The general feeling in the courts is that non-working spouses should be working to maintain themselves and contribute towards child support. Naturally, like most rules, there are exceptions, and you should check with your attorney to see if you may fall within one of those exceptions. An example of a candidate for lifetime maintenance could be an elderly lady who has been out of the work force all of her life has been maintained all of her life by her husband, and her husband has sufficient money to provide such maintenance. Despite this extreme example, the general rule is that at some stage, people are expected to get work although this may not be immediately. This brings us to the question of how one gets into the work force or back into the work force, and whether one needs any further training. There are vast resources available for helping in one's search for employment. Examples of this are vocational consultants who typically evaluate your potential, the job market, and how you should best proceed to acquire the necessary skills to enter into that market. There are employment agencies and numerous vocation schools and Career Consultants which will help to set you on the road to financial viability. Check with your local community colleges and universities for part and full time training opportunities.
During the divorce process you should consider the cost of this training plus the fact that it may force you to do less hours on the job. Examples of divorce issues raised by this are as follows: Your decreased income may affect your share of child support. Your spouse may try to impute income to you. You should consider whether you need to obtain maintenance (spousal support) or obtain a larger share of the assets to help you defer the costs of your education and shortfall in income. For further discussions on the above, click on: Child Support; Maintenance; and Assets (This link will open a Microsoft Word Document)