the only time that alimony should be allowed is if:
in a scenario like this: john and lisa got married. then they get a divorce. john was ordered to pay X dollar amount to lisa to split up the financial assets. but John didn't have the X dollar amount as a lump sum payment. then the alimony would be set up to allow john to pay over time until X amount was transferred. ( an example : it might be most of the money is tied up in a long term investment and it would be financially stupid to end the long term investment early.. so a payment plan might be set up so lisa gets some of the profits over a period of time) maybe even have it be the X dollar amount plus some interest because she has to wait for the cash. obviously lisa and john would have to agree to the pay over time scenario and if they can't agree with what to do then the judge would decide for them.
but no one should ever have to keep paying a person after they are divorced. (other then the above situation). it only creates an incentive for a person to get a divorce. get alimony and the move in with another partner but refuse to get married. now she is getting money from the ex spouse but is also getting benefit of living with someone else. it just encourages bad behaviour.
when the marriage ends that's it . it ends. what's yours before the marriage is yours . what's gained during the marriage is split. then what is gained after the marriage is yours. the other half shouldn't get access to what is yours after the marriage. it makes no sense.
i do not care if you were a stay at home spouse. (a man can be a stay at home spouse the same as a wife can be a stay at home spouse) . i do not care. you get a lump sum pay out of the assets at the end of the marriage. figure it out after that. go get a damn job. why is someone allowed to live off of another person after a marriage has ended?
to add to this: what a person entered the marriage with is what they should get by default.
ex: lisa had 250,000 is cash when she entered the marriage. john had 75,000 in cash when he entered the marriage. when the divorce happens the first thing that should happen is lisa should get 250,000 in cash and john should get 75,000 in cash. that is what they entered with. then the assets gained during the marriage is what should be split. if you split up the 250,000 and the 75,000 then you are going to a point before the marriage and that makes no sense. so what happens if they spent all the money gained during the marriage and then some of the money from before the marriage? (in other words they went negative from where they were before the marriage)
simple: what ever percent of the pre marriage net worth was spent then that is the percent that each party loses of the 250,000 and 75,000 . i would hope that your net worth went up while married. it shouldn't have gone down unless there was a serious health crisis / long time loss of work on both people / serious mismanagement of the finances. but they both lose an equal percent of their pre-marriage cash.