Updated September 17, 2026. Quick answer: New Mexico law creates a bright-line rule for long marriages: once a marriage has lasted 20 years or more, the court automatically retains jurisdiction over periodic spousal support unless the divorce decree specifically says no support will be awarded.
The rule that changes the answer in New Mexico
Under NMSA 1978 § 40-4-7(F): “The court shall retain jurisdiction over proceedings involving periodic spousal support payments when the parties have been married for twenty years or more prior to the dissolution of the marriage, unless the court order or decree specifically provides that no spousal support shall be awarded.”
What this means for duration
For marriages under 20 years, continuing jurisdiction over periodic support is not automatic and instead follows the general 10-factor test in subsection (E): age, health and means of support; current and future earnings and earning capacity; good-faith efforts to become self-supporting; reasonable needs including standard of living, medical insurance, and life insurance; length of the marriage; property awarded; type and nature of assets and liabilities; income from property; and prior agreements. For marriages of 20 years or more, subsection (F) reverses the default, so that the court keeps jurisdiction over periodic support unless the decree affirmatively states none will be paid.
Why this matters for a later-life divorce
This is a bright-line marriage-length threshold, not one discretionary factor among many: crossing 20 years of marriage flips the default from support ending unless a party asks the court to retain jurisdiction, to the court retaining jurisdiction unless the decree says otherwise, which is directly relevant to a long marriage ending later in life.
Read it yourself
Read the full official text before relying on any figure here. Alimony law is fact-specific and this rule is only one input to a court’s decision, not a guaranteed outcome. This is a source-backed planning guide, not individualized legal advice.
This rule is cross-checked against a second source, the New Mexico Legislature’s own bill-history record of this subsection.
Read directly from FindLaw’s codified text of NMSA 1978 § 40-4-7, independently re-fetched by this session; the identical subsection (F) language also appears in a New Mexico Legislature bill-history page (nmlegis.gov). Justia and nmonesource.com, the state’s own official-adjacent mirrors, returned HTTP 403 to every direct-fetch attempt this session.
Keep adjacent divorce questions with their owners
This page does not restate property-division, QDRO or pension, Social Security or Medicare, estate, divorce-statistics, or debt content.