Since Washington is a community property state, does the length of the marriage matter?

Since Washington is a community property state, does the length of the marriage matter?

In short, yes. Property division is only one of many aspects of your divorce, and even there, a divorce following a lengthy marriage is going to be different from a short one in many respects. While the law doesn’t necessarily have a large body of laws regarding longer marriages, there are many areas of influence where time simply changes things for a divorce.

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Let’s start with community property:

Yours, mine and ours are a lot harder to determine after a few decades

One of the caveats of a community property law is that it only applies to the marital estate, not separate property, which includes:

• Any property you owned prior to your marriage
• Any inheritances you received during the marriage
• Any gifts you received during the marriage
• Personal injury awards

Additionally, anything you’ve included as a potential separate property purchase by agreement – such as a prenuptial or post-nuptial agreement – can be separate as well.

All that information about the separate property is good until you get to the possibility of comingling assets. Over a long marriage, the exclusive use of a property or the likelihood of its introduction to the marital estate is much more likely. Once you use an asset to leverage another communal purchase or make updates and renovations, things become complicated. Almost as complicated as the life you built with your spouse.

Spousal support and alimony

One of the major factors in spousal support or alimony discussion is the length of the marriage. As, over time, assets and lives become more mingled, the ability to split one household into two without ongoing maintenance is not feasible for most. One spouse may pay spousal support to the others, and the length of the marriage may determine not only how much but also how long it lasts.

Time is always a factor.

Having a long marriage is no reason to continue in a relationship that isn’t working for you anymore. The potential complications of that long marriage in post-divorce life aren’t a reason to continue a marriage. You must enter the next phase with your eyes open so you can understand the stakes and how to best move forward.