California  |  Family Law

There is no magic number of years of marriage for support purposes. The shorter the marriage, the less time support is presumed to be needed, and getting the supported spouse to be self supporting is the official policy of the state and the courts. So to answer your last question first, yes, you will be expected to become self supporting, but not immediately, particularly since it sounds like you have young child(ren), but spousal support will not be of long duration. You also will be expected to seek full time paying work to provide your share of the costs of rasing your child(ren). If you can prove you are actively seeking work and can't find it, you won't be dinged, but if you choose not to work or to be underemployed, eventually the court will order support to be re-calculated based on what the court believes you could and should be earning.

You are entitled to alimony and child support based on the information you provided. He can claim that his support payments can should be reduced based on your ability to get better paying employment, but is likely that he will still owe you some alimony and support.