Modifying Alimony

As to modifying an alimony obligation, it is the public policy of New Jersey that the legal obligation of the supporting spouse is superseded and ends on the remarriage of the dependent spouse. In effect, the new marriage bond itself creates a change of circumstances that the Legislature deemed sufficiently fundamental and important to require the automatic termination of alimony. The legal obligation of post-divorce alimony is derived from the antecedent marriage; a new marriage supplants that obligation. Gayet v. Gayet, 92 N.J. 149, 151, 456 A.2d 102 (1983). Hence, remarriage justifies the termination of alimony without regard to the economic circumstances of the dependent spouse who has remarried.” Konzelman v. Konzelman, 158 N.J. 185, 729 A. 2d 7 (N.J., 1999).

For more information about your rights in divorce, please contact Chuck Vuotto at cvuotto@starrgern.com or by phone at his Roseland, NJ office (973) 403-9200. You may also read more articles on divorce at vuotto.com