Spousal maintenance is the part of a Washington divorce with no formula, and most of what’s online about it is another state’s law or a guess. This guide is for the spouse who hasn’t been the earner: you stayed home, or worked part time, or built your spouse’s career instead of your own, and now you’re looking at a divorce with real assets on the table and no paycheck of your own.
If you have no income of your own but the marriage built real assets, Washington law gives you two tools: a share of the property, and spousal maintenance paid from your spouse’s income. The court decides both together, under a six-factor statute with no formula, and it can use maintenance to bring the two households closer to the same standard of living for a period of time. The first hearing in the case, temporary orders, is where you ask for support to live on, and for your spouse to pay your attorney fees, while the case is pending. That hearing is also the reason the case costs what it costs to start.
What is spousal maintenance in Washington?
Spousal maintenance is what other states call alimony. It’s a payment from one spouse to the other, usually monthly, for a period the court sets. The statute is RCW 26.09.090. It says the court “may grant a maintenance order for either spouse” in “such amounts and for such periods of time as the court deems just, without regard to misconduct,” after considering all relevant factors. Then it lists six.
The six factors. Your financial resources, including the property you’re getting in the divorce, and your ability to meet your needs on your own. The time you’d need for education or training to find work that fits your skills and situation. The standard of living during the marriage. How long the marriage lasted. Your age, health, and financial obligations. And your spouse’s ability to pay while still meeting their own needs.
Notice what’s not on the list. There’s no percentage of income. There’s no chart that converts years of marriage into years of maintenance. Fault doesn’t matter. The Washington Supreme Court has said the “only limitation” on the trial court is that the amount and duration be just. In re Marriage of Washburn, 101 Wn.2d 168, 178 (1984). That’s a lot of discretion. It means the facts you put in front of the court matter more than any rule of thumb.
Do I have to prove I “need” maintenance?
Not as a threshold. For years, some Washington cases said maintenance was “governed strongly by the need of one party and the ability of the other party to pay.” In re Marriage of Foley, 84 Wn. App. 839, 845-46 (1997). Lawyers argued about whether a spouse who could technically cover rent was disqualified. In 2024 the Supreme Court settled it. The court must consider your need along with the other factors. But a finding of need “is not a prerequisite to a maintenance award.” In re Marriage of Wilcox, 3 Wn.3d 507 (2024). In that case the court upheld $4,000 a month for 11 years after a marriage of more than 20 years.
The older idea that survives is the purpose of the payment. Maintenance is “not just a means of providing bare necessities, but rather a flexible tool by which the parties’ standard of living may be equalized for an appropriate period of time.” Washburn, 101 Wn.2d at 179. Show what the marriage’s standard of living was and what your household will look like without support. That’s what the statute asks for.
How does the property division fit in?
Washington is a community property state. Nearly everything either of you earned or acquired during the marriage belongs to both of you, regardless of whose name is on it. At the end of the case the court divides all the property, community and separate, in whatever way is “just and equitable.” RCW 26.09.080. Equal is common. Equal isn’t required.
Property and maintenance are decided together
The court “may properly consider the property division when determining maintenance, and may consider maintenance in making an equitable division of the property.” In re Marriage of Estes, 84 Wn. App. 586, 593 (1997). In practice this gives the court a few ways to reach a fair result. It can give the lower-earning spouse more than half the property instead of maintenance. It can divide the property evenly and add maintenance on top. Or it can do some of each. Which route it takes depends on what the assets are. A house and a retirement account can be divided. A paycheck can’t, and that’s what maintenance reaches.
When the assets aren’t enough
Where the property isn’t sufficient to put you on a fair footing, “a supplemental award of maintenance is appropriate.” Washburn, 101 Wn.2d at 178. The court also isn’t limited to covering your bare monthly expenses. It can consider the standard of living during the marriage and your spouse’s ability to pay more. In re Marriage of Barnett, 63 Wn. App. 385, 388 (1991).
The double-dip limit
There’s one thing the court can’t do. It can’t award you half of an asset as property and then order maintenance paid out of the same asset. In Barnett, the court had already given the wife her share of a business through a lien. Then it added lifetime maintenance that was really a second distribution of the same business. The Court of Appeals called that “the same property was distributed twice” and cut the maintenance back. The same problem comes up with pensions, which we cover below.
