Dual Income - A question from the other side

1. Your boyfriend’s spouse has no claim against you nor your income whether you are in a married, common law or any other relationship with your boyfriend. Her threats to pursue your “dual incomes” are meaningless as there is no law in BC nor under the federal Divorce Act that permits such a claim. The only minor way in which your income can even be considered regarding child support is that if your boyfriend attempts to use the “Undue Hardship” provisions of the Child Support Guidelines to argue that he cannot afford to pay the applicable table amount of child support, then the court will conduct a “Standards of Living” Comparison test whereby the combined total income of all adults in each party’s households would be compared to the Poverty level of income in Canada such that if the recipient’s standard of living is closer to the Poverty level than the payor’s standard of living is, then the payor cannot successfully claim an undue hardship – but even under that test the payor’s requirement to pay the table amount of support is based solely on the payor’s income and has no relation to his new partner’s income.

2. There is no agreement available to protect you from claims made against you by your boyfriend’s ex as there are no claims that his ex can make against you (regarding child support).

3. No the fact that you are not divorced from your first spouse will have no bearing on whether you are in a common law relationship with your boyfriend – under BC law once you have cohabited in a spousal like relationship for 2 or more years- you are in fact in a common law relationship.