Filing for alimony after a divorce is final is possible in narrow circumstances, and your divorce decree decides almost everything. If the decree reserved the court’s authority to address spousal support later, you can ask for it now by showing your circumstances warrant it. If the decree waived alimony or didn’t mention it, your only realistic path is to ask the court to reopen the original judgment, and that comes with a strict deadline.
Start With What Your Decree Says
Pull a certified copy of your divorce decree and find the section on spousal support. What it says puts you in one of three positions.
Express Waiver
If both spouses signed language stating that each party waives any right to current or future spousal support, that waiver is almost always permanent. Courts treat it as a negotiated trade. You may have taken a larger share of property, kept the house, or accepted some other concession in exchange for giving up alimony, and courts rarely allow anyone to undo that bargain unless the agreement itself was the product of fraud or duress.
Reservation of Jurisdiction
This is the opening you want. The decree might say the court “reserves jurisdiction over spousal support” or “retains the right to address maintenance at a future date.” That language means neither party waived alimony; the court simply deferred the decision. Courts commonly reserve jurisdiction when one spouse’s ability to become self-sufficient was uncertain at the time of divorce, such as when a spouse was finishing a degree or recovering from a health issue. With a reservation in place, you can file a motion to establish support if you can show circumstances now warrant it.
Decree Silent on Alimony
If the decree doesn’t mention spousal support at all, the answer depends on where you live. A majority of states treat silence as an implied waiver, reasoning that if neither party raised the issue during the divorce, both forfeited the right. Some jurisdictions allow a post-divorce request under limited circumstances. This is the category where advice from a family law attorney in your state matters most, because local law controls the outcome.
If Jurisdiction Was Reserved: Proving a Substantial Change
An open door isn’t an award. When jurisdiction is reserved, a court still needs a legally recognized reason to act, and the standard is a substantial change in circumstances since the divorce. Courts set a high bar. The change must be real, involuntary, and significant enough that the original outcome no longer fits. Common examples include:
- Involuntary job loss or a major pay cut. Layoffs and company closures count. Quitting voluntarily almost never does.
- A serious illness or disability that meaningfully limits your ability to work, especially one requiring ongoing treatment or producing permanent limitations.
- Retirement of the higher-earning spouse at a typical retirement age, in good faith.
- Failure to become self-supporting despite reasonable efforts, when the divorce contemplated that you would gain skills or education and become self-sufficient.
A voluntary reduction in income, a lifestyle upgrade that strains your budget, or general dissatisfaction with the original deal won’t clear the threshold. Courts expect proof that the change was outside your control and that you’ve made reasonable efforts to support yourself.
If the Decree Waived or Ignored Alimony: Setting Aside the Judgment
When the decree waived alimony or didn’t reserve jurisdiction, your only realistic option is to attack the original judgment itself. You file a motion asking the court to set aside or reopen the spousal support portion of the decree because something went wrong the first time. Recognized grounds include:
- Fraud, such as an ex-spouse who hid assets, concealed income, or made material misrepresentations on financial disclosures.
- Duress, meaning you were pressured, threatened, or coerced into signing the agreement.
- Mistake or excusable neglect, such as a significant error in the proceedings, including incorrect financial information that neither party caught.
Most post-divorce alimony attempts fail here. Courts strongly favor the finality of divorce judgments, and the burden of proof falls on the person asking to reopen the case.
The Deadline You Can’t Miss
Motions to set aside a judgment run against a clock. Most state courts follow a framework modeled on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), which allows relief from a final judgment for specific reasons but imposes strict deadlines.1Legal Information Institute. 28a US Code Court Rule 60 – Relief from a Judgment or Order
Under this framework, motions based on fraud, mistake, or newly discovered evidence must be filed no more than one year after the judgment was entered. Motions based on other grounds must be filed within a “reasonable time,” which courts interpret on the facts. Some states modify these deadlines, but the one-year window for fraud is the most common baseline. If you suspect your ex-spouse hid assets during the divorce, talk to a lawyer promptly instead of gathering more evidence on your own. Missing the deadline ends the claim, no matter how strong the evidence.
Remarriage and Cohabitation Can End the Claim Before It Starts
If you’ve remarried since the divorce, your chances of collecting alimony from your former spouse drop to nearly zero in most states. The overwhelming majority of jurisdictions terminate alimony automatically when the recipient remarries, on the theory that a new spouse now shares the financial obligation. In many states, this termination happens by operation of law without anyone filing anything.
Cohabitation is a separate but related issue. In many states, living with a new romantic partner can also end or reduce alimony, though the process usually requires the paying spouse to file a motion and prove that the cohabitation has meaningfully reduced the recipient’s financial need. Even in states without a specific cohabitation statute, the paying spouse can argue that shared living expenses amount to a substantial change in circumstances.
The paying spouse’s remarriage generally does not terminate their obligation. A payer who remarries must keep paying unless they can show the new marriage has produced a genuine financial hardship justifying modification.
What Courts Weigh on the Merits
If you clear the procedural hurdles, the judge evaluates the same factors used in any alimony case: each spouse’s financial need and earning capacity, the standard of living during the marriage, the length of the marriage, contributions like homemaking and childcare, career sacrifices made for the other spouse, and any history of domestic violence. A two-year marriage rarely supports post-divorce alimony; a twenty-year marriage is a different story. A post-divorce request also faces more skepticism than one raised during the divorce itself, so the evidence supporting your need has to be strong.
How to File
You file your petition or motion with the clerk of the court that handled the original divorce. The filing should include a certified copy of the decree, a current financial affidavit listing income, expenses, assets, and debts, and evidence supporting your legal grounds. For changed circumstances, that means documents like medical records, termination letters, or proof of disability. For fraud, it means financial records, emails, or other evidence of concealment.
After filing, you must formally serve your ex-spouse through a neutral third party, typically a professional process server or a sheriff’s deputy, not personally. The court needs proof of service before it will schedule anything further.
What It Costs
Filing fees for family court motions typically range from roughly $50 to $400 depending on your jurisdiction. Process server fees usually run between $20 and $100. The real expense is legal representation. Family law attorneys charge anywhere from $250 to $500 or more per hour depending on your market and the attorney’s experience, and a contested post-divorce alimony case can involve significant preparation, discovery, and court time. Some courts require mediation before a hearing, which adds cost and time but can lead to a faster resolution than a full trial.