II. The Basics of Virginia Domestic Relations Law

Here is the "five minute spiel" on Virginia domestic relations law that I usually give to clients at the first consultation. This is the stuff that everyone needs to know, so please don't skip over it.

A. Grounds of divorce

I know this may sound like jumping the gun, especially if you aren't considering getting a divorce, but you are, after all, either starting or contemplating starting out on a process that may end in a divorce, so you ought to have an idea of where the process will end. Therefore, let's look at the principal grounds of divorce in Virginia:

1. Adultery (and other extramarital sex acts). Adultery, under Virginia law, is the act of sexual intercourse (the kind that can result in a baby) between a married person and someone other than that person's spouse. The law also grants a ground of divorce for “sodomy” (oral sex and/or anal sex) or “buggery” (also anal sex and/or sexual intercourse with an animal) done outside the marriage. We rarely see a divorce granted on these grounds any more, although many divorces start out that way. The reason is that at some point in the proceedings the parties will have completed a year of living separate and apart, so they can switch over to the "no fault" ground of divorce (see discussion below) which is much easier and cheaper to prove. However, the issue still comes up, with distressing frequency, because it still is relevant to the issues of child custody, visitation, division of marital property, and spousal support.

2. Cruelty. Cruelty comes in two kinds: mental and physical.

Physical cruelty is relatively easy: Pretty much any serious hurtful touching will do, although generally we have to prove more than one instance unless the one on which we rely is enough to land you in the hospital. Cruelty is cumulative, which means that it doesn't matter that the couple reconciled and lived together for a substantial period of time between the first episode and the second.

Mental cruelty is much more difficult. It's not enough to show that your spouse is cross, difficult to live with, thin skinned, or even downright rude. To rise to the level of "mental cruelty" your spouse's actions must be part of a scheme intended to make it unsafe for you to continue to live together. This is very difficult to prove, so I frankly have never even tried it. If you're interested in what a good case of mental cruelty might look like, rent the 1940s move "Gaslight" with Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. She plays a wife of fragile mental disposition. He plays her conniving husband who wants to drive her nuts. In one scene, for instance, they are about to go out on the town. Ingrid puts her purse down on the sofa and Charles sends her back upstairs to fetch something. While she's out of the room he hides her purse. When she returns and they are going out the door he says "Darling, don't forget your purse", whereupon she goes to the sofa, where she knows she has left it, and (cue the spooky music) it's not there! Now that's mental cruelty! However, in the real world of skeptical judges, I've never seen a divorce granted on mental cruelty grounds alone.

As with Adultery, Cruelty is relevant to issues of child custody, visitation, division of marital property, and spousal support.

3. Desertion. Desertion is defined as the "unjustified breaking off of marital cohabitation, coupled with the intent that the desertion be permanent". What that means in plain English is that if you leave home for good, you'd better have a good reason or else you may get accused of desertion.

"Good reason" in this context pretty much boils down to "being chased out with a butcher knife". It's not enough for the other spouse to say that he/she really would appreciate it if you would just go. However, it is a good defense to a charge of desertion that the spouse who stayed agreed that the spouse who left should go. If the misconduct of the other spouse is severe enough to compel you to leave, it could rise (or rather sink) to the level of "constructive desertion". That means that your spouse made it so dangerous for you in the marital residence that, constructively speaking, your spouse deserted you by driving you out.

As with Adultery and Cruelty, Desertion is relevant to issues of child custody, visitation, division of marital property, and spousal support. However, almost all Virginia divorces nowadays, even those that were filed on adultery, cruelty, or desertion grounds, eventually end up being granted on the fourth ground of divorce, namely. . .

4. Separation for More Than Six Months / One Year. This is the so-called "uncontested" or "no-fault" divorce, because all you have to allege and prove is that you and your spouse have been separated for the required period of time (either six months or one year, depending on the situation, which will be explained below) and that you intend the separation to be permanent.

The standard uncontested ground is "separation for more than one year". However, if you have no minor children, and if you have a signed agreement (called a "separation agreement", "property settlement agreement", or "marital agreement") you can file if you've been separated for only six months.

You can see why this is the way to go - there's no need to hire private eyes, or assemble emergency room pictures, or round up witnesses to explain how or why one spouse left. You don't need to accuse your spouse of anything bad at all. This is the simplest, cheapest, and least stressful of the grounds of divorce, and it's the way we try to go if at all possible.

