If your Georgia alimony agreement ends payments when your former spouse cohabits but does not define the word, the court will give it the meaning Georgia law already attaches to it, not the meaning you had in mind.
The Statutory Definition Is the Default
OCGA 19-6-19(b) defines “cohabitation” as “dwelling together continuously and openly in a meretricious relationship with another person, regardless of the sex of the other person.” When an agreement borrows the statute’s words without defining them, that is the meaning the court applies.
“Meretricious Relationship” Without a Definition
In Schaffeld v. Schaffeld, 349 Ga. App. 688 (2019), the agreement said alimony “shall cease” if the wife “enters into a meretricious relationship.” The husband stopped paying because she was seeing a physician who lived 45 miles away and stayed over on weekends, and the trial court held that weekend cohabitation was enough. The Court of Appeals reversed. A meretricious relationship “involves continuous, open cohabitation,” and “continuously” means “without interruption.” To the husband’s argument that the parties meant something looser than the statute, the court answered: “The parties could have adopted an agreement that defines ‘meretricious relationship’ idiosyncratically, but they did not.”
A Looser Word Has to Be Construed First
In Todd v. Casciano, 256 Ga. App. 631 (2002), a custody decree barred either parent from cohabiting “with a person of the opposite sex, not a relative, in the presence of the children.” The mother and children spent several weekends at her boyfriend’s house. The Court of Appeals noted that “cohabit” can mean anything from sharing a place to living together as spouses, and that the mother understood it to mean moving in. Because the trial court had not construed the term before finding a violation, the contempt-based fee award was reversed.
So if you want alimony to end on something short of living together, say so in your own words. Otherwise the statute’s definition, as the courts read it, is what you get.
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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!