Your spouse begins having an affair. You find out about it and ask for a divorce. It seems pretty straightforward at first, as you move to end the marriage.
As you start getting into the details of property division, child custody and all the rest, you wonder if the fact that your spouse had an affair is going to influence the case at all. Is it going to change the outcome in any way?
You don’t need a reason to get divorced
The first thing to note is that Nebraska is a no-fault state. This means that you don’t have to have a reason to get divorced. With older divorce laws or in some other states, you could cite the affair as grounds for the divorce, but you don’t need to do that in Nebraska.
Additionally, property division is often not going to be affected by a divorce. The divorce court is not going to give you more money as a way to punish your spouse, for example.
That said, the affair could impact your finances if your spouse was spending a lot of money on the affair. You may be able to claim that they were squandering marital assets and that you have a right to some of those assets.
For instance, maybe your spouse spent $10,000 over the last year buying gifts for this individual or trying to hide the affair from you. That $10,000 is no longer part of your marital estate, but you may still be able to claim that at least some of it should go to you.
One thing you can count on is that divorce under these circumstances could get to be complicated. Make sure you understand your legal options.
