What Are the 13 Alimony Statutory Factors in New Jersey, and Which Ones Actually Matter Most in Mediation?

If you’ve started researching New Jersey alimony, you’ve probably come across references to “statutory factors” that get considered when determining whether alimony is appropriate and how much makes sense. Maybe you’ve even found a list of 13 different factors.

Reading through that list can feel overwhelming. How are you supposed to weigh your age against your earning capacity against your standard of living? Which factors matter more than others?

As a divorce mediator with an MBA in finance, I help couples work through these factors every day. And while I can’t give you legal advice, I can tell you which factors tend to drive the conversation in mediation and which ones don’t move the needle much. More importantly, I can show you how understanding these factors helps you negotiate an agreement that actually makes sense.

The 13 Factors New Jersey Considers (In Plain Language)

In New Jersey, what gets considered includes: the actual need and ability to pay; the duration of the marriage; the age and health of both parties; the marital standard of living; the earning capacities and employability of both parties; the length of absence from the job market; parental responsibilities; the time and expense needed for education or training; the contributions each party made to the marriage; the property division; income available from assets; and tax consequences.

That’s a lot to consider, and it can feel abstract until you apply it to your specific situation.

Please note: The financial examples in this post are for illustration purposes only and use simplified scenarios with round numbers to demonstrate concepts. Every divorce situation is unique, with different income levels, expenses, family circumstances, and financial complexities. These examples are not predictions of what you should expect in your specific case. I’m not a lawyer and cannot provide legal advice or tell you what alimony amount you’ll receive or pay.

Which Factors Actually Drive the Conversation in Mediation

Here’s what I’ve learned from working with more than 1,000 couples: while all 13 factors technically matter, in practice, about 4 or 5 factors do the heavy lifting in most mediation conversations.

Actual Need and Ability to Pay

This is almost always the starting point. This is where my finance background really comes into play. We’re building realistic post-divorce budgets for both of you. What does it actually cost you to live? Not what you wish it costs, but what does your real life actually require?

Let’s say one spouse currently earns $120,000 and the other earns $50,000. We build out detailed budgets. Maybe the higher earner’s realistic monthly expenses total $7,000, while the lower earner needs $5,000 to maintain reasonable stability. The higher earner has $10,000 in monthly after-tax income—roughly $120,000. After covering their $7,000 in expenses, they have $3,000 available. The lower earner brings in about $4,000 monthly after taxes but needs $5,000. There’s your $1,000 monthly gap.

But we don’t stop there. What can the higher-earning spouse actually afford to pay after covering their own reasonable expenses? This isn’t about living extravagantly or living like a monk. It’s about examining actual numbers and realistic budgets.

I help couples build detailed budgets that account for all their expenses—housing, utilities, food, insurance, transportation, and children’s costs. We’re not guessing. We’re analyzing actual spending patterns and projecting realistic post-divorce costs.

Marital Standard of Living

This factor is closely tied to the budget conversation. If you maintained a particular lifestyle during the marriage, that established a standard. In New Jersey, alimony should help both of you maintain something reasonably comparable to that standard, recognizing that two households cost more than one.

Maybe during your marriage, you lived in a $500,000 home, took annual vacations costing $8,000, and had a household spending around $12,000 monthly. That established your marital standard. Post-divorce, you’re not both going to maintain $500,000 homes on divided income, but the goal is that neither of you experiences a dramatic drop in lifestyle if it can be avoided.

But here’s where mediation gives you flexibility: you get to decide together what “reasonably comparable” means. Perhaps you’re both open to downsizing to move forward more quickly. Maybe maintaining stability is crucial, especially with teenagers at home. These are your choices to make.

Duration of the Marriage

This matters enormously, as we discussed in a previous post about the 20-year threshold. A five-year marriage and a 25-year marriage look very different from an alimony perspective. The longer you were married, the more intertwined your financial lives became, and the more time someone may have sacrificed career development for the family.

Earning Capacity and Employability

This often becomes the most complex part of the analysis. This is about more than just current income. It’s about what each of you could potentially earn with your education, skills, and experience.

Maybe one spouse has been out of the workforce for 15 years, raising children. They’re currently earning nothing, but they have a bachelor’s degree in marketing. What’s their earning capacity? With some skill updates, they could potentially earn $60,000 within 2 years. Do they need retraining? How long will it take to get back to that meaningful income level? What does that cost?

