{"id":64781,"date":"2026-05-06T11:16:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:16:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/?post_type=publications-page&#038;p=64781"},"modified":"2026-05-06T11:16:52","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:16:52","slug":"family-law-rules-about-spousal-support","status":"publish","type":"publications-page","link":"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/publications-page\/family-law-rules-about-spousal-support","title":{"rendered":"Family law rules about spousal support"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Family law says that in some situations your spouse has to support you financially even after your relationship has ended. This is called <strong>spousal support<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>In family law, your spouse is someone of any sex or gender who you:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>are married to<\/li>\n<li>have been living with as a couple for at least 3 years<\/li>\n<li>have been living with in &#8220;a relationship of some permanence&#8221; and the two of you have a child together<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ontario Works (OW) and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) use the family law definition of spouse in their rules about support payments. But they use a different definition of spouse when they decide if you qualify for money from OW or ODSP.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-64781","publications-page","type-publications-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Family law rules about spousal support - CLEO (Community Legal Education Ontario \/ \u00c9ducation juridique communautaire Ontario)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/publications-page\/family-law-rules-about-spousal-support\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Family law rules about spousal support - CLEO (Community Legal Education Ontario \/ \u00c9ducation juridique communautaire Ontario)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Family law says that in some situations your spouse has to support you financially even after your relationship has ended. This is called spousal support. In family law, your spouse is someone of any sex or gender who you: are married to have been living with as a couple for at least 3 years have been living with in &#8220;a relationship of some permanence&#8221;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/publications-page\/family-law-rules-about-spousal-support\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CLEO (Community Legal Education Ontario \/ \u00c9ducation juridique communautaire Ontario)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-05-06T15:16:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/publications-page\/family-law-rules-about-spousal-support\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/publications-page\/family-law-rules-about-spousal-support\",\"name\":\"Family law rules about spousal support - CLEO (Community Legal Education Ontario \/ \u00c9ducation juridique communautaire Ontario)\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-06T15:16:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-05-06T15:16:52+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/publications-page\/family-law-rules-about-spousal-support#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/publications-page\/family-law-rules-about-spousal-support\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/publications-page\/family-law-rules-about-spousal-support#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Publication pages\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/publications-page\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Family law rules about spousal support\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/\",\"name\":\"CLEO (Community Legal Education Ontario \/ \u00c9ducation juridique communautaire Ontario)\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Family law rules about spousal support - CLEO (Community Legal Education Ontario \/ \u00c9ducation juridique communautaire Ontario)","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/publications-page\/family-law-rules-about-spousal-support","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Family law rules about spousal support - CLEO (Community Legal Education Ontario \/ \u00c9ducation juridique communautaire Ontario)","og_description":"Family law says that in some situations your spouse has to support you financially even after your relationship has ended. This is called spousal support. 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