One of you has moved out. The mortgage is still due on the first, and so are the car payment, the insurance, and the daycare bill. If most of the household income belongs to one spouse, the other one is doing arithmetic at the kitchen table and not liking the answer. A South Carolina divorce takes months, and the bills do not wait for it.

The Family Court can order one spouse to support the other while the case is pending. South Carolina calls it alimony pendente lite — Latin for "pending the litigation." You will also hear it called temporary alimony or temporary spousal support. It is an ordinary remedy in ordinary cases, not something reserved for large estates.

It does not happen on its own, though, and that is where people lose ground. Section 20-3-120 of the South Carolina Code says either party "may in his or her complaint or answer or by petition pray for the allowance to him or her of alimony and suit money and for the allowance of such alimony and suit money pendente lite." If the claim "shall appear well-founded the court shall allow a reasonable sum therefor."

Read that twice. The court shall allow a reasonable sum — if you asked for it. The request belongs in your pleading.

It comes from the same statute as permanent alimony

Section 20-3-130(A) gives the Family Court authority to grant alimony or separate maintenance and support "in such amounts and for such term as the court considers appropriate as from the circumstances of the parties and the nature of case may be just, pendente lite, and permanently."

One statute. Two points in time. That is worth knowing because a temporary request is not a formality you file while the real case gets organized. It is a version of the same question the court answers at the end, asked early and on far less information. We walked through the hearing itself in what a temporary hearing actually decides.

The same subsection carries the adultery bar: no alimony may be awarded to a spouse who commits adultery before the earlier of the formal signing of a written property or marital settlement agreement, or entry of a permanent order of separate maintenance and support or of a permanent order approving such an agreement. That rule rewards precision and punishes approximation. If it might touch your case, raise it with your lawyer in the first meeting rather than the last.

What the court weighs

Section 20-3-130(C) says the court "must consider and give weight in such proportion as it finds appropriate to all of the following factors," and then lists thirteen of them. Most are what you would expect: the duration of the marriage, "the employment history and earning potential of each spouse," "the current and reasonably anticipated earnings of both spouses," "the current and reasonably anticipated expenses and needs of both spouses," and "the standard of living established during the marriage."

One factor speaks directly to a parent who has been at home. The court considers "custody of the children, particularly where conditions or circumstances render it appropriate that the custodian not be required to seek employment outside the home, or where the employment must be of a limited nature."

If you stepped back from paid work to raise children, that is not an awkward fact you have to explain away. It is in the statute, and the court is required to weigh it.

Marital misconduct is on the list as well, with its own careful limits, and the thirteenth factor is a catch-all: "such other factors the court considers relevant."

Paying for the lawyer is part of the same conversation

People assume the spouse who controls the money automatically gets the better-funded case. The statute does not assume that. Section 20-3-130(H) lets the court, "after considering the financial resources and marital fault of both parties," order one party to pay the other "a reasonable amount ... for attorney fees, expert fees, investigation fees, costs, and suit money." It reaches fees incurred before the case was filed and after judgment, "pendente lite and permanently."

The Family Court's jurisdictional statute says the same thing from the other direction, and adds a line that tells you how seriously it is meant. Section 63-3-530(A)(38) covers a request for suit money "pendente lite and permanently," and then provides: "An award of temporary attorney's fees or suit costs must not be stayed by an appeal of the award."

We covered the fee question in more detail in can the court make my spouse pay my attorney's fees, and that post is the better place to start if fees are your main worry.

A temporary order is temporary

Support orders in Family Court run "until further order of the court" under Section 63-3-530(A)(17), and the court has express authority under Section 63-3-530(A)(25) "to modify or vacate any order issued by the court." If the facts change, the order can change.

What weight a temporary award carries at the end of a case is a question of case law rather than statute, and it is one to put to your own lawyer rather than to a search engine. What the statutes make plain is that the number set in month two is not carved into anything.

What this means for you

Three things do most of the work, and you control all three.

Ask. Section 20-3-120 puts the request in the complaint, the answer, or a petition. A need you never pleaded is a need the court was never asked to address.

Document the household honestly. Your financial declaration is what tells the court what this family actually costs to run. A declaration assembled in a hurry almost always understates the very expenses it exists to prove. Pull the statements. Use real numbers, including the irregular ones — the annual insurance premium, the orthodontist, the car that is about to need tires.

Move. Nothing is ordered before it is requested, and nothing is requested before someone files. Every week of waiting is a week you carry alone.

None of that requires you to know what the final outcome will be. It requires you to put the real picture in front of the judge early, which is a much more manageable task.

Stevens Family Law, LLC is devoted exclusively to family law, and our attorneys handle alimony and support matters in Family Courts across South Carolina. If you are trying to work out how the bills get paid between now and the end of your case, that is a conversation worth having before the next payment comes due rather than after. Call our office at (864) 598-9172 or request a consultation.

This article is general information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Temporary support is decided on the particular finances of a particular household, and outcomes vary from case to case.