## Facts

- Carolyn Arvenitis (plaintiff/appellee) and Charles Arvenitis (defendant/appellant) divorced in 1992, when they were in their early fifties.
- Their March 10, 1992 stipulated divorce decree required Charles to pay Carolyn alimony of $500 per week, payable weekly, “for her support.”
- Earlier draft language for the alimony clause included different terms: $575 per week “for a period of 3 years without prejudice to its renewal or modification at that time upon petition of the plaintiff.”
- During negotiations, the parties reduced the weekly amount to $500 and crossed out the draft language after the word “support,” leaving the final clause silent about duration, retirement, and any express restriction on modification.
- In April 2004, Charles petitioned the superior court to terminate his alimony obligation, alleging he would turn 63 that August and intended to retire.
- The stipulation, as executed and approved, did not address retirement.
- The superior court denied the petition, finding Charles had not shown a substantial change in circumstances making the current alimony order improper or unfair.
- In denying relief, the superior court reasoned that retirement was foreseeable at the time of the divorce and treated the crossed-out draft language as showing that Carolyn had effectively bargained for lifetime alimony.
- Charles appealed the denial to the Supreme Court of New Hampshire.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court unsustainably exercised its discretion by interpreting the parties’ stipulation—based on crossed-out draft language—as reflecting an agreement for “alimony for life” or otherwise limiting later modification.
2. Whether the trial court erred by denying modification on the ground that Charles’s retirement was foreseeable at the time the 1992 decree was entered, rather than analyzing whether retirement-related circumstances constituted a substantial change making the existing order improper or unfair.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of New Hampshire vacated the superior court’s order denying Charles’s petition to terminate alimony and remanded for further proceedings.
- The Court held that the denial rested in significant part on an erroneous interpretation of the parties’ stipulation, including the trial court’s inference of lifetime alimony from crossed-out draft language.
- The Court directed that the petition be reconsidered under the proper reading of the stipulation and the governing “substantial change in circumstances” standard.

## Legal Principles

- A trial court’s ruling on a motion to modify support is reviewed for an unsustainable exercise of discretion.
- The party seeking modification bears the burden to prove a substantial change in circumstances since the initial award that makes the existing support amount improper or unfair.
- Divorce stipulations are construed from the final written terms approved by the court; a court should not add terms (such as “alimony for life” or nonmodifiability) that are not expressed in the operative language.
- Evidence that proposed language was crossed out during negotiation does not, by itself, justify treating the final agreement as containing the opposite bargain (e.g., an implicit lifetime obligation) when the executed text does not say so.
- Even if retirement is generally foreseeable, the court must still evaluate whether a payor’s actual or impending retirement and resulting financial circumstances amount to a substantial change under the modification standard, consistent with the parties’ written stipulation.

## Conclusion

The New Hampshire Supreme Court vacated and remanded because the superior court denied termination largely based on a mistaken reading of the stipulation—treating crossed-out draft language as proof that the parties agreed to lifetime alimony—and because the modification analysis must focus on whether retirement-related circumstances create a substantial change making the existing alimony order improper or unfair under the decree’s final terms.


In re Arvenitis, 886 A.2d 1025 (2005)