B. Children

The children are really the starting point in determining what to do when a marriage is on the rocks. The questions concerning them are the first questions that must be answered. What good does it do to talk about who gets the house, for instance, before deciding who gets the children?

Therefore, the first question you will have to answer in your own case, no matter what your other circumstances may be, is "what do we do with the children?" Unfortunately, this question is the subject of more muddled thinking than any other subject in the vast realm of domestic relations! To help you clear your head before proceeding, here's a thumbnail sketch of what the law says:

1. Child Custody. The law in Virginia is remarkably even handed when it comes to determining who should have custody of the children. Although much is still left to the discretion of the trial judge, that discretion is guided by a list of about 13 different factors that have to be determined, the bottom line always being to determine the answer to the one great question: "What is in the best interest of the child?"

Depending on the facts of each case, and the relative common sense or silliness of each of the parties, to answer this question can involve the expenditure of tens of thousands of dollars and the time and talent of a squad of well-meaning educated professionals: the lawyers on both sides, the child psychologists on both sides, the custody mediator, and the guardian ad litem for the child, to name only the principal players.

In addition a whole host of witnesses may be brought in to say their piece: grandparents, siblings, uncles and aunts, friends of the family, school teachers, day care providers, nannies, parents of play friends, next door neighbors, significant others, private eyes, police officers, etc., etc., etc. How bad can this get? Trials of five days are not uncommon.

Getting back to my point - in deciding what is in the best interest of the child the court is guided by a list of factors. The court is decidedly not guided, or even strongly influenced, by the sex of the child or of the combatants. In other words, there is no longer in this Commonwealth a presumption in favor of either the mother or the father when it comes to custody of their child. Whichever party can provide a better life for the child (not necessarily materially speaking) will get custody every time. This is either good news or bad, depending on which side of the fence you are sitting on.

The Court often engages in a search for which of the parents is the primary caretaker. In most parenting relationships, whether in marriage or out, the parents reach an arrangement about which one will be the primary caretaker. Often it will be obvious - one spouse goes off to work and brings home a pay check, while the other foregoes work outside the home and raises the children. If a couple with that arrangement separates, the one who stayed home and raised the children will always get custody, barring some serious misconduct. Of course, in Northern Virginia in the 21st century parental roles are rarely so well defined. The basic rule is still valid, though: judges will always seek to learn what the agreed parenting relationship was between the parties, and will try to identify one of the parties as the primary caretaker.

Here are the statutory custody factors, straight from the Virginia Code:

• The age and physical and mental condition of the child, giving due consideration to the child's changing developmental needs;
• The age and physical and mental condition of each parent;
• The relationship existing between each parent and each child, giving due consideration to the positive involvement with the child's life, the ability to accurately assess and meet the emotional, intellectual and physical needs of the child;
• The needs of the child, giving due consideration to other important relationships of the child, including but not limited to siblings, peers and extended family members;
• The role which each parent has played and will play in the future, in the upbringing and care of the child;
• The propensity of each parent to actively support the child's contact and relationship with the other parent, including whether a parent has unreasonably denied the other parent access to or visitation with the child;
• The relative willingness and demonstrated ability of each parent to maintain a close and continuing relationship with the child, and the ability of each parent to cooperate in and resolve disputes regarding matters affecting the child;
• The reasonable preference of the child, if the court deems the child to be of reasonable intelligence, understanding, age and experience to express such a preference;
• Any history of family abuse as that term is defined in § 16.1-228; and
• Such other factors as the court deems necessary and proper to the determination.

Joint v. Sole Custody. By law in Virginia, some form of joint custody is preferred. Some form of joint legal custody is clearly preferred by Virginia judges. Now all we have to do is to define the term. The Virginia Code says it can mean one of three things:

• joint legal custody where both parents retain joint responsibility for the care and control of the child and joint authority to make decisions concerning the child even though the child's primary residence may be with only one parent,
• joint physical custody where both parents share physical and custodial care of the child, or
• any combination of joint legal and joint physical custody which the court deems to be in the best interest of the child.

By contrast, "Sole Custody" is defined by the Virginia Code as follows:

• "Sole custody" means that one person retains responsibility for the care and control of a child and has primary authority to make decisions concerning the child.

