Reduction or Elimination of Alimony: It’s a Big Lift!

Alimony is not necessarily permanent. If your financial circumstances—or your former spouse’s—have changed in a meaningful and lasting way since your support order was entered, New Jersey law allows you to ask the court to reduce or terminate your payments. The process, however, has strict requirements. The burden is yours, and it is substantial.

This is general information, not legal advice. Every case turns on its own facts, and how these rules apply to you depends on your specific order and circumstances.

The core idea: “changed circumstances”

New Jersey’s alimony statute permits a court to revise a support order from time to time as circumstances may require. [1] For more than forty years, the framework for doing so has come from the New Jersey Supreme Court’s foundational alimony decision, Lepis v. Lepis. The rule is that the person asking to change alimony must show changed circumstances that substantially impair his or her ability to self-support or demonstrate that the receiving party no longer needs support to maintain the marital lifestyle. [2]

In practice, two parts of that rule matter most.

1. The change must be lasting, not temporary. Courts routinely reject requests based on conditions that are temporary, speculative, or expected but have not yet happened. [2] There is no bright-line rule for how long a change must continue before it qualifies; that decision is left to the judge’s discretion. Timing, however, is powerful evidence. In one leading case, a motion filed just twenty months after the divorce was denied because the short time frame suggested the reduced income had not yet become permanent. [3] Whether to modify alimony rests within the sound discretion of the Family Part judge, and every motion turns on its own facts. [3]

2. You must clear an initial threshold before you get discovery or a hearing. The process has two steps. First, you must make a prima facie showing of changed circumstances. Only then will the court require your former spouse to provide financial discovery. Only after that will the court hold a plenary, or evidentiary, hearing—and even then, only if there is a genuine dispute about a material fact. [2] Until you make that initial showing, your former spouse does not have to file a financial disclosure. [4]

Below are the situations that most commonly support a reduction or termination.

You lost your job or your income dropped

A substantial, involuntary, and lasting drop in income is the classic basis for asking the court to reduce alimony. When someone who is not self-employed asks to modify alimony, the statute requires the court to consider several factors, including why the income was lost, what efforts were made to find replacement work, whether the applicant is making a good-faith effort to find work at any level and in any field, and the income and circumstances of the former spouse. [5]

Two practical points:

• The 90-day rule. If your income loss comes from losing your job, you cannot file the motion until you have been unemployed—or unable to return to your prior income level—for 90 days. The court can, however, make any relief retroactive to the date you actually lost the income. [5]
• A pay cut alone is not enough. You also have to show you have tried to improve your situation, and courts look hard at how you are actually living. In one case, a payor claimed he could not afford support while maintaining a lavish lifestyle; the court was entitled to rely on its earlier finding that his real income was higher than he claimed. [4]

You are self-employed and your business income fell

If you own your business, expect closer scrutiny. Courts recognize that a self-employed person has more ability than a salaried employee to shape how income is reported or presented. [4] The statute therefore requires a self-employed applicant to submit an analysis comparing the economic and non-economic benefits received from the business now with those received when the alimony order was entered. [6] The court will look closely at whether the downturn is truly lasting or merely a temporary dip. [3]

Retirement

Retirement can be one of the strongest grounds for modifying or ending alimony, but it is also one of the most rule-dependent. The statute expressly allows alimony to be modified or terminated when the paying spouse actually retires or is approaching retirement. [7] The applicable rule depends on when your alimony order was entered, because New Jersey’s 2014 alimony reform created different standards for older and newer orders. [8]

Orders entered on or after September 10, 2014. There is a rebuttable presumption that alimony ends when the paying spouse reaches full retirement age (generally, full Social Security retirement age which currently is age 67). Once you reach that age, the burden shifts to your former spouse to convince the court, based on a list of statutory factors, that alimony should continue. [7]

Orders entered before September 10, 2014. There is no automatic presumption of termination. Instead, reaching full retirement age is treated as a good-faith retirement age, and you as the paying spouse must show, by a preponderance of the evidence, that modifying or ending alimony is appropriate. The court must specifically weigh your former spouse’s ability to have saved adequately for retirement, along with other factors. [7] [8]

The 2014 reform made this meaningfully easier for people with older orders. Before 2014, a paying spouse had to prove that a voluntary retirement was made in good faith and was not merely a way to avoid support. New Jersey’s Appellate Division has confirmed that, by treating full retirement age as a good-faith retirement age, the Legislature eliminated that old good-faith burden. [9]

That said, retirement is not a free pass. Even after showing you have reached a good-faith retirement age, you still have to make a prima facie showing that your retirement actually impairs your ability to keep paying at the current level or to support yourself at the marital standard of living. In one recent appellate case, a retiree with roughly $8 million in assets who failed to analyze his own income streams did not clear that bar as to his own finances. [9] Importantly, though, the court also held that a prima facie change can be shown through the recipient’s finances — for example, that your former spouse has saved enough (or could have saved enough) for retirement and no longer needs support at the current level. [9] One more wrinkle: assets you received in the divorce (equitable distribution) are not counted against you when the court assesses your ability to keep paying after retirement. [7]

