Lawmakers: No alimony in divorce if adultery is proved

By Mannix Porterfield
Register-Herald reporter

February 16, 2009 10:01 pm

— CHARLESTON — Engaging in an adulterous affair might spice up one’s love life but it could be financially risky behavior under legislation offered Monday.
Two Republican lawmakers — Delegates John Ellem, R-Wood, and Robert Schadler, R-Mineral — want to revive an old West Virginia law that shuts off alimony in a divorce if adultery is proved.
Adultery once was grounds for denying alimony, but all that was changed during the 2001 session “after a pretty extensive floor debate,” Ellem recalled.
“It was pretty controversial,” he said.
“It has always bothered me that you can almost be rewarded in a way for cheating on your spouse.”
Ellem acknowledged that adultery can be a difficult indiscretion to prove.
“You have to have more than just an allegation of adultery,” he said.
“You have to have the evidence on it.”
In fact, the Ellem-Schadler measure (HB2463) stipulates that alimony isn’t paid if one party is determined by a court to be “at fault by having committed adultery.”
Some seek to justify extra-marital flings on grounds that he or she was either abused, or forced out of a dwelling, Ellem noted.
“I think the solution is that you just go through your divorce,” the Wood County lawmaker said.
“How many cases are going to require you to actually commit adultery? I’d like to take it (the law) back to where we were prior to 2001. I don’t think you should be able to go out and cheat on your spouse and get alimony.”
— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com