Spousal Maintenance After Divorce and the “Clean Break” Principle

 

“The clean break principle after divorce has found resonance with our courts for many years.  The aim of this principle is to ensure that the parties become financially independent of each other as soon as possible after divorce.” (Extract from judgment below)

Our courts always prioritise the interests of children in any marital breakup, and child maintenance orders are accordingly tailored to ensure that both parents honour their obligations to support their children financially - to the extent that each spouse is able to do so, and for so long as is necessary.

Spousal maintenance on the other hand requires a more delicate balancing act. In a nutshell, spouses have a “reciprocal duty” to support each other during the marriage, and although that duty ends when the marriage ends, courts still have a wide discretion to order either “permanent” or “rehabilitative” maintenance of the financially weaker spouse by the financially stronger spouse.

Let’s have a look at a good example of how this discretion is applied in practice -

A bitter divorce and a claim for “permanent” maintenance

• A couple were married “out of community of property with accrual”.
  
  
• Their eventual divorce action required the Court to adjudicate a litany of bitter disputes, allegations and counter-allegations of misconduct and abuse.
  
  
• Whilst for our purposes we’ll concentrate on how the Court addressed the wife’s claim for “permanent maintenance” and the husband’s (reluctant) counter-offer of “rehabilitative maintenance” for a limited period of time, it is important to note that the maintenance issue was decided against the background of the other financial benefits awarded to the wife. She received 50% of the “accrual” in the estate, including a house, pension, and annuities – i.e. she did leave the marriage with a capital sum of money.
  
  
• The wife had previously been granted an interim order of maintenance of R6,500 p.m. “pendente lite” (“pending the litigation”). At the divorce hearing she argued that her chances of ever becoming self-supporting were slim given her age, health, outdated qualification, and limited exposure in the open labour market.
  
  
• Her husband on the other hand argued that she had “numerous skills and talents and has the potential to secure employment and earn a salary to support herself which when coupled with what she will receive from the accrued estate constitutes ample income to enable her to become self-sufficient.” Moreover he would retire in two years and his income would seriously decline as he would be dependent on his pension for his own support.

• Before we consider the legal aspects, an important factual finding by the Court was that the wife did indeed have at her disposal “numerous administrative skills and talents which will enable her to secure future employment”, and that there was no medical evidence to suggest that she could not find employment.

The law and the maintenance order

• As the Court put it: “The clean break principle after divorce has found resonance with our courts for many years.The aim of this principle is to ensure that the parties become financially independent of each other as soon as possible after divorce. This principle however has to be applied with due consideration of the particular circumstances of each case and if such circumstances permit.”
  
  
• The parties, said the Court, clearly wanted to “cut all ties and put an end to the marriage. In these circumstances, achieving a clean break finds resonance with this court.”
  
  
• Its conclusion: “Consistent with [the] principle of a clean break that resonates through our judgments, it is incumbent upon this court to equip the plaintiff to live independently of the defendant and to focus on developing and empowering herself to secure and sustain her future. In the circumstances, I am of the view that the required result which is the ultimate self-sufficiency of the plaintiff will be achieved by rehabilitative maintenance. I am further of the view that a proper analysis of the rationale behind the awarding of rehabilitative maintenance will conclude that an arbitrary period of the payment of rehabilitative maintenance will not address the ultimate achievement of self-sufficiency. A two year period of rehabilitative maintenance is justified in the circumstances.” (Emphasis supplied).
  
  
• For a period of 24 months after the divorce therefore, the husband must pay rehabilitative maintenance of R8,000 p.m. in addition to keeping his ex-wife on his medical aid and paying all her medical expenses.