Colorado handles this through two separate mechanisms, and confusing them costs people money. Some events end maintenance automatically by operation of law. Other changes generally require a court proceeding and, ordinarily, a motion showing that the statutory requirements for modification or termination have been met.
Your own paperwork matters at both stages, in two different ways. The automatic termination rules apply unless the parties agreed otherwise in writing or the decree expressly provides otherwise. Separately, a decree may preclude or limit modification where the separation agreement so provides, which is a distinct question from overriding the termination events.
Which mechanism applies to a given situation usually turns on the wording of the decree rather than on the statute alone. Johnson Law Group handles Colorado maintenance modification and termination, and reading the existing order first is what determines whether a motion is necessary at all.
The events that end maintenance on their own
Unless otherwise agreed in writing or expressly provided in the decree, the obligation to pay future maintenance terminates on the earliest of four events. Those are the death of either party, the end of the maintenance term, the remarriage of or establishment of a civil union by the recipient, and a court order terminating maintenance.
Note that this list covers future maintenance. It does not wipe out installments that already came due and went unpaid.
The deadline most people miss
The second item carries a condition that catches payers and recipients alike. Maintenance ends at the close of the term unless a motion for modification is filed before the term expires.
A recipient who waits until payments stop to think about extending them has generally waited too long. The motion needs to be on file while the term is still running, though the terms of a particular decree and any jurisdiction the court reserved can affect how this plays out.
Remarriage, civil unions, and cohabitation
Remarriage by the recipient ordinarily terminates future maintenance, and establishing a civil union does the same, unless the parties agreed otherwise in writing or the decree expressly provides otherwise. What counts as agreeing otherwise is genuinely unsettled in Colorado. Appellate panels have given different answers across five decades, ranging from requiring an express statement to treating a general non-modification clause as sufficient.
The current appellate answer comes from In re Marriage of Clark, decided by the Court of Appeals in August 2025. That panel held that an agreement need not specifically mention remarriage, and that it can override the statutory termination rule where it shows by its express terms or by clear implication that maintenance continues.
That is not the last word. The Colorado Supreme Court agreed in May 2026 to review the question, and the case remains pending, so the governing standard may change. Anyone relying on separation-agreement language to preserve or end a post-remarriage award should have the wording examined rather than assumed.
Cohabitation is not one of the statutory automatic termination events. A recipient living with a new partner does not end the obligation by operation of law, although the financial consequences of that arrangement may be relevant to a fact-specific request to modify maintenance.
The standard for changing an order
Modification is harder than most people expect. The statute permits a maintenance award to be modified only on a showing of changed circumstances so substantial and continuing as to make the terms unfair.
There is no percentage trigger here. Child support has a rule deeming a recalculation of less than ten percent not substantial, but the maintenance statute supplies no equivalent benchmark, so everything turns on persuading the court.
Colorado authority frames the question narrowly. The issue is not whether a court today would have set the same number as the original order, but whether the terms of the original arrangement have become unfair. The burden sits with the party asking for the change.
Note the conjunction as well. A change must be both substantial and continuing, so a temporary change may not satisfy the standard even where its immediate financial effect is severe.
Timing controls how much you recover
Only installments accruing after the motion is filed can be modified. The statute is explicit that an order cannot be modified retroactively to a date before filing.
Where a modification is granted, it should be effective as of the filing date, unless the court finds that doing so would cause undue hardship or substantial injustice. Because the statute generally limits modification to installments accruing after the motion is filed, delay can reduce the relief available.
Retirement gets a specific rule
The statute addresses retirement directly. A payer whose income is reduced or terminated because of retirement after reaching full retirement age is entitled to a rebuttable presumption that the retirement was taken in good faith.
Full retirement age has a defined meaning here. It is the payer’s usual or ordinary retirement age at which they would be eligible for full Social Security benefits, regardless of whether they happen to be ineligible for some other reason. It does not mean early retirement age, and it does not mean the later age at which delayed retirement would produce a larger benefit.
The presumption helps, but it does not finish the analysis. Good faith is one component; the payer still has to show a change that is substantial and continuing enough to make the existing terms unfair.
When maintenance cannot be changed at all
The maintenance statute permits modification or termination under the general framework except upon written agreement of the parties. The parties may therefore agree in writing to limit or preclude modification, subject to the requirements governing such agreements, and a decree may give that effect where the separation agreement so provides.
That is a genuine trade rather than a technicality. A non-modifiable award gives a recipient certainty against a future reduction and gives a payer certainty against a future increase, and it removes the option of going back to court when circumstances shift in either direction.
Two arguments the statute forecloses
The legislature closed off two theories that would otherwise be raised constantly. The enactment of the current maintenance statute, effective in 2014, does not itself constitute a substantial and continuing change of circumstances for orders entered before that date.
The same applies to the federal tax overhaul. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which ended the deduction for maintenance payments, does not constitute a substantial and continuing change of circumstances for orders entered before that law took effect. A payer whose order predates the change cannot rely on the enactment of that law itself as the basis for a modification.
Unpaid maintenance becomes a judgment
Each maintenance payment becomes a final money judgment when it comes due and is not paid. Those judgments are enforceable like other judgments and are not retroactively modified except as the modification provision allows, which is why arrears generally do not disappear when an order is later changed or terminated.
If you are considering a motion, the judicial branch’s self-help forms library covers the filings involved, though the forms cannot tell you whether your facts meet the standard. That assessment is the part worth getting right before you file, because the standard is strict and a denied motion still costs time and money.
Whether you are approaching the end of a maintenance term, planning a retirement, or facing a change on the other side of the order, the timing of the filing often matters as much as the underlying facts. An early read on whether a motion is viable is worth more than a late one.