How long can spousal maintenance last in Washington?
As long as the court says. Spousal maintenance in Washington has no fixed ceiling. “Washington law does not limit how long a spouse may receive maintenance.” In re Marriage of Spreen, 107 Wn. App. 341, 348 (2001). Duration turns on the same six factors. Two do most of the work: the length of the marriage and the gap in earning power.
Long marriages
The wife stayed home by agreement and raised four children during a 30-year marriage. A trial court awarded three years of maintenance. The Court of Appeals sent it back. Where “the disparity in earning power and potential is great,” the court has to look closely at whether the award is fair. That means looking at where the divorce leaves each spouse. Maintenance should be used to “more nearly equalize the postdissolution standard of living of the parties.” In re Marriage of Sheffer, 60 Wn. App. 51, 56-57 (1990). Washington courts have approved maintenance for life where the receiving spouse won’t be able to contribute significantly to her own support.
Shorter marriages
The shorter the marriage, the more the court leans toward a transitional award: enough time to retrain, find work, and get established. There’s no bright line. Ten years with a spouse who left a career to follow the other’s transfers looks different from ten years where both spouses worked throughout.
The “one year for every four” rule
You’ll hear it from friends and sometimes from lawyers. It’s not the law. Many practitioners, and even some judicial officers, treat it as a formula. There is no case law or statutory authority for it. No Washington statute or appellate case adopts it. It’s a habit, not a rule. A case built on the actual factors can move a court off it in either direction.
Our post on how long maintenance lasts goes through the duration cases in more detail.
What happens between filing and trial?
Most people don’t plan for this part. A contested divorce in Snohomish County typically takes 12 to 18 months from filing to trial. You have to live during that time. If your spouse controls the income, the law gives you a way to get support and attorney fees while the case is pending. It’s the single most important thing in this guide.
Temporary orders
Either spouse can ask the court for temporary maintenance, temporary child support, a temporary parenting plan, an order about who lives in the house, who pays which bills, and attorney fees. Temporary maintenance and support, and the restraints on property and the home, come from RCW 26.09.060. The temporary parenting plan comes from RCW 26.09.197, and fees from RCW 26.09.140. It all goes in one motion. In Snohomish County that motion goes on pattern form FL Divorce 223. The local rule requires you to put all the relief you want in a single motion. A court commissioner, not a judge, hears it. Each side gets 25 pages of declarations and five minutes of argument. The commissioner rules from the bench.
Temporary maintenance isn’t a preview of the final award
It serves a different purpose. It covers your needs while the case is pending, and it ends when the court enters the final decree. RCW 26.09.060(10). The court can set it to keep the household running roughly as it was. It can also order your spouse to keep paying the mortgage and the bills. That can be instead of a monthly payment or on top of one. A spouse who’d be entitled to maintenance at the end of the case usually has a strong claim to it during the case as well. The analysis is similar, but the two are decided separately, and it doesn’t always follow.
Temporary orders set the status quo
The statute says temporary orders don’t prejudice anyone’s final rights. In practice, an arrangement that has worked for a year is hard to move at trial. Temporary maintenance that’s been paid for 12 months is a data point when the judge sets the final number. That’s why we tell clients the temporary orders hearing is the most important hearing in the case. Our Snohomish County guide to what happens at a temporary orders hearing walks through the mechanics. Our post on why temporary orders matter most when you have no income explains what to ask for.
How do I pay a lawyer when my spouse has all the money?
This is the first question most people have, and most law firm websites skip it. Here’s the straight version.
What the case costs to start
Our firm, like most family law firms in this county, asks for a retainer at the start of a contested case. It covers the work through temporary orders. That’s typically $10,000 to $15,000. A retainer is a deposit against hourly work, not a flat fee, and you get back what isn’t used. It’s that number because of what has to happen first. You need a financial declaration, two years of tax returns and pay stubs assembled and sealed, a 25-page declaration package, and a proposed order. Then there’s the hearing. Doing that badly costs more in the long run than doing it once.
