It's VERY rare for alimony to be awarded to a non-custodial parent. The courts aren't supposed to consider the issue of whether or not there are children, but they do. Realistically, the parent who gets the kids needs to NOT be paying out money to the non-custodial parent. On the other hand, the judges MIGHT decide to set "alimony" as a fictional number to be about the amount of what child support should be, so that they'd equal each other out and the parent in psychiatric care would neither receive money nor have to pay out any.

If your children are the children of a disabled person who is likely to be a deadbeat and unable to care for the kids because of whatever emotional disability they suffer from, it's so much better to support the claim of disability and then make a claim for social security to be sent to you for "dependent of disabled" person, and have it CLEAR that you AGREE that they're disabled to the extent that they cannot properly care for the children so that (a), you'll at least get SOMETHING to help defray the financing of thier care... your ex is not likely to provide it if she's not capable of holding down a job because of her mental disability and (b), there will be no question that she will be able to come in and claim that she should be primary residential parent, because you should say her disability prevents her from being an appropriate parent (most disabilities do not prevent this, but an emotional disability is the one area that prevents a person from being an appropriate parent, being emotionally unable to provide the proper emotional support, to endure the stress of parenting, to provide a good example of how to work through stresses... not to mention the times when they may be simply incapable of getting out of bed ... as some depressive disabilities are... I'd NEVER say a person with a normal disability couldn't be a parent, but it seems that a person with YOUR EX's disability... mental ... causing her to be several states away from your children... etc... IS cause for saying she's not a fit parent).

If you're going to get nothing anyways because of her disability, why not use that information and get yourself the government aid to which your children are entitled?