It’s another breakthrough for women, but probably not one that they’re relishing.

A growing number of women are paying alimony and child support when their marriages break up, according to a recent survey of 1,650 lawyers by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Some 54% of the attorneys surveyed have seen an increase in mothers paying child support in the last three years, and 45% noticed an uptick in women paying alimony, AAML found.

The trend could be seen as a sign of women’s growing earning power in the face of America’s persistent gender wage gap, but it can be a bitter pill to swallow who those who experience it firsthand, said AAML president Madeline Marzano-Lesnevich, a family law attorney based in Hackensack, New Jersey.