The court can order your spouse to pay your fees
RCW 26.09.140 lets the court, “after considering the financial resources of both parties,” order one spouse to pay the other’s costs and reasonable attorney fees. That includes fees for work done before the case was filed. The court weighs your need against your spouse’s ability to pay. In re Marriage of Crosetto, 82 Wn. App. 545 (1996). The request goes in the temporary orders motion, with a Financial Declaration. In Snohomish County the court can strike a financial request that comes without the Financial Declaration and sealed source documents. SCLSPR 94.04(e).
What a fee award looks like
Temporary fee awards are usually partial. A commissioner might order your spouse to advance $5,000 toward your fees, subject to being reallocated at trial. The award is help, not a budget. Say your spouse drags the case out, hides income, or files motions to run up your costs. The court can award fees for that conduct regardless of who has the money. In re Marriage of Mattson, 95 Wn. App. 592 (1999).
How people fund the start
Savings, including accounts in your own name. Help from family. A credit card or a loan. A negotiated advance from your spouse, which is sometimes faster than litigating one. And money from a joint account, best done under a short written agreement with your spouse to split liquid funds for fees.
The written agreement matters because of the automatic temporary order. In Snohomish, Island, and King Counties it takes effect when the case is filed. It restrains both spouses from disposing of property except in the usual course of business, for the necessities of life, or as agreed in writing by the parties. The agreement is what puts you inside that exception. King County’s order, issued under LFLR 4(h), also says outright that paying attorney fees or a fee deposit is not a violation.
Our post on how to pay for a divorce when your spouse controls the money goes through each of these.
The hard part
If none of those sources exists, the case is going to be difficult to fund, no matter how strong it is. A fee award comes at the temporary orders hearing, several weeks after filing. It’s rarely the whole amount. We would rather tell you that in the first conversation than after you’ve signed a fee agreement. That’s also why we aimed this guide at the spouse with no paycheck but a real claim on a real estate. Think a house with equity, retirement accounts, a business, savings. If that’s you, the money to fund the case is in the marriage. The temporary orders hearing is how you get access to it.
What if my spouse owns a business?
Then you own part of it, or at least a claim to its value, even if you’ve never set foot in it. A business started or grown during the marriage is community property. If it was started before the marriage, the increase in value during the marriage from either spouse’s work can still be community. Its value has to be determined by an appraiser, and you’re entitled to the records that appraiser needs.
The business also matters for maintenance in a way people miss. Business owners set their own pay. Say your spouse takes a modest salary and leaves the rest in the company, or runs personal expenses through the business. The court can look past the W-2 to what the business actually generates. That’s what it uses to decide what your spouse can afford to pay. Our family business divorce guide covers valuation and division in depth. Our post on what your rights are when your spouse owns the business and you don’t know what it’s worth is written for the non-owner spouse.
Will the court make me go back to work?
The court will consider what you could earn. It won’t pretend you’re earning it today. For a spouse who has been home for years, the statute’s second factor asks how much time you’d need for education or training to find work appropriate to your skills and situation. That’s an argument for maintenance, not against it.
Two cautions. First, the court can consider your earning capacity. A spouse who refuses to work when they plainly could will get less sympathy than one who is retraining. Second, a spouse who has been out of the workforce for a long marriage isn’t “voluntarily unemployed” just because the marriage ended. The Court of Appeals reversed a trial court that treated a long-term homemaker that way. In re Marriage of Kaplan, 4 Wn. App. 2d 466 (2018). (That part of Kaplan was about child support, where imputing income is more common; the point carries.) A realistic plan for your own income is more persuasive than either extreme. Back it with something concrete, like a program you’ve enrolled in or a vocational evaluation.
Can spousal maintenance be changed later?
Yes, unless the two of you agree in writing that it can’t. Either spouse can ask the court to modify maintenance on “a showing of a substantial change of circumstances.” RCW 26.09.170(1). The change has to be one the parties didn’t contemplate when the decree was entered. Spreen, 107 Wn. App. at 346. A payor who quits a job or cuts their own income to get out of maintenance won’t get a modification without “a substantial showing of good faith.” Lambert v. Lambert, 66 Wn.2d 503, 510 (1965).
