Can I Modify Spousal Support After Divorce?

Yes, in many cases spousal support can be modified after a divorce, but only under specific conditions, and only if you act while the obligation is still in force. In Washington, spousal support is called maintenance, and the rules for changing it are narrower than people expect. For someone in Snohomish County whose circumstances have shifted, paying or receiving, knowing whether modification is even possible is the first question to answer.

How Maintenance Is Set in the First Place

To understand modification, it helps to recall how maintenance is awarded. Under RCW 26.09.090, a court may grant maintenance to either spouse in amounts and for periods of time the court "deems just, without regard to misconduct." The statute then lists the factors the court weighs, and they are about need and ability to pay, not punishment.

Those factors include the financial resources of the spouse seeking maintenance and their ability to meet their needs independently, the time needed for that spouse to get education or training to find appropriate work, the standard of living established during the marriage, the duration of the marriage, the age and physical and emotional condition and financial obligations of the spouse seeking support, and the ability of the other spouse to meet their own needs while also meeting those of the spouse requesting maintenance. Because misconduct is expressly excluded, maintenance is not a reward or a penalty. It is a tool to address a real economic gap between the spouses.

The Standard for Modifying Maintenance

The statute that controls modification is RCW 26.09.170. It sets a meaningful threshold. Maintenance may be modified only as to installments accruing after a petition for modification is filed, and only upon a showing of a substantial change of circumstances.

Two ideas in that rule deserve attention. First, "substantial change of circumstances" is a real bar. Minor or expected changes generally do not qualify. Courts look for a significant, often involuntary, change that was not already contemplated when the original order was entered, such as a serious illness, a major and lasting drop in income, or a substantial change in either party's financial situation. A change you brought on yourself voluntarily, or one the parties clearly anticipated, is a harder sell.

Second, modification reaches only future installments. Under RCW 26.09.170, a modification affects payments accruing after the petition is filed, not payments that already came due. This is why timing is everything. You cannot go back and erase or recover maintenance that has already accrued. If your circumstances change, the date you file matters, because relief starts from the petition forward.

When Maintenance Ends, and Why That Deadline Matters

Maintenance does not last forever, and once it ends, there is nothing left to modify. Under RCW 26.09.170, unless the parties agreed otherwise in writing or the decree expressly provides differently, the obligation to pay future maintenance terminates upon the death of either party or upon the remarriage or registration of a new domestic partnership by the party receiving maintenance.

This creates a hard practical limit. Because modification operates only on future installments, and because the obligation ends on these events or on the date set in the decree, a request to modify has to be made while maintenance is still ongoing. Once the obligation has terminated, whether by its own end date, by remarriage, or by death, there are no future installments to adjust, and the opportunity to modify is gone. If your situation has changed and you think maintenance should be increased, decreased, or extended, do not wait. Raise it before the obligation lapses.

When Maintenance Cannot Be Modified at All

There is an important exception that catches people off guard. Spouses can agree, and a decree can provide, that maintenance is non-modifiable. When the parties build that term into their settlement and the decree reflects it, a court will generally hold them to it, and neither side can later come back to change the amount or duration even if circumstances shift dramatically. This non-modifiability comes from what the parties agreed to and what the decree says, rather than from a default rule in the statute, which is exactly why the language of your decree is so important.

The lesson runs in both directions. If you are negotiating a divorce settlement, decide deliberately whether you want maintenance to be modifiable or locked in, because that choice can bind you for years. And if you are now wondering whether you can modify an existing award, the first thing to check is whether your decree made maintenance non-modifiable.

What Counts as a Substantial Change

People often ask for examples. While every case is fact-specific, the kinds of changes that may support modification include an involuntary and lasting loss of income or employment, a serious health condition affecting the ability to work or to pay, a significant and unanticipated change in either party's financial resources, or the receiving spouse's cohabitation or improved financial situation in some circumstances. What usually does not qualify on its own is a voluntary reduction in income, a change the parties clearly expected when they signed the decree, or a temporary, short-term dip. The court is looking for something substantial and durable, not ordinary fluctuation.

Talk Through Your Options

Modifying maintenance turns on three things working together: a genuine substantial change of circumstances, a decree that did not make maintenance non-modifiable, and acting while the obligation is still alive. Miss any one of them and the door may be closed. Because so much depends on the specific wording of your decree and the precise timing of your request, this is an area where a careful review pays off quickly.

If your circumstances have changed since your divorce, or you are concerned about a request the other party may bring, the Law Office of Chad Foster can review your decree, assess whether modification is realistic under RCW 26.09.170, and help you act in time. Reach out for a clear read on your Snohomish County case.