Georgia lets divorcing spouses agree that alimony ends automatically when the recipient cohabits, but without that agreement a paying spouse who stops on his own is acting at his peril.
The Statute Does Not Do It for You
OCGA 19-6-19(b) makes cohabitation “grounds to modify” periodic alimony; it does not end anything by itself. In Metzler v. Metzler, 267 Ga. 892 (1997), a trial court on its own wrote into the decree that alimony would end if the wife cohabited. The Supreme Court struck it: “there is no statutory equivalent to OCGA § 19-6-5 (b),” the remarriage statute, “authorizing the automatic termination of alimony in such an event.”
An Agreement Can
In Quillen v. Quillen, 265 Ga. 779 (1995), the incorporated settlement agreement required alimony until the former wife “cohabits as same is defined by Georgia law.” When the former husband stopped paying and she sued for contempt, the Supreme Court held that “divorcing parties are free to contract for self-executing changes in an alimony obligation.” The contempt court’s only job was to decide whether the clause had been triggered; it found she had cohabited, so he was not in contempt. The trade, the court noted, is that the recipient gives up the venue and jury trial a modification action would offer.
The Clause Has to Say So
In Brown v. Brown, 269 Ga. 724 (1998), the agreement referred to the wife ceasing “to be entitled to alimony pursuant to OCGA § 19-6-19.” That was not self-executing: under the statute she would lose alimony “only after a judicial determination,” so her relationship was no defense to contempt for the unpaid years. Where the clause leaves it to the statute, stopping is a gamble: the paying spouse “acts at his or her peril in unilaterally stopping payments.” Kent v. Kent, 265 Ga. 211 (1995). What a clause’s own words mean is covered in our post on defining cohabitation in your alimony agreement.
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!