I was in a similar situation when I was going through divorce a year ago. He basically had not worked in 20 years but was not formally considered disabled although did have some health issues and was using those as excuses to try and get more money. He was asking for alimony but that was such a bitter pill for me I was darned if I was going to pay him alimony. Instead, in our negotiations we negotiated a lump sum payment in lieu of alimony. In my case it was a significant amount but I was lucky that I had significant assets and it would not have taken everything I had. I will add here that we are both retired early............he was 63 and already collecting social security and I retired early at age 57. To my way of thinking I preferred to get the pain over with all at once rather than pay him for a number of years. Funny thing happened though. He dinked around so long trying to change everything that we agreed to that he actually DIED before we were divorced. With that both the alimony and the lump sum payment issues went away and I saved myself a ton of money. However here in NC the equitable distribution case did not go away and I did have to negotiate and pay his heirs what would have been the portion of the marital assets that he would have gotten, ie the half of the IRA that was acquired during our time married etc. BUT the alimony/settlement in lieu of alimony went away. My husband was only 63 but with the progressive disease if his illness is such that he may not survive the length of time that he may be entitled to alimony then one could make an argument for delaying payment, ie doing alimony instead of a lump payment since if he or you dies then alimony stops. In my case IF he and his lawyer had not dinked around so long and I in fact HAD made the lump payment then when he died his brothers would have gotten all that money. In retrospect then I was glad for the delays. Just some things to think about.