I've heard of the concept of "imputed income" where the support payments are calculated based on the income she could make.
Yes - imputed income is often used but can be a bit challenging. Especially since it doesn't sound like your ex has worked full time for a long time? (If ever?)
In my case, I had been the part-time worker in my marriage and full-time mom. When we finally divorced I was working full time in my own practice but not making as much as my exH wanted to impute to me. (I had health issues and had an integrative medicine practice which was not as profitable as working for say Kaiser - which would not have allowed me to practice integrative medicine. We finally settled on an imputed income amount halfway between what I actually made and what I would have made at Kaiser, although I probably would have won that one if we'd gone to court, since I'd already been in my practice for a couple of years.)
You should speak with your own individual attorney about this before discussing it further with her.
