Spousal Support Factors

In Texas, a court determines that a spouse is eligible to spousal support based on the following factors:

  (1) the financial resources of the spouse seeking maintenance;

  (2) the education and employment skills of the spouses, the time necessary to
  acquire sufficient education or training to enable the spouse seeking
  maintenance to find appropriate employment, the availability of that education
  or training, and the feasibility of that education or training;

  (3) the duration of the marriage;

  (4) the age, employment history, earning ability, and physical and emotional
  condition of the spouse seeking maintenance;

  (5) the ability of the spouse from whom maintenance is requested to meet that
  spouse's personal needs and to provide periodic child support payments, if
  applicable, while meeting the personal needs of the spouse seeking maintenance;

  (6) acts by either spouse resulting in excessive or abnormal expenditures or
  destruction, concealment, or fraudulent disposition of community property,
  joint tenancy, or other property held in common;

  (7) the comparative financial resources of the spouses, including medical,
  retirement, insurance, or other benefits, and the separate property of each
  spouse;

  (8) the contribution by one spouse to the education, training, or increased
  earning power of the other spouse;

  (9) the property brought to the marriage by either spouse;

  (10) the contribution of a spouse as homemaker;

  (11) marital misconduct of the spouse seeking maintenance; and

  (12) the efforts of the spouse seeking maintenance to pursue available
  employment counseling