2. Child Support. The federal government has weighed in rather heavily in this area of the law in the last ten years or so, reacting to the distressing spectacle of non-custodial parents refusing to adequately support their children, leaving the task to the public welfare system and, ultimately, to us taxpayers. Therefore, the General Assembly in Richmond, reacting to the federal mandate, has, in the determination of the amount of child support to be awarded to the custodial parent, tethered the discretion of the trial court in large part to a table of child support needs, which looks for all the world like one of the tax tables put out by the IRS. Even this determination is subject to a bunch of variables and factors too numerous to set forth here, but the basic inclination of Virginia trial judges, who now have had a good decade of experience with the guidelines, is that whatever the guidelines say will be ordered, absent really unusual circumstances.

The table is only part of the story when it comes to determining child support. The real battle lies in choosing the right Guidelines Worksheet. There's a worksheet for every conceivable combination of children and custodial circumstances:

• The classic Sole Custody Worksheet, where one parent has custody of the child and the other parent has visitation every other weekend, a couple of weeks during the summer, and they share Christmas, Thanksgiving, or whatever holidays are important.
• The new-fangled Shared Custody Worksheet, for those families where custody of the child or children is "shared". The General Assembly defines "shared custody" as any situation in which the parent who has the children less still has them for more than 90 days a year. You can imagine what a fertile ground for us lawyers this has become!
• The Split Custody Worksheet, for situations where one parent has custody of one child and the other has custody of the other child.

To complicate matters further, the amount of support to be awarded, on any of the worksheets, is increased by the amount of any extraordinary medical or dental expenses, the amount of work-related day care costs, and the amount of the child's share of the cost of medical insurance. Also, if either party supports children from another marriage or relationship, that fact gets into the mix as well.

Even when the court determines the presumptively correct amount, it then may be influenced by a string of factors that may increase or decrease the amount of the award. Such factors include whether a party is voluntarily unemployed or under-employed, whether a party has unusually low living costs due to sharing expenses with a housemate or living with parents, any special needs or considerations of the children, the cost of supporting other dependents, and the list goes on and on.

C. Property.

The portion of the Virginia Code that deals with the determination of and division of marital property is as long as the portions dealing with grounds of divorce, child custody, and child support combined! However, the work of the trial judge in every case boils down to answering two questions: "What is the marital property?" and "What percent of it goes to each party?"

1. Marital v. Separate. The first question is to determine what assets make up the marital property, because it is only this property that is subject to being divided. Think of how a poker table looks at the start of a hand. The judge has to decide what chips get put in the pot in the middle of the table. Each chip represents a piece of marital property. Only marital property gets put on the table. Separate property doesn't get on the table, and thus doesn't get divided. The only exception to this rule is in the case of "part marital - part separate property," which will be discussed below).

• Marital Property is all property that is acquired by either party during the marriage, whether the property is titled in joint names, sole names, or jointly with another party.
• Separate Property is everything else. It includes any property that either party brings into the marriage, any property that is acquired by either party during the marriage by inheritance or by gift from someone other than the other party to the marriage, and any property acquired during the marriage in exchange for or from the proceeds of sale of separate property, provided that the new property is maintained as separate property.

2. Part Marital - Part Separate. This was a pretty clear division, and things were relatively simple for quite a long time. However, as with any other simple rule, the simplicity of the rule allowed for some rather grave injustices to be done. Therefore, the General Assembly has stepped in and tried to lay down some rules to achieve equity in all the possible situations. Here's what the Virginia Code has to say:

• When income is received from separate property during the marriage (say you owned a townhouse before the marriage, which you kept in your own name after the wedding, but you rented it out and bought a home titled jointly with your spouse): That rental income is also separate property, so you don't have to share it with your spouse in the event of a divorce. The only exception to this rule is where the income is attributable to the personal efforts of either party (for instance, if either you or your spouse did substantial work finding new tenants).
• When separate property increases in value during the marriage (imagine the same townhouse as in the previous paragraph, that is worth more now than on the date of your wedding) The same rule applies: that increase in value is also separate property, so you don't have to share it with your spouse in the event of a divorce. The only exception to this rule is where the increase in value is attributable to the personal efforts of either party (for instance, where you add on a deck during the marriage), or where marital property is used (for instance, where you reduce the mortgage balance by regular mortgage payments made from money earned during the marriage). One more thing -- the law says that any such personal efforts must be "significant and result in substantial appreciation of the separate property," whatever that means.
• When separate property is commingled with marital property, resulting in the loss of identity of the contributed property (imagine the same townhouse, but sometime after the marriage you sold it and used the proceeds to put the down payment on a new house, which you now own jointly with your spouse): The separate property is transmuted into marital property. However, that doesn't necessarily mean you have to share the value of the separate property: if you can retrace the separate property (i.e., by showing the settlement documents) then you get the value of the separate property back (with interest) before the marital part is divided. The same rule applies the other way, if marital property is used to buy property after the parties separate.
• When separate property is retitled in the joint names of the parties (same townhouse, only this time, a year or two into your marriage, you refinance the mortgage to get a lower rate, and you decide to retitle the property in joint names with your spouse): The same rule applies as in the previous paragraph: you have transmuted the separate property into marital property. However, as in the previous paragraph, to the extent you can retrace the separate property, it continues to be separate property.

