Can undue hardship arguments succeed based on extraordinarily high debt from the marriage itself?

Yes, unusually high debts reasonably incurred to support the family during the relationship are expressly recognized under the Federal Child Support Guidelines as a potential basis for an undue hardship claim, but success still requires meeting the full two-stage test rather than simply pointing to a large debt figure. The payor first needs to show the debt was genuinely incurred for reasonable family purposes, such as household expenses during a period of financial strain, rather than purely personal or discretionary spending, and then the case moves to comparing the standard of living between the two households.

Even a payor with genuinely significant marital debt will not succeed if the standard-of-living comparison shows their household is not actually worse off than the recipient's, since the debt alone does not automatically establish hardship in the sense the Guidelines require. Courts also look at how the debt arose, whether both parties benefited from the spending that created it, and whether the debt load is genuinely disproportionate rather than an ordinary consequence of ending a household. Because this claim depends on both establishing the debt's legitimacy and passing the comparison stage, detailed financial disclosure from both households is generally necessary.