The short answer is you could wind up with lifetime or permeant maintenance. The longer, more complex answer is it depends on how long have you been married and what are the circumstances that lead up to that? No matter your age, its not in statute but per our case law if you have been married five years or less in Washington the odds are you won’t get anything more than temporary maintenance while the divorce is ongoing. On the opposite end of the spectrum let’s say you were married 25 years or more and if you gave up your career for decades n support of your other spouse and I’m saying other spouse as opposed to husband or wife ‘cause its gender neutral.

You could have a husband, for example, who gives up his career in support of his wife and if he does so, lets’ say for 20 years and is now over 50 and unable through whatever the circumstance may be to restart even with an education his career then depending on what the retirement assets are of if it’s a pending that pays for life then yes, its possible to get lifetime maintenance. The rule of thumb that a lot of lawyer’s use is that for every three to five years of marriage you can expect one year of spousal maintenance. Now sometimes you’ll take less maintenance for a bigger division of the assets because financially we’ve determined that’s more expedient for everybody. Sometimes you’ll do more in maintenance and less in assets because maybe the assets are indivisible.