3. Valuation Dates. Once we've put all the marital (and the marital portion of the "part marital, part separate") property on the table, our next problem involves determining how much each asset is worth. Of course, since no asset remains static in value, the real question is the date of our valuation of the asset. The Virginia Code gives the trial judge a simple default date: the date of the hearing at which the property is divided, called the "equitable distribution hearing". Typically, in Fairfax County, this is the last substantive hearing in the case, after the hearings on child custody and grounds of divorce.

That hearing may not occur until more than a year after the case was filed. In the meantime, a home that was worth $400,000 on the date of the parties' separation may have grown in value to $500,000 by the time of the equitable distribution hearing, and the party who stayed in the house, paid the mortgage and utilities, mowed the grass, washed the windows, etc., wouldn't think it fair to put that extra $100,000 in value on the table to be divided.

Therefore, if we think another date is more equitable, we can ask the judge to value a particular asset as of that date. According to the Virginia Code, the judge may allow that alternate date for good cause shown, in order to attain the ends of justice. Unfortunately, "good cause" and "attain the ends of justice" means something more than just showing you will lose a ton of money by using the date of the final hearing. Judges usually just go ahead and value everything as of the date of the hearing (think of it from the judges' perspective -- there's no way they can get reversed on appeal if they follow the statute!) and then give one party more than half of the current value of the asset if they are persuaded that such a result is equitable. See below for a discussion of all the factors the judges have to review to make such a decision.

4. Pensions, etc. Ordinarily the job of the judge at the equitable distribution hearing is to divide up the marital property by entering an order which awards each individual marital asset to one of the parties, or requires an asset to be sold and the proceeds divided so much to one party and so much to the other. There's a special rule for pensions, profit-sharing or deferred compensation plans and other retirement plans (referred to from now on as "pensions" for convenience) that by their nature can't be divided now.

First, the judge has to determine the marital share of each pension. According to the Virginia Code, "marital share" means that portion of each pension check that you earned during the marriage and before the last separation of the parties. For instance, let's say you worked for your employer for five years before the marriage, for ten years from the date of the wedding to the date of your last separation, and for another five years thereafter until you retire. Then you start to receive a pension check each month of $2,000. The marital share of each check is half, since you were married and living with your spouse ten out of your total twenty years of service.

Then, the judge orders the administrator of the pension plan to pay the other party's portion of the marital share to that party. By Virginia law, that can't be more than half of the marital share, so taking the same facts as in the previous paragraph, your by-then ex spouse's share of each pension check can't exceed $500.

Also by Virginia law, the court can only direct that payment be made as such benefits are payable. That means that no payments will begin until the party owning the pension chooses to (or has to) begin receiving the monthly benefits. Therefore, although a pension may be a significant marital asset, it's one that may not be divided for decades.

In the case of private pensions, there's always a chance that the pension won't be there at all when the party owning it retires. For this reason I very often advise clients who are not the owners of the pension at issue to pay a pension valuation expert to determine the present value of the marital share of the pension, and then to take half that amount now, rather than wait for their spouse to retire. This can be done by giving my client more of some other asset on the table, or by the party owning the pension taking out a loan secured by the pension.

