In a divorce proceedings which happen due to adultery on the part of one of the spouses should the spouse who is the victim of the adultery be favoured-by for instance being given custody of the children or being given all the joint income?
No. I’m definitely all for no-fault divorce. If you are cheated on, you still choose whether to leave or not. Plus, adultery is often a symptom of other problems in the relationship. And it’s entirely possible that both spouses cheated but only one admitted it / left proof.
Only if you are a victim of domestic abuse should you be given any preferential treatment IMO.
Adultery is emotional abuse in a lot of circumstances not to mention its unfair.
LOL. What personal experience do you have with adultery?
Sure it’s unfair. But people in relationships do a lot of nasty things to each other.
I think that adultery is a breech of contract, of sorts, and it’s not out of line to say it can be abusive.
Yes. The punishment for adultery should be destitution and removal of any child custody rights. They should count their blessings that we don’t stone them to death.
In current UK practice who gets custody of the children is supposed to reflect the best outcome for the welfare of the children. They’re not consolation prizes given to the most hard done by parent, nor should they be!
“All the joint income”? How would that work? Even adulterers need to eat.
Well presumably, any income earned by the adulterer after the divorce would not be joint and therefore not up for grabs.
I agree.
FTR I am a divorcee but we had no children nor was cheating involved by either of us. (Honestly we could be poster-children for the “perfect” divorce…I know that sounds weird but hopefully you get the idea.)
While I think “no fault” divorces are a good thing as an option (one I/we used and worked well) I think it is bullshit to think that a man or woman should be able to flout the agreement made at the alter without repercussions.
Seems to me a contract, of sorts, is formed when vows are taken. There are witnesses to the contract. How is it one or the other can blow those obligations off and expect everything to go 50/50?
I thought as a society we still considered vows important. Be it pledging to support the constitution as a congresscritter or vows you take as a soldier or doctor. Why should marriage voes be considered less to the point of non-existence?
Traditional vows include the phrase “'til death do us part” so it seems a bit incongruous to hold up wedding vows as enforceable in a divorce. 
Also that’s not the only vow. What if someone claims their spouse didn’t “honor and cherish”?
Of course, I think you’re free to put “you lose if you cheat” in a prenup.
“Till death do us part” seems contingent on the other stuff to me
If you write a contract that says I’ll do “X” and you’ll do “Y” forever and ever and then I stop doing “X” why would you be beholden to the “forever and ever” part?
So should couples that made vows be treated differently than couples that didn’t?
Cheating doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Let’s say our marriage is failing in other ways. You’re not holding up your end of the bargain as far as things you vowed to do at our wedding. I cheat on you out of frustration. In our ‘contract’ we both agreed to like 10 things. Fidelity was not the first vow to be broken.
I’m not defending adultery. I’m just saying, human relationships are complex. And I think when a couple gets divorced, both sides are guilty of things, more often than not.
Custody of the children should be determined based on what’s deemed best for the children. We certainly shouldn’t be using it to punish one parent for their adultery.
This. I’m not defending adultery, but it’s often just one part of the picture when it comes to the failure of a marriage.
If your spouse is not holding up their end of the bargain, the ethical way to deal with that is either to come up with new terms for the relationship that you mutually agree on, or to dissolve the relationship via the rather common act of divorce. The way NOT to deal with this ethically is to introduce the lies, betrayal, jealousy and pain that adultery adds to an already bad situation. There is no bad situation that cheating helps.
Beyond any emotional pain, your partner deserves the same freedoms that you do, and if you are messing around while still pretending like you are committed to fidelity, you are depriving your partner of the right those same freedoms. If my husband is looking for his next girlfriend, he at least owes me the right to start looking for my next boyfriend as well.
I’m always surprised at the adultery apologists on the board. Nobody forces you get married or to stay in any given marriage. If you get married and then discover you have some needs or desires that cannot be fulfilled in a way that you both agree on then it’s time to do the grown up thing, be honest with your partner, and choose to make a new arrangement or to go your separate ways.
I don’t think adultery should have any special financial consequences and I don’t think it should be a major factor in custody.
But custody is about what is best for the kids, and simple cheating shows a certain lack of commitment to the family. A divorce with infidelity is MUCH more likely to create lasting strife between the parents, which is bad for kids. It sets the kids up to have to choose sides in a way that is always going to be painful for them, introduces some screwed up ideas about male-female relationships that may have lasting consequences for their future relationships, brings anger/pain/depression/jealousy/hatred to the parents in a way that may make them unable to be optimal parents, etc. It’s a shitty thing to do to your kids, and all things being equal a willingness to do a shitty thing to your kids is a strike against you.
But is it more or less damaging than physical abuse?
Hypothetical. Wife regularly gets drunk and beats, burns, scalds husband. Husband feels unable to leave relationship due to fear/humiliation. Husband finally breaks down at work and tells all to a co-worker. He and CW become closer and closer as he opens up to them.
6 months pass and husband and CW progress beyond friendship. He tells his wife he’s going on a training seminar over the weekend, but really he’s spending it at CW’s. Wife gets suspicious, follows him, and catches him in the act with his CW. Promptly files for divorce.
What do you think now?
What if it was their first time together?
Not necessarily. One may well rationalize a discreet affair as being a commitment to the keeping the family together for the sake of the kids if the alternative is to break up and do the shared custody rigamarole (and all the bullshit that comes with that - even if it’s the most peaceful of sharings, it’s still hugely annoying to the kids at best).
I’m not sure it’s really smart (be it ethically or even strategically), but it’s not exactly unheard of.
There are also the people who cheat because sex in the marriage is dead, but who don’t consider dead sex to be enough of a reason to end the marriage - you can love someone and don’t want to have sex with them any more. Trust, understanding, caring, shared memories, to me that counts for more than whether or not the bed’s still rocking.
Of course, in that situation I also believe it’s better to talk things through rather than go behind the other’s back in fear the other might react the wrong way, but that kind of honesty also takes some backbone, which seems to be in short supply.
It’s something that should be taken into account in divorce proceedings, but it shouldn’t mean the cheated-upon automatically gets custody, for example. And unless there’s prenup, would it affect the financial arrangements? I thought that was more about supporting the other spouse and children than punishment, but I’ve never been divorced.