Many times throughout my career, I have had clients who have had an affair. Sometimes the spouse knows about it, and sometimes they haven’t found out about it yet. The purpose of this article is to give you some advice on things that you may want to consider doing and not doing if this is the situation that you find yourself in.
Remember first that Colorado is a “no fault” divorce state, and for the most part, the Court is not going to care whether you have had an affair or not. For the most part, the Court doesn’t even want to hear about it. I have written a separate article on this website that you may want to review regarding how the Colorado divorce courts treat the issue of infidelity. If you find yourself in the position of having had an affair or are currently involved with someone else, there are certain steps that you should be taking to protect yourself.
Keep in mind that the affair may become relevant and some of the details may be admissible in Court if you are spending marital assets on this other person. It is easy to look at a person’s bank records and credit card statements and see if they are buying flowers, jewelry or other gifts for someone other than their wife/husband. It is also easy to see when concert tickets are purchased and expensive dinners have occurred. If you are spending money or have spent money on another person besides your spouse, this could be construed as “depleting marital assets.” It would be wise to stop all such expenditures until your divorce is final.
The other way that an affair may be relevant in your case is regarding the children. Every expert on children will tell you that introducing children to your new significant other during the divorce process causes irreparable harm to the children. No matter how old the children are, no matter how wonderful your new significant other is, it is never appropriate to introduce them to the children during the course of your divorce. Following along with this, it is highly inappropriate and probably detrimental to your case for you to move in with your new significant other until after the divorce is final. Not only does it look bad to the Court, it will definitely look like you are spending marital assets on the other person, and last but not least, you will be hurting the children. The Court will require you to take a mandatory parenting class, and I would urge you to listen carefully to what the instructor have to say. These classes are done by very experienced people who can give you great advice on how to get through the divorce process while causing your children the least amount of damage possible.
I discussed above how the affair could possibly be relevant in your divorce case. There is one other important thing for you to consider. When your spouse finds out about the affair, no matter what poor shape the marriage was in, no matter what wrongdoings they may have done, there will be a lot of emotional fallout from your spouse. I have had clients “flaunt” the new significant other, brag about the new significant other, etc. These sorts of actions are guaranteed to cost you a lot more money in attorney’s fees and delay.
Affairs are not uncommon. If you find yourself in this situation, think about the things that I have mentioned above. It would also be a good idea to seek legal counsel, as the affair may very well become relevant to at least some portions of your case.