge's decision a year ago, and the time for appeal has passed, You have to know if you are in a battle with an influential ex who probably has excellent legal counsel that representing yourself is not likely to provide a good outcome, and retaining counsel just before the hearing is not the best idea. You don't say if your attorney asked for a continuance to get a better handle on the case, or if the motion was denied, presumably because you had asked for or been given continuances before.

I have to say that it is unlikely you will be able to do anything about the alimony decision. If there has been a change in your circumstances since the order to cease the alimony, you may be entitled to return to court and ask for alimony to be reinstated, but this is done rarely.

It will take a very good experienced attorney to even attempt this, and it will be expensive.

If you can show he misstated his income or other financial information and you just found this out and could not have found it out in time for the hearing, that would be another avenue to reinstate the alimony, but again expensive and difficult to prove.

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Answered on 12/29/05, 2:19 pm


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