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When an individual is not faithful in their marriage and engages romantically with another person who is not their spouse, they may commit adultery. Most people refer to adultery as “cheating,” and it often can cause the end of a marriage. In fact, in South Carolina, adultery constitutes one of the “at-fault” grounds for a contested divorce.
Horton & Associates, LLC can help explain what you need to know about adultery in marriages in the state of South Carolina.
Impacting the Divorce Process
By proving that one spouse was unfaithful, an individual can exponentially speed up the divorce process. This is due to the fact that adultery is one of the reasons for a fault-based divorce. When a spouse is at-fault, you can immediately file for a divorce. You can then put in the request for the final hearing 90 days out. While three months may seem like a long time to wait, no-fault divorces have much longer waiting requirements.
Alimony and Adultery
When the cheating spouse goes through the divorce process, they typically do not receive alimony. This rule can be devastating for the adulterous spouse.
Child Support After Adultery
Regardless of cheating or adultery in a marriage, child support will still be calculated based on the number of children, income, and other important factors. The act of adultery is not a component of factoring the amount of child support paid. However, child custody may have impacts based on the cheating spouse’s decisions.
Perhaps the spouse exposed the children to their partner during the marriage, acting against the child’s best interests, as courts can come down very hard on a parent who exposes a child to a “paramour” (i.e. the adulterous spouse’s romantic partner). While a party’s promiscuity is specifically barred from being a factor in child custody cases unless it can be shown to negatively affect the children, it is also true that a party’s poor judgment can nonetheless be a factor in a child custody ruling.
Proving the Situation
While it is essential to consider how adultery impacts the divorce process, it is most important to know that you have to prove that infidelity occurs in the marriage. While you may have caught your spouse or have more direct, tangible evidence, there are also other ways to prove adultery: inclination and opportunity.
Inclination means that you or someone else may have caught your spouse with another person in public, showing them affection. Opportunity means that the cheating spouse may have had an ample amount of time to cheat, such as renting a hotel room to spend time with their partner. A licensed private investigator can be instrumental in obtaining the proof required to prove adultery in court.
Horton & Associates, LLC: We Can Help
If you believe that your spouse is committing adultery and need assistance in the divorce process, we are here to help. Horton & Associates, LLC is experienced in navigating at-fault divorces and assisting individuals streamline the separation process.