Whether or not you're going to have to go back to work after divorce depend a lot on the situation that was happening during the marriage. In many states, the supportive spouse has the right to live the life felt which he or she was accustomed during the marriage. Other states have different laws, but most states try and maintain the same level that happened during the marriage, the status quo again. If your earning spouse is somebody that makes a great deal of money, you may not have to go back to work. If he or she is not, you may have to go back to work to get to the level of where you were during the marriage. A court won't order you to go back to work. But a judge might say, "I'm imputing this much income to you. You could earn this; whether you choose to go do it is up to you, but I'm only going to have this much support assigned to you. The rest of it , you're going to have to make up on your own, or lessen your lifestyle." Courts will also look at the age of your children. If you're the stay-home caretaker, and your children are not in school for the vast majority of their day, it may be more physically responsible to have you home taking care of them rather than having to pay somebody else with whatever wages you're earning. But if you have kids who are in school, and you actually need an extra amount of money to make whatever the family was earning to live a certain lifestyle when you were married, you may end up having to go back to work, not immediately. The court usually give spouses that are supported some time to get back on their feet and rehabilitate whatever their career was, or get training so that they can enter their workplace.