Maintenance ends automatically when either spouse dies or the receiving spouse remarries, unless the decree says otherwise. RCW 26.09.170(2). If the two of you settle, the agreement can make maintenance non-modifiable in either direction. RCW 26.09.070(7). That’s a trade-off. You give up the ability to ask for more if things go badly. Your spouse gives up the ability to ask for less.
What about my spouse’s retirement?
Two different things are going on, and it’s worth keeping them separate.
The pension is property. The part of a pension or 401(k) earned during the marriage is community property. The court divides it, usually by an order sent to the plan. That’s true whether your spouse retires next year or in twenty.
Retirement income is income. A spouse who’s already retired can still be ordered to pay maintenance. The court looks at what they have coming in, including pension payments and Social Security, when it decides what they can afford. In re Marriage of Zahm, 138 Wn.2d 213, 227 (1999). The court can’t give you half the pension as property and then order maintenance paid out of the other half. That’s the double dip, and the Court of Appeals reversed it in In re Marriage of Mathews, 70 Wn. App. 116, 124-25 (1993). Courts handle it by setting maintenance to end when your pension share starts paying, or by drawing maintenance from your spouse’s other income.
If your spouse is close to retirement, the timing of your filing changes how the numbers get built. Our post on whether to file now or wait when your spouse is about to retire explains why.
What should I do this week?
Gather the financial picture before anything else. Two years of tax returns. The last six months of statements for every bank, brokerage, and retirement account you can find, in either name. Pay stubs. The mortgage statement. If there’s a business, the last two years of business returns and the most recent profit and loss statement. You don’t need to understand them yet. You just need copies. Every request for support or fees in this case starts with this package.
Write down the marriage’s standard of living. This means what the household actually spent, month to month, on housing, cars, travel, kids’ activities, and the rest. It’s a different thing from a budget of what you’d need to survive. The statute asks about the standard of living during the marriage. The spouse who can document it has an advantage.
Don’t move money. In Snohomish, Island, and King Counties, an automatic temporary order takes effect the day the case is filed. SCLSPR 94.04(b); Island County LSPR 94(b). It bars both of you from transferring or hiding assets except in the usual course of business, for the necessities of life, or as agreed in writing. Elsewhere the same restraint comes by motion under RCW 26.09.060(2). Before the order exists, the same conduct becomes an exhibit against you. Use joint funds for ordinary expenses and for a lawyer, keep records, and let the court handle the rest.
Common questions
Can I get spousal maintenance in Washington if I’ve never worked? Yes. The statute considers how long you’d need to become employable, the standard of living during the marriage, the length of the marriage, and your spouse’s ability to pay. A spouse who was out of the workforce for a long marriage is the case the maintenance statute was written for.
How much spousal maintenance will I get in Washington? There’s no formula and no calculator. The court sets an amount and a duration it considers just after weighing six factors. The evidence that moves the number is documented spending during the marriage, both spouses’ actual incomes, and a realistic picture of what you could earn.
Can my spouse be ordered to pay my attorney fees? Yes. RCW 26.09.140 lets the court order one spouse to pay the other’s fees after weighing both spouses’ resources. In Snohomish County the request goes in the temporary orders motion with a Financial Declaration. Awards are usually partial advances, not the whole bill.
The posts in this series
Paying for the case: How do you pay for a divorce when your spouse controls all the money? and Why are temporary orders the most important hearing when you have no income?
How maintenance is decided: How is spousal maintenance actually decided in Washington? and How long does spousal maintenance last in Washington?
Your situation: I’m a stay-at-home parent and my spouse filed for divorce. What happens to me?, My spouse owns the business and I have no idea what it’s worth. What are my rights?, and My spouse is about to retire. Should I file for divorce now or wait?
Related guides: How a Divorce Actually Works in Snohomish County and Family Business Divorce in Washington.
Last updated September 2026.
Law Offices of Daniel Ehrlich, Everett. Family law in Snohomish, Island, King, and Skagit Counties. (425) 954-5578.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Every case is different. If you’re facing a divorce and you haven’t been the earner, talk to an attorney.
