What Happens When Infidelity Is Raised During Divorce Proceedings?

Most people who discover a spouse’s affair arrive at their solicitor’s office expecting the law to reflect how they feel. The betrayal is real, the damage is real, and the instinct to want the legal process to account for it is entirely understandable. English law, however, approaches infidelity with a striking degree of indifference. Understanding why, and what the limited exceptions are, matters enormously for anyone entering proceedings with conduct in mind.

Does Adultery Still Count as Grounds for Divorce?

No. Since April 2022, England and Wales has operated a no-fault divorce system under the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020. The only ground for divorce is the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage, established by a simple statement. No conduct needs to be alleged, no behaviour proved. Adultery was removed as a formal ground precisely to reduce the acrimony that fault-based petitions generated. One spouse can now apply unilaterally, and the other cannot contest the divorce itself.

The practical consequence is that infidelity has been pushed further to the margins of the formal process than ever before.

Will Infidelity Affect the Financial Settlement?

Not in the way most people hope. English courts assess financial remedy applications under section 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, which sets out a list of factors including needs, resources, contributions, and the welfare of children. Conduct appears on that list, but with a crucial qualifier: it is only relevant "if it would be inequitable to disregard it."

That threshold is high, and deliberately so. Courts have consistently refused to treat marital infidelity as a factor capable of adjusting the financial outcome. The judiciary does not see its role as adjudicating moral wrongs or compensating emotional damage. Punishing a spouse financially for an affair is not what the financial remedy jurisdiction is designed to do.

The cases where conduct has actually shifted a financial outcome tend to involve serious financial misconduct: assets deliberately dissipated, funds diverted, litigation tactics designed to oppress the other party. 

When Can Money Spent on an Affair Be Challenged?

If a spouse spent substantial sums of matrimonial funds on a third party, whether through gifts, paying for accommodation, covering living expenses, or funding a parallel household, that expenditure can be characterised as dissipation of marital assets. The court can, in appropriate circumstances, notionally add those sums back into the asset schedule and treat them as if they still existed. The test is not whether money was spent on an affair, but whether the spending was unreasonable in the context of the marriage and resulted in a reduction of the pool available to both parties.

The more significant the amounts and the more deliberate the conduct, the stronger the argument. A single expensive gift is unlikely to register. Sustained financial support of another person over years, funded from joint resources, is a different matter.

How Does a New Relationship Affect Maintenance?

This is perhaps the area where infidelity has the most concrete, if indirect, financial effect. Where one spouse is cohabiting with a new partner, their financial needs are reassessed in light of that shared household. A new partner contributing to living costs reduces the financial need of the spouse receiving maintenance. Courts can vary or terminate spousal maintenance orders where cohabitation fundamentally changes the recipient’s position.

New relationships can also affect the calculus around needs more broadly. A spouse who has moved in with a new partner may have access to housing that reduces their claim for accommodation provision. And if the new partner has children, or is financially dependent on the divorcing spouse, those commitments may also surface as relevant resources in the proceedings.

At Vardags, which handles high net worth financial remedy proceedings in the most substantial cases, their team regularly navigates similar situations; where the emotional dimension of infidelity intersects with genuinely contested financial arguments that require careful strategic handling.

The Gap Between Justice and Law

There is an honest conversation to be had here about the distance between what clients want and what the law provides. Many people entering divorce proceedings following infidelity want the court to acknowledge their experience. That acknowledgment rarely arrives in the form of a larger financial settlement.

What the law offers instead is a rigorous assessment of financial needs and resources, conducted on the same basis regardless of who caused the marriage to fail. In a high net worth context, that means the financial outcome turns on the scale and structure of the assets, the standard of living enjoyed during the marriage, the length of the relationship, and the contributions made, not on who strayed.

The Bottom Line

Infidelity is not irrelevant to divorce, but its legal relevance is narrow and specific. It cannot be pleaded as a ground for divorce. It will not, standing alone, shift the financial settlement. It may matter at the margins: where money was spent on an affair, where a new relationship changes financial needs, or where conduct around the affair escalated into something the court considers genuinely unconscionable. Anyone entering proceedings expecting the court to punish a cheating spouse will, in most cases, be disappointed. The better use of that energy is understanding the financial case as it actually stands.

FAQs

Q: Can I get a larger divorce settlement because my spouse had an affair?

A: In almost all cases, no. English courts do not adjust financial outcomes on the basis of marital infidelity. The focus is on meeting both parties’ needs fairly, not on assigning blame or compensating emotional harm.

Q: What if my spouse spent a lot of money on their affair partner?

A: If substantial sums of matrimonial funds were spent on a third party, it may be possible to argue that those assets were dissipated and should be added back into the matrimonial pot for the purposes of calculating the settlement. The amounts involved need to be significant for this argument to carry weight.

Q: Does my spouse’s new relationship affect how much maintenance I receive?

A: Potentially. If your spouse is cohabiting with a new partner who contributes to the household, a court may conclude their financial needs are reduced. This can be grounds to vary or terminate a spousal maintenance order, whether the new relationship began before or after the divorce was finalised.

Q: Do I have to disclose a new relationship during divorce proceedings?

A: You have a duty of full and frank financial disclosure, which includes disclosing any change in your financial circumstances. If a new partner’s income or assets affect your financial position, that information may need to be disclosed. The existence of the relationship itself is less directly relevant than its financial consequences.