Can a divorce agreement be revised?

Questioner

After almost 25 years of marriage, my ex-husband and I divorced 7 years ago. A covenant was drawn up with the help of a mediator and the agreements were recorded in court. Now my ex-husband wants to revise the agreement. He is unemployed due to psychological problems and because he is financially unstable (even during our marriage) I started working more. The children (3) stayed with me. I receive spousal support, but have waived child support. The children were 20, 19 and 17 years old at the time. All assets have been divided fairly and pension agreements have been arranged. I am entitled to his pension (because I did not work for 10 years after the birth of the children) and he is not entitled to mine. The latter was on his initiative. During our marriage he built up large debts which I dutifully paid off because we were married in community of property. So much so that the house we lived in had to be sold and I ended up on the street and eventually on welfare. Incidentally, that was not the cause of the divorce at the time. Because I have started working and earning more due to this unstable financial situation and because my parents have both passed away, from whom an inheritance may come in the long term, he now thinks that I am no longer in need of alimony and he wants to stop the alimony and reverse the pension agreements to the situation before the divorce. Can that just happen and is there a chance that he will be right in this?

Lawyer

If your financial situation has changed, a change in the spousal support is common, unless it is stated in your agreement that this is unchangeable (which is not common). If you cannot reach an agreement together, you can have a calculation done by an expert. If one of you does not want this, it can be legally enforced. Changes in the pension must be reported to the pension funds within 2 years after divorce. If you have waived certain rights in the covenant, this cannot simply be reversed.