For many payers, reducing alimony is difficult, even when circumstances and incomes change. Appeals are often lost. The high cost of legal representation can make it impossible to continue battling in court. Payers say alimony should not deplete retirement funds, discourage women from working or remarrying, or sap the income of a new spouse.

If the standard of living must drop after a divorce, as it often does, the burden should be equally shared, they say. In Florida, that is not always the case.

“It can strangle the person that is paying it,” said Alan Frisher, the founder of Florida Alimony Reform, an organization of 2,000 members, several of whom testified recently at legislative committee hearings. “Oftentimes, we can’t afford to pay that amount of alimony. It can provide a disincentive for the receiver to ever go back to work, to make more money or remarry. I don’t think anybody should have to be an indentured servant for the rest of their lives.”

But Barry Finkel, a family law lawyer in Fort Lauderdale, said the bill would heedlessly chisel at judges’ discretion.

“There certainly is a national trend against long-term alimony,” he said, “but the answer is not to create these roadblocks and hurdles because there is an unhappy payer.”

Cynthia Hawkins DeBose, a law professor at Stetson University in Gulfport, said the bill, and others like it, could remedy some inequities of permanent alimony, like protecting a new spouse’s income and ensuring that an ex-wife does not live in a $700,000 house while her husband lives in a $180,000 one. Former spouses, she said, should be permitted to move on and not be tethered forever.

“Over all, I’m mixed about this,” she said. “I don’t think alimony should be welfare for the middle class, but I’m fearful of the tail wagging the dog.”