Married couples in Japan have a responsibility to jointly bear the various expenses associated with their married life. These expenses can include things such as food, housing, utilities and other items and daily necessities used jointly by the couple.
However, when spouses separate without divorcing, it may be difficult for them to split their expenditures in the way they used to while living together. This problem is exacerbated in couples where only one spouse is employed. In this situation, the non-working spouse may find it hard to pay for daily necessities without access to the working-spouse’s income. As married couples cannot receive child support until they divorce, if the non-working spouse is also taking care of children, it may be extremely difficult to meet even basic financial needs.
Therefore, when a married couple lives separately, the spouse with the larger income must pay the other marital support. These monthly payments to the other spouse help to support his or her lifestyle. These payments are calculated in a similar manner to child support and will mostly be based upon the spouses’ respective incomes and whether there are any minor children. Ideally, marital support payments are designed to provide both spouses with the same level of economic resources that they enjoyed before the separation.
As marital support payments are designed to replicate the support that a married couple living together would naturally provide, the payments will stop if the couple move back together or divorce. However, upon divorce, one spouse may have a new obligation to pay child support or some division of the marital assets in order to provide economic support after the divorce.