If you are the non-owning party and are willing to wait on your spouse to retire to claim your share of the marital share of your ex's pension, we will usually advise you to insist on being named as a survivor beneficiary, so that if your ex dies first you will still get your share of the marital share of each pension check. The Virginia Code allows this. It says:

To the extent permitted by federal or other applicable law, the court may order a party to designate a spouse or former spouse as irrevocable beneficiary during the lifetime of the beneficiary of all or a portion of any survivor benefit or annuity plan of whatsoever nature, but not to include a life insurance policy. The court, in its discretion, shall determine as between the parties, who shall bear the costs of maintaining such plan.

If this is not possible, the last resort is for the non-owning party to purchase a policy of life insurance on the owning party's life.

When pension division is an issue, you may hear the lawyers talk about needing a "quad-row". Actually, we're saying "QDRO", which is short for "Qualified Domestic Relations Order". This is an order which is required by federal law to be signed by the judge after the Final Divorce Decree is signed. It is directed to the pension administrator and tells the administrator exactly how much (or what percentage) to take out of the spouse's pension. If there's no QDRO, there will be no split of the pension. Careful lawyers (and we are very careful!) make it a rule to always have the QDRO ready for submission to the judge at the same time the Final Decree is submitted, because otherwise the owning spouse may be tempted to take his or her pension out in a lump sum, just to frustrate the non-owning spouse's rights. There have been some real horror stories reported in the legal journals about this sort of thing, and we want to make sure it doesn't happen to any of our clients.

D. Spousal Support

First of all, another definition: "Spousal support" is the new term for what used to be called "alimony". The reason for the new term is to make it clear that, under Virginia law, support can go from the wife to the husband (under the proper circumstances) just as it can from the husband to the wife. "Alimony" is a legal term for support payments from husband to wife, so it had to go. Someone thought of "spousal support" because that means "support of a spouse".

1. When is Spousal Support Awarded? Basically, whenever one spouse has, for a significant amount of time, depended on the other spouse for support, whether fully or partially. While two people are married, each has a legal duty of support to the other, so that if one gets sick the other must support the household until the sick spouse can return to work. That support obligation is not broken just because the parties separate. Therefore, whenever there is a significant disparity between the incomes of the parties, and it can be shown that one spouse has become dependent on the other, the one with the lower income should be looking to receive at least something for spousal support, at least for some time.

2. How much spousal support is typically awarded? There is no such thing as a "typical" award of spousal support, because there is no area of domestic relations law that is left more up to the discretion of the trial judge. Unlike child support, there is no table and no guidelines worksheet. As you probably have guessed, however, there are statutory spousal support factors for the judge to consider, and here they are:

• The obligations, needs and financial resources of the parties, including but not limited to income from all pension, profit sharing or retirement plans, of whatever nature; The standard of living established during the marriage;
• The duration of the marriage;
• The age and physical and mental condition of the parties and any special circumstances of the family;
• The extent to which the age, physical or mental condition or special circumstances of any child of the parties would make it appropriate that a party not seek employment outside of the home;
• The contributions, monetary and non-monetary, of each party to the well-being of the family;
• The property interests of the parties, both real and personal, tangible and intangible;
• The provisions made with regard to the marital property under § 20-107.3;
• The earning capacity, including the skills, education and training of the parties and the present employment opportunities for persons possessing such earning capacity;
• The opportunity for, ability of, and the time and costs involved for a party to acquire the appropriate education, training and employment to obtain the skills needed to enhance his or her earning ability;
• The decisions regarding employment, career, economics, education and parenting arrangements made by the parties during the marriage and their effect on present and future earning potential, including the length of time one or both of the parties have been absent from the job market;
• The extent to which either party has contributed to the attainment of education, training, career position or profession of the other party; and
• Such other factors, including the tax consequences to each party, as are necessary to consider the equities between the parties.

I know it sounds like a cliché, but the only binding direction to the trial judge from the Virginia Supreme Court or the General Assembly is that the amount of spousal support should be an amount sufficient to maintain the dependent spouse in the manner to which she (or he) became accustomed during the marriage, subject, however, to the dependent spouse's ability to earn and the supporting spouse's ability to pay.

Fault grounds of divorce can play a major role in reducing the amount of spousal support. The statute says:

The court, in determining whether to award support and maintenance for a spouse, shall consider the circumstances and factors which contributed to the dissolution of the marriage, specifically including adultery and [cruelty or desertion].

