Modification Not Allowed
The trial court properly abated, rather than terminated, maintenance to the wife, where she received $3.7 million in a medical malpractice action, given the uncertainty of her future medical expenses and insurability.
Where the relationship between ex-wife and male friend was of a relatively short duration, although they did have sexual relations, she would see him usually only every other month, they had not taken vacations together, owned no real estate or personal property together, and they had no joint bank accounts, the evidence showed she did not do his laundry and did not use maintenance to buy anything for him, he did not discipline the children and his principal involvement was playing chess with them, although there was sufficient evidence presented to grant the petition to terminate, there also was sufficient evidence to deny the petition; in such circumstances, that ex-wife and male friend were not engaged in a resident, continuing, conjugal relationship was not against the manifest weight of the evidence.
The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying husband’s petition to terminate maintenance based on ex-wife’s failure to seek appropriate training or education to become financially independent; ex-wife only had a general equivalency diploma and was custodian of two minor children. Moreover, she had a hearing problem which required her to read lips and caused a speech impediment and finally, only three years had passed since the dissolution of the marriage.
Where the wife was able to secure employment but there was evidence in the record indicating that she had held her new job for only two years and that even with this new source of income, her resources were insufficient to provide for her reasonable needs, where the prospects of this situation improving were speculative at best, especially considering that the wife suffered from a physical condition which apparently rendered her incontinent, and where by contrast, the record indicated that the husband continued to prosper and that he could still comfortably provide the maintenance payments specified in the dissolution judgment, there was no basis for disturbing the circuit court’s determination that the maintenance payments should not be terminated.
There was no abuse of discretion in refusing to terminate maintenance payments where the record indicated that the respondent suffered some significant financial misfortune, but respondent failed to present sufficient evidence of a substantial change in circumstances to warrant a termination of maintenance payments.
Where respondent received custody of the children at the same time he was ordered to pay $100 a week in maintenance to allow the petitioner to rehabilitate herself through schooling, and he did not show a substantial change in his circumstances following the maintenance order, the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in denying termination of maintenance.
Husband’s obligation to pay wife a maintenance sum of $500 per month under the couple’s settlement agreement survived his death.
