role: user

text: explain to me again the difference between MO maintenance and CA maintenance.


role: assistant

text:
Yes. The short version is:

- `Missouri` starts from a tighter gate: can the supported spouse meet `reasonable needs` with `sufficient property` and `appropriate employment`? If not, the court can award maintenance.
- `California` starts from a broader balancing test centered more openly on preserving the `marital standard of living`, the parties’ assets, earning capacity, hardships, and what is `just and equitable`.

**Missouri**
- Threshold test first: the spouse seeking maintenance must lack enough property for `reasonable needs` and be unable to support themselves through `appropriate employment`.
- Then the court looks at factors like marital standard of living, duration, assets, age/condition, and ability to pay.
- The flavor is narrower and more survival-oriented: `what is needed`, `what can be earned`, `what is just`.
- Source: `RSMo 452.335` — https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=452.335

**California**
- No equivalent two-step threshold framed that way.
- The court considers a wider list of factors, including:
  - standard of living during the marriage,
  - whether the supported spouse’s earning capacity was impaired by domestic roles,
  - each side’s assets including separate property,
  - hardships,
  - tax consequences,
  - and any factors the court finds `just and equitable`.
- The flavor is more protective of long-marriage support and more willing to treat support as a broader fairness question, not just bare need.
- Source: `Fam. Code 4320` — https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=FAM&sectionNum=4320.

**Big long-marriage difference**
- `California` expressly keeps support jurisdiction open indefinitely for a `long duration` marriage unless the parties agree otherwise or support is terminated; `10+ years` is presumptively long duration.
- `Missouri` does not have that same built-in long-marriage framework.
- Source: `Fam. Code 4336` — https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=FAM&sectionNum=4336.

So the practical translation is:

- `Missouri`: “Can this person meet reasonable needs, and what is the minimum just support?”
- `California`: “Given this marriage and its consequences, what support structure is equitable and consistent with the marital standard of living?”

That is why California feels more aligned with your `fairness / long-term security` framing.