Maintenance for a spouse or civil partner is usually paid monthly as part of the overall financial settlement (see Maintenance for children for details of how their needs are met).

• It is designed to cover any shortfall between your needs and the income (including earning potential, bonuses, dividend, state benefits and from any other source) that one of you has.
• If there is any income left over after the needs of both of you have been met, extra maintenance can be ordered if the judge thinks the person receiving maintenance should benefit from that extra, for example as compensation for giving up a highly paid career to bring up the children.

Maintenance is paid until the first of you dies or for a fixed period of time, which in some cases can be extended. It is variable upwards as well as downwards. For example, it might be increased if the person paying it has a significant rise in income or reduced if he or she loses a job or retires. Maintenance can be reduced if the person receiving it gets a job or increases their own income.

Maintenance automatically comes to an end if the person receiving it remarries or enters into a civil partnership. It can end or be reduced if the person receiving it lives with a new partner for a period of time.

A drawback of maintenance is that you have a continuing connection with your spouse or civil partner after you have parted, rather than a 'clean break'.

If you receive maintenance you should consider insuring the payments so that you continue to receive an income after your spouse or civil partner's death.

Maintenance for a spouse or civil partner is called interim aliment up until the point of divorce and periodical allowance after divorce.

Maintenance up until the point of divorce is intended to cover any shortfall between the income (including earning potential, bonuses, dividends, state benefits and from any other source) you have and the amount you need.

Each spouse has an obligation to aliment the other up until the point of divorce. As the Scottish Courts usually provide for a clean break, maintenance often comes to an end on divorce, or an earlier financial settlement.

Maintenance after divorce is called periodical allowance and is paid either:-

• To allow one of you to adjust to the loss of the other's support after divorce;- or
• Where it can be demonstrated that one of you have suffered severe financial hardship as a result of the loss of support after divorce.

If maintenance is awarded to allow one of you to adjust to loss of support after divorce, this would be awarded for a maximum of three years. It can be awarded for less time, or not at all. It is only in very rare circumstances that maintenance will be awarded for a spouse until death or remarriage. Maintenance will only be awarded beyond the three year period if severe financial hardship can be shown, and that would be in circumstances where, for example, the spouse asking for maintenance after divorce can show that they have a long-term debilitating disease and insufficient other means of support.

Maintenance for a spouse or civil partner is usually paid monthly and part of the overall financial settlement (see Maintenance for children for details of how their needs are met).

• It is designed to cover any shortfall between your needs and the income (including earning potential, bonuses, dividend, state benefits and from any other source) that one of you has.
• If there is any income left over after the needs of both of you have been met, extra maintenance can be ordered if the judge thinks the person receiving maintenance should benefit from that extra, for example as compensation for giving up a highly paid career to bring up the children.

Maintenance is paid until the first of you dies or for a fixed period of time, which in some cases can be extended. It is variable upwards as well as downwards. For example, it might be increased if the person paying it has a significant rise in income or reduced if he or she loses a job or retires. Maintenance can be reduced if the person receiving it gets a job or increases their own income.

Maintenance automatically comes to an end if the person receiving it remarries or enters into a civil partnership. It can end or be reduced if the person receiving it lives with a new partner for a period of time.

A drawback of maintenance is that you have a continuing connection with your spouse or civil partner after you have parted, rather than a 'clean break'.

If you receive maintenance you should consider insuring the payments so that you continue to receive an income after your spouse or civil partner's death.