Proving Adultery
How do you Prove Adultery for Alimony?
Adultery or cheating can seriously affect alimony during a divorce. As stated previously, if it can be proven that the receiving spouse committed adultery, that spouse is not entitled to alimony. The difficultly comes with proving the adultery. Adultery and cheating are "under the radar" immoral acts by nature. The people engaging in them will sometimes work very hard to keep their adultery a secret. This makes proving adultery with obvious direct evidence very difficult. Notwithstanding, there are several other ways to prove adultery or cheating.
Shared Accounts with your Spouse
If you and your spouse share cell phone accounts, look at the itemized statements to see if there are substantial calls to a certain number. If you share an email address, you can look at incoming and outgoing emails. If you do not share phone or email accounts, we do not recommend breaking into your spouse's account if he or she has not given you access, as this could be a criminal violation and the resulting information will likely be inadmissible in court meaning that you won't be able to use it in your divorce.
Getting Evidence from Discovery
Once a divorce case is filed, however, you will be able to obtain information from your spouse through discovery that may provide evidence of his or her adultery. You can request anything that is reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence, which includes phone records, emails, other correspondence, bank statements, and credit card statements. Phone records mayshow numerous calls to a paramour. Emails may show correspondence between your spouse and a paramour. Bank and credit card statements may show evidence of substantial funds spent on flowers, hotels, and other gifts that you did not receive. These are just a few of the ways one could use to attempt to prove adultery through circumstantial evidence. You also have the option to hire a private investigator to help you gather some evidence. Private investigators are sometimes able to provide evidence of your spouse and a paramour together. However, it should be noted that private investigators charge for their time and they can sometimes be expensive. Your divorce lawyer should have a few options for you to contact if you have interest in hiring a private investigator.