Under Illinois divorce law, a court granting a divorce decree can order one of the parties to pay maintenance, which is also known as "alimony" or "spousal support" to the other party. Whereas alimony was the norm in divorce 50 years ago, these days only a minority of divorce judgments include a provision for maintenance, and it is far more common for the judge to order maintenance to end after 3 to 5 years, than for the payments to continue for the rest of the recipient’s life time.
Furthermore, in most cases either party can bring a motion before the court to modify the amount of maintenance or the duration of the payment based on a change of financial circumstances. A wife paying alimony for example may ask for a decrease in the amount of maintenance, because she is forced into early retirement and can no longer afford to pay. Or she may ask for a decrease, because her husband finds a good job and no longer needs financial help to maintain his standard of living.
One thing the party asking for a modification should keep in mind, is that the change can only be effective as of the date he or she sends notice of the motion to the other party.
The mistake that a divorce lawyer often sees is that a husband loses his job and merely quits paying his former wife, because he no longer has the funds. In this case the amount due continues to mount up, and when he finally petitions the court for a reduction of maintenance, he will already owe a substantial arrearage, which the judge might have reduced, if the husband had asked for the reduction, when he first became unemployed. Unfortunately, it will then be too late for the court to reduce any of his liability, which became due prior to the date he sent out a notice of his motion.
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