Negotiating Spousal Maintenance | Sabrina Layman

The approach that I’ve used consistently for 30 years now, I call it the three-legged approach. If you think of a stool that’s balanced on three legs — one of which is spousal support, the other is assets. Well, one is assets, one is spousal maintenance, and one is real estate, to be honest. And if you have all three, you have a pretty balanced stool.

If your spousal maintenance leg is longer, you know, you get a little tippy, right? So I try to really work with people to think of it as just a way to balance either real estate and investments or some other asset base.

If all you have is spousal maintenance, you can think of it as like the old ice cream bar stools, right? It’s a pretty solid base. And that’s what we look at. And I try to give people that approach to think about, because it helps visually and consistently with the idea that we’re trying to get you to the end of your marriage all sitting sort of balanced on a stool.