Your former spouse’s financial situation improved

A change in circumstances does not have to be about your finances getting worse. A paying spouse is equally entitled to a reconsideration of alimony where there has been a significant improvement in the dependent spouse’s circumstances. If your former spouse’s income or earning capacity has meaningfully increased—or if there has been a combination of changes on both sides—that can support a reduction. General assertions are not enough, however; vague claims that your former spouse could earn more will not carry your burden. [4]

Your former spouse is cohabiting

If the person receiving alimony is living in a marriage-like relationship with someone else, alimony may be suspended or terminated. New Jersey defines cohabitation as a mutually supportive, intimate personal relationship in which a couple has undertaken duties and privileges commonly associated with marriage—and, critically, the couple does not have to live together full-time. A court cannot reject a cohabitation claim solely because the couple maintains separate residences. The statute lists factors the court must weigh, including intertwined finances, shared living expenses, shared household chores, and recognition of the relationship among family and friends. [10]

A few things surprise people here:

• You do not need to prove they are financially entangled. The Legislature specifically rejected a requirement that the recipient receive an economic benefit from the relationship. A marriage-like relationship can end alimony without regard to the economic consequences of that relationship. It must be a relationship with stability, permanency, and mutual interdependence — a mere romantic, casual, or social relationship is not sufficient. [11]
• The initial burden to get discovery is not high. The New Jersey Supreme Court has held that you do not need evidence on every factor, and you do not need proof of shared finances, to get started—that kind of proof may be impossible without discovery. If your certification addresses some of the relevant factors with competent evidence that would support a finding of cohabitation if left unrebutted, the court should find a prima facie showing and order limited, privacy-protected discovery, followed by a hearing if facts remain in dispute. The Court was explicit that the movant’s burden at the preliminary stage is not onerous. [11]
• What that early proof can look like. In the Supreme Court’s leading case, the paying spouse made his threshold showing with a private investigator’s surveillance report (the couple was together on all 44 days observed, overnight more than half the time), social-media photos of vacations and family events, and evidence they shared errands and chores — with no financial evidence at all. [11]
• Termination vs. suspension. The court does not have to end alimony entirely; it can suspend or reduce it instead. [10]

One caution: you carry the burden of proving cohabitation at every stage, and courts guard against fishing expeditions into a former spouse’s private life based on a weak claim. [11]

What you will need to prove your case

Whatever ground you rely on, documentation matters. Retirement and income-loss applications must include current Case Information Statements—the sworn financial disclosures New Jersey courts rely on—along with the statements from the time of your original order and any later modification. [7] The stronger and more specific your financial evidence, the better your chance of clearing the threshold for discovery and, if necessary, a hearing. Thin, vague, or conclusory submissions are a common reason these motions fail. [9]

Mistakes that sink these applications

• Filing too soon. A change that looks temporary — especially a recent one — will likely be rejected. [2] [3]
• A self-inflicted income drop. Voluntarily reducing your own income and then asking to pay less is a hard sell.
• Claiming poverty while living well. Courts look at how you actually spend and use your assets, not just the number on your tax return. [4]
• Vague assertions. Unsupported claims that your ex could work more or that your business is down without documentation will not meet your burden. [4] [9]
• Confusing alimony with property. Payments that are really equitable distribution (your former spouse’s share of marital property) generally cannot be changed on a changed-circumstances theory. [3]

The bottom line

If your circumstances—or your former spouse’s—have genuinely and permanently changed, New Jersey law gives you a meaningful path to seek a reduction or termination of alimony. The key is to identify the correct legal ground, prove that the change is substantial and lasting, and support the application with detailed financial evidence. Because the rules differ depending on the age of your order and the reason you are seeking relief, early guidance from a New Jersey family lawyer can be especially important.

Endnotes

1. J.S.A. 2A:34-23 (authorizing courts to revise and alter alimony orders “from time to time as circumstances may require”).
2. Lepis v. Lepis, 83 N.J. 139, 416 A.2d 45 (1980).
3. Larbig v. Larbig, 384 N.J. Super. 17, 894 A.2d 1 (App. Div. 2006).
4. Donnelly v. Donnelly, 405 N.J. Super. 117, 963 A.2d 855 (App. Div. 2009).
5. J.S.A. 2A:34-23(k) (modification factors for a non-self-employed party, including the 90-day filing requirement for involuntary loss of employment).
6. J.S.A. 2A:34-23(l) (self-employed party seeking modification for an involuntary reduction in income).
7. J.S.A. 2A:34-23(j) (retirement, including the rebuttable presumption in subsection (j)(1) for post-2014 orders and the standard in subsection (j)(3) for pre-2014 orders); (N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2A:34-23 (West)) § 2A:34-23(j)(4) (assets distributed at divorce not counted in the post-retirement ability-to-pay analysis).
8. Landers v. Landers, 444 N.J. Super. 315, 133 A.3d 637 (App. Div. 2016).
9. Voynick v. Voynick, 481 N.J. Super. 207, 333 A.3d 272 (App. Div. 2025).
10. J.S.A. 2A:34-23(n) (cohabitation; statutory definition and factors; court may not find an absence of cohabitation solely because the couple does not live together full-time).
11. Cardali v. Cardali, 255 N.J. 85, 299 A.3d 714 (2023).