I’m going anonymous for obvious reasons, but I wanted to share my experience with Alberta’s whole child support and spousal support ordeal. A few years ago, I went through a messy separation with my ex. We have two kids together, and I ended up paying both child and spousal support. It was a ride, and not the fun kind. I wish someone had told me half of this before I was knee-deep in it, so here’s my story and some things I learned the hard way.
First, when we first split, I had no clue how child support was determined. I naively thought we’d just sort it out informally, maybe split costs, etc. Nope. Very quickly, I learned that Canada (and Alberta) have Federal Child Support Guidelines, which are basically a formula.
They don’t care about why you separated or who’s at fault. It’s all about income and the number of kids. They take the payor’s gross income (before tax) and the number of children, and out pops a number from a table. That’s your base child support. In my case, as the higher earner, I was the “payor” and my ex was the “recipient” of child support. There wasn’t much room to argue; it’s pretty much set by law.
50/50 shared custody
One of the first confusing things was that we were moving towards 50/50 shared custody. I had the kids half the time. I assumed that if it’s equal time, neither of us pays support. Wrong!
What they do (which I only found out later) is apply the formula for both parents’ incomes, and then basically the higher-income parent pays the difference (often called the “set-off” method). So, even with equal custody, I spent a significant chunk of money monthly. That was a shocker. The idea behind this (so they tell me) is to ensure the kids have a similar standard of living at both homes. It makes sense in theory. You don’t want one home to be a mansion and the other a shack. But as the guy writing the cheques, it still stings a bit.
And child support isn’t just “here’s some cash for the kids’ food.” The base amount is supposed to cover the general costs of raising the child. These expenses often include housing, groceries, utilities, all that indirect stuff, and direct expenses. On top of that, there’s something called “Section 7 expenses” (I learned about this in a tense meeting with our lawyers). Those are special extras not covered by the base amount: daycare, orthodontics, extracurricular activities, etc.
We had to split them proportionally to our incomes. In our case, the daycare was big. We each paid a share of the daycare bill on top of the base support. This part was confusing initially because my base support covered everything, but some costs got added separately.
Spousal Support in Alberta
Child support is the right of the child. This means (as every lawyer and judge reminded us) you can’t bargain it away, and you shouldn’t mess with it. Trust me, I was angry at times and thought about withholding payments during a heated parenting dispute, but thank god I didn’t. The law says that paying child support comes before paying any other bills.
So even if I’m broke or my ex annoys me, I must pay for it or face consequences. And boy, Alberta’s Maintenance Enforcement Program does not play around. I was a few weeks late once (during COVID, my income dropped), and I got a stern notice. They can garnish wages, seize your bank accounts, and even suspend your driver’s license if you don’t pay up. One friend of mine had his license suspended for falling behind on child support. He thought he could dodge it, and MEP said “nope.” Don’t mess with support obligations, they’re priority number one.
Now, I experienced one frustrating situation. My ex wasn’t working when we split. She had been a stay-at-home mom for a decade (which was a joint decision, but still). After the separation, she remained unemployed for a while, and I felt like I was carrying the whole load financially. I learned about the concept of “imputed income.”
If a parent could be earning and just isn’t (by choice, not due to health or something), the courts can assign them an income in calculations. In other words, they pretend that the person earns a reasonable amount and base support on that. However, getting a court to impute income isn’t easy. You need to prove they’re deliberately underemployed. In my case, I didn’t push for that formally (trying to keep things civil), but I kind of wish I had when she took an extended period “finding herself” while I paid support based on my full income alone. If you’re in a similar boat (ex, intentionally not working), know it’s possible to address.
Alberta Family Law Act
Let’s talk about spousal support (a.k.a. alimony). This part was even more confusing for me because, unlike child support, there’s no hard-and-fast formula set in law. It’s a lot greyer. In Alberta (and all of Canada), the law (Divorce Act federally, or the Alberta Family Law Act provincially) lays out factors to decide if someone should get spousal support and how much.