In Fairfax County the Bar Association has, in cooperation with the local judges, has published a formula, but it is only for use in temporary support hearings, which are hearings that are held shortly after the commencement of a divorce case to determine the amount of support to be awarded from then until the entry of the final divorce decree (which typically happens after the equitable distribution hearing). That formula fixes the amount of temporary spousal support at 30% of the payer (i.e., the supporting) spouse's gross income from all sources, reduced by 50% of the payee (i.e., the dependent) spouse's gross income from all sources. Thus, if the payer spouse has a gross income (i.e., income before taxes or any other deductions) of, say, $6,000 per month, then temporary spousal support would be $1,800 per month. But, if the payee spouse grosses, say, $2,000 per month, that results in a reduction of $1,000 per month, and the bottom line is temporary spousal support of only $800 per month.

Other counties and cities have similar "rules of thumb" for quickly determining the amount of temporary spousal support. It must be emphasized that these are only rules of thumb, they are only for temporary spousal support, and they have no applicability at the final hearing, when permanent spousal support is to be determined.

The best way of determining the amount of spousal support is for the dependent spouse to work out a monthly budget of income and expenses (not forgetting to include an average monthly amount for expenses, such as water/sewer and auto insurance, that typically are paid every three or even six months). The amount of spousal support should be an amount sufficient to make up the shortfall between what the dependant spouse makes and what the budget shows the dependent spouse needs.

3. Spousal support can be drastically reduced or even barred. First, before the judge considers the above-mentioned statutory factors, the judge is required to

consider the circumstances and factors which contributed to the dissolution of the marriage, specifically including adultery and [cruelty or desertion].

This is why I said, way back in the section on grounds of divorce, that adultery, cruelty and desertion are still important issues. Also, the Virginia Code says:

[N]o permanent maintenance and support shall be awarded from a spouse if there exists in such spouse's favor a ground of divorce [of adultery].

As you can see, not only is adultery still an important issue, it can be an "a-bomb" dropped on your hopes for spousal support. If you are the one seeking spousal support, and you have committed adultery, then your spouse will seek to bar you from receiving spousal support on the basis of this law. Your spouse doesn't have to get the divorce from you on that ground, he/she merely has to show that "there exists in [his/her] favor" that ground of divorce. Here's the only exception provided in the law:

However, the court may make such an award notwithstanding the existence of such ground if the court determines from clear and convincing evidence, that a denial of support and maintenance would constitute a manifest injustice, based upon the respective degrees of fault during the marriage and the relative economic circumstances of the parties.

4. How long does the spousal support last? That depends. It used to be that spousal support was always forever - until the death of one of the parties or the remarriage of the dependent spouse. Beginning a couple decades ago, with the advent of more women into good paying jobs, judges began to be more resistant to awarding spousal support on a permanent basis.
Recently the General Assembly gave judges a powerful new tool popularly called "rehabilitative spousal support." According to the Virginia Code:

The court, in its discretion, may decree that maintenance and support of a spouse be made in periodic payments for a defined duration, or in periodic payments for an undefined duration, or in a lump sum award, or in any combination thereof.

The point of rehabilitative spousal support is to award support to the dependent spouse for a length of time sufficient to allow the dependent spouse to go back to school and get the training necessary to qualify for a good job in a reasonable amount of time. Since this is a brand new concept the jury is still out on whether this is a good idea. I tend to be skeptical, especially in the case of a dependent spouse who has been out of the workplace for several decades raising children. There's one thing for sure: the advent of rehabilitative spousal support has altered the negotiating landscape, because it's pretty much guaranteed to be the response of the attorney representing the supporting spouse to any demand for spousal support.

5. When spousal support ends. By statute, spousal support ends when the supporting spouse dies. It also ends when the dependent spouse dies, remarries, or cohabits with another person in a situation analogous to a marriage for a period of more than 12 months.

6. Reservation of spousal support. Let's say you are entitled to spousal support (i.e., you haven't committed adultery) but you can't show a need for it right now. The law allows the judge to grant you a reservation of spousal support. The reservation means that, if circumstances change in the future to the point that you can show a need, you have the right to try to convince the judge that spousal support should be awarded. This reservation doesn't last forever. By Virginia law:

In any case in which the right to support is so reserved, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that the reservation will continue for a period equal to 50 percent of the length of time between the date of the marriage and the date of separation. Once granted, the duration of such a reservation shall not be subject to modification.

Also, the reservation ends if one of the terminating events set forth in the "When spousal support ends" paragraph above happens.

 

SECTION III - If You Haven't Yet Separated