Or maybe one spouse owns a business. Their tax return shows $100,000 in income. Still, they’re driving a $50,000 company car, running personal expenses through the business, and taking clients to dinner on the company dime—another $20,000 in value annually. What’s their real earning capacity? Their lifestyle suggests they’re really living on $120,000, not $100,000. This is where financial analysis gets nuanced, and my MBA background helps couples work through the complexity.

Length of Absence from the Job Market

This directly ties to earning capacity. Someone who paused their career for three years is in a very different position than someone who’s been out for 20 years. The time and investment required to return to meaningful employment differ significantly.

If you’ve been out for three years, maybe you need six months and a few courses to get back to your previous earning level. If you’ve been out for 18 years, you might need two years of education and another year of building experience before you’re earning a meaningful income. These timelines affect how we structure rehabilitative alimony.

The Factors That Matter Less in Practice

Age and health matter when they’re extreme. If someone is 62 with serious health issues affecting their ability to work, that’s relevant. But for most couples divorcing in their 40s or 50s who are reasonably healthy, these don’t dramatically shift the conversation.

Parental responsibilities matter more for child support than alimony, though if one parent’s caretaking role significantly limits their earning capacity, it can affect the alimony discussion.

The property division is technically separate from alimony, but in mediation, we look at everything together. Sometimes, giving one spouse an extra $150,000 in marital assets can offset ongoing alimony needs entirely. A spouse receiving $400,000 instead of $250,000 in assets might not need $2,000 monthly in alimony. These pieces connect, which is why mediation’s holistic approach works so well.

How Mediation Lets You Weight These Factors Your Way

Here’s the beauty of mediation: you’re not bound by how someone else might weigh these factors. If you went to court, you’d be stuck with a judge’s interpretation based on 13 factors applied in a 30-minute hearing. You’d both likely walk away feeling unheard and unhappy with decisions made by someone who doesn’t understand your priorities or circumstances.

In mediation, you can have transparent conversations about which factors matter most to you and why. Perhaps the marital standard of living isn’t as important since you’re both ready to simplify. Maybe earning capacity is crucial because one of you has tremendous unrealized potential.

I help facilitate these conversations by bringing a realistic financial approach to alimony to the table. We can model different scenarios:

What if alimony is $3,000 per month for 3 years while one spouse completes retraining, with the expectation that it drops to $1,500 for another 3 years as they build earning capacity?

What if it’s $4,000 per month for 8 years versus $2,500 per month for 15 years?

What if we adjust the asset division—giving one spouse an extra $100,000 from the house equity and $50,000 more from retirement accounts—to reduce alimony from $3,000 monthly to $1,500 monthly?

We run the numbers. We look at budgets. We project what each scenario means for both of your financial futures. That’s where the financial expertise makes an enormous difference.

Moving Forward with Confidence and Clarity

Understanding the 13 factors in New Jersey goes beyond merely memorizing a list. It’s about identifying the factors that actually impact your situation and having informed conversations about them.

The factors that matter most—need and ability to pay, marital standard of living, duration of marriage, and earning capacity—are where detailed financial analysis makes the most significant difference. These aren’t abstract legal concepts. They’re concrete financial realities that require real number-crunching to get right.

In mediation, you’re not hoping someone else weighs these factors fairly. You’re deciding together how to weigh them based on what actually matters to both of you. You’re in control of the outcome.

This is especially important when the financial picture gets complicated. When someone owns a business, earning capacity is hard to pin down, and you’re balancing asset division with ongoing support. With an MBA in finance and experience working through these exact questions with more than 1,000 couples, we can work through that complexity together. I don’t just help you understand the 13 factors—I help you analyze your specific situation, model different scenarios with real numbers, and craft an agreement that makes financial sense both today and 10 years from now.

That future-focused approach means you’re not just checking boxes on the 13 factors. You’re anticipating how your agreement will work when circumstances change, when earning capacity grows, and when retirement approaches. You’re building something that adapts to real life instead of creating a rigid agreement that stops making sense three years later.

Suppose you’re facing these alimony questions in New Jersey. In that case, mediation with the right financial expertise helps you move from an overwhelming list of factors to a clear understanding and informed decisions. You deserve an approach that turns complexity into clarity and helps both of you move forward with confidence.