well spousal support is awarded in

Colorado when a person is unable to

support themselves through reasonable

employment or through the income from

the property that’s awarded to them and

it’s based on the standard of living

that was established during the marriage

so if you have a couple who during the

marriage was very frugal and saved all

their money and never took vacations out

of the state that’s a very different

standard of living than a parties who

went to Europe every year or fly on

private jets or send their children to

private school so one of the factors the

court will be looking at is what was the

standard of living during the marriage

another factor is what is reasonable

employment if you have a long-term

marriage where you have a party who

didn’t work at all during the marriage

over the course of 30 years the

expectation regarding that person’s

ability to work is going to be very

different than in a short-term marriage

where someone came to the marriage with

education and prior employment or maybe

worked during the marriage we’re going

to be looking in that case at what

they’re really earning or what they

earned previously and in cases where

there’s no work during the marriage

we’re going to be looking at is there a

debility an ability to work at all many

of the cases that I do don’t have

maintenance as a factor because the

marital estate that’s being divided is

so large that the earnings off the

property that will be awarded to the

spouse who might otherwise seek

maintenance are enough to support them

in those cases where that’s not the case

it does get a little more complicated