My spouse has cheated on me. Should I divorce them relying upon their adultery?

As the law stands currently, in order to get divorced before 2 years have elapsed since you and your spouse separated, you have to rely upon a fault based fact to evidence the irretrievable breakdown of your marriage to the court. This essentially means that you have to allege either adultery or unreasonable behaviour. 

Rightly or wrongly getting divorced is normally just a paper exercise and the content of the petition has no impact on how the financial aspects of the divorce are dealt with. That being the case, if you can reach agreement with your spouse about how you intend to divorce them this can make the whole divorce run much more smoothly. 

If your spouse is prepared to admit their adultery and you meet the other necessary requirements, relying upon their adultery is the simplest option. Many respondent spouses prefer this to being confronted with a list of their alleged transgressions in an unreasonable behaviour petition. 

If your spouse is denying their adultery you would be better placed to choose an unreasonable behaviour petition. This is because to persuade the court that you are entitled to a divorce relying upon adultery the other person has to admit that adultery whereas with an alleged unreasonable behaviour petition your spouse could deny all the allegations whilst still allowing the divorce to proceed and, in practice, this is usually what they do.

George Green’s Specialist Family and Divorce lawyers give advice regularly on divorce and the financial aspects of divorce. If you wish to discuss your matter please Jane Williams on 01384 340 528 (jwilliams@georgegreen.co.uk at our Cradley Heath office. We represent clients from the West Midlands and beyond including Dudley, Stourbridge, Cradley Heath and Wolverhampton.