They look at things like how long you were together, your roles (who was the breadwinner, who sacrificed career for home/kids, etc.), ages, and your financial situations after separation. In our case, we were married for about 12 years, and as I mentioned, my ex had left her job to raise our kids. So from the get-go, it was pretty clear she’d likely be entitled to some spousal support. The court noted that she hadn’t been in the workforce, and I was earning a good salary. She needed it, and I could pay for it.
I discovered something called the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines. These are not laws. They’re more like reference tools that lawyers and judges use to get a ballpark range. They take into account incomes, the length of the relationship, and some other factors and then spit out a low-to-high range for monthly support and a suggested duration. In our mediation, the mediator used software to calculate it (because the with-children formula is complex).
The result was “$X to $Y monthly for 5 to 8 years.” It was a huge range, which wasn’t very comforting. I remember thinking, “Great, that’s like saying I should pay somewhere between a used Honda and a brand new Tesla over time. What do we do with that?” Eventually, we negotiated an amount near the lower-middle of the range and settled on a timeline of five years of spousal support. My ex wanted closer to 8 years, but we compromised. The judge later approved it in our consent order, noting it was within the guidelines range.
Child and spousal support
Child support comes first, then spousal. I didn’t know this until my lawyer mentioned it. By law, the kids’ support is the priority. If, say, I truly couldn’t afford both child and spousal support at the guideline levels, spousal support would be the one to cut back on.
In extreme cases, a judge might even award zero spousal support if the payor’s money is all needed to support the kids. This didn’t reduce my burden in our situation because I could afford both, but it’s something to keep in mind. You can’t sacrifice child support to pay spousal support. The court will always ensure the kids are taken care of first.
Another thing nobody told me until I was sorting it out, was taxes. Child support in Canada is not taxable (you don’t get a deduction for paying it, and the recipient doesn’t claim it as income). Spousal support, however, is taxable for the recipient and tax-deductible for the payer if it’s periodic (monthly). So in practical terms, the spousal support I pay can be written off on my tax return, and my ex has to declare it as income on hers.
We ended up structuring our agreement so I pay monthly spousal support precisely because I needed the tax break, and she was okay with it since, ultimately, it meant I could afford a bit more. But come tax time, she did complain about “owing taxes on the support money.” It’s something people often overlook. (Lump-sum spousal support, on the other hand, is usually not tax-deductible/taxable, but we didn’t go that route.)
Don’t mix money and kid time
Early on, I was furious that I was paying a lot, and at one point, when we had a visitation dispute, I thought I might withhold support until it was resolved. Luckily, I read enough online to know that’s a huge no-no. Support payments and parenting time are separate issues legally. Even if one parent flakes on visits or you’re arguing about custody, you still have to pay your support.
On the flip side, if the other parent isn’t paying, you’re not supposed to withhold the children as leverage. Family court judges hate it when people connect those dots. I’ve heard, “Child support is for the child, not a pay-per-view ticket to see them,” and that stuck with me.
Get everything in writing and official
My ex and I initially tried a casual arrangement for a few months before lawyers got involved. We verbally agreed I’d pay a certain amount that we just guesstimated (it was actually lower than the guideline amount, because I was also covering the mortgage then). It only took a short time for that to backfire. She talked to a lawyer or friend who told her she could get more, and suddenly, my voluntary payments weren’t enough.
We ended up in court, and I got hit with the full guideline amount anyway and an order to pay the retroactive difference for those months. Ouch. I followed the formula from day one and had it in writing. I’ve seen others try to make side deals like “I’ll pay some lump sum or cover a different expense instead of support.” It might feel like it works for a while, but it can come back to bite you.
One guy I know offered his ex a larger share of the house sale profits if she would forego some of the child support; she took the money and then went after full child support through the courts anyway. Ultimately, he paid more because of that “side deal.” File everything properly and stick to the legal calculations. Any off-the-record deal is only as good as the paper it’s (not) written on.
-JC
