Divorce for Infidelity: What a Redditor Learned About Alienation of Affection and Protecting Her Assets

A divorce for infidelity doesn’t always start with a confrontation. Sometimes it starts with a phone screen glowing on a nightstand while your husband is in the shower. That’s roughly how a poster on r/legaladvice described the moment her nine-year marriage cracked open. She’d suspected for years. She’d been told it was over. It wasn’t over. It had never been over. And now his boss was 13 weeks pregnant.

The post hit r/legaladvice in January 2024 and pulled nearly 4,200 upvotes and hundreds of comments. The details were the kind that make you set your coffee down and just… read.

“Been with my husband Chris for 9 years. 7 years ago he started an affair with his boss, Hanna. Lots of lying, pretending it ended. It didn’t. The whole 7 years. They have 2 daughters (4.5 and 2.5). I’m a stay-at-home mom, he works construction making ~$100k/year. His boss/affair partner Hanna makes ~$300k/year. I found out by going through his phone that Hanna is 13 weeks pregnant.”

— u/tacheateraita20 on r/legaladvice

Seven years. Two children at home. A third on the way with someone else. And the poster sitting there, scrolling through his phone, doing the math on a timeline of lies. This wasn’t a one-night mistake that spiraled. This was a parallel life.

And then the financial picture made it worse.

“She has no income, he controls all finances (gives her spending money). They own a home together (her name on it), 3 cars (her name NOT on titles). She hasn’t told him she knows.”

— u/tacheateraita20 on r/legaladvice

Here’s the part that made me stop scrolling. She’s a stay-at-home mom with no independent income. He gives her “spending money.” Her name isn’t on the car titles. She’s completely financially dependent on a man who has been lying to her for the better part of a decade, and she’s sitting on the knowledge that his affair partner is pregnant again, trying to figure out what to gather before she says a word.

That’s not just heartbreak. That’s a strategic problem. And to her credit, she was thinking about it the right way: don’t react, prepare.

The comments flooded in. Some were genuinely useful. Some were… not quite right. And one piece of advice that got massively upvoted turned out to be flat wrong.

The Alienation of Affection Advice That Wasn’t Quite Right

The top comment, with nearly 2,000 upvotes, said this:

“Illinois is one of few states recognizing alienation of affections, but it’s a hard cause of action. Meet with a divorce attorney about best course.”

— via r/legaladvice

Another commenter put it even more bluntly:

“In IL you can sue his boss because of the affair.”

— via r/legaladvice

Here’s the problem. Illinois abolished alienation of affection on January 1, 2016. The state passed what’s formally called the Alienation of Affections Abolition Act (740 ILCS 5), which killed all the old “heart balm” causes of action, including alienation of affection, criminal conversation, and breach of promise to marry. If the affair started in 2017 (seven years before a 2024 post), every relevant fact occurred after the abolition date. There’s no claim. Period.

This is exactly the kind of thing that happens on Reddit legal threads. Someone remembers that Illinois “used to” allow these suits, doesn’t check whether the law changed, and 2,000 people upvote it because it sounds empowering. And the poster, who desperately needs accurate information, gets a false sense of what’s available to her.

To be clear: a handful of states still do recognize alienation of affection. North Carolina is the most active. Hawaii, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Utah have versions on the books. But Illinois isn’t one of them anymore, and it hasn’t been for nearly a decade.

So if you can’t sue the affair partner in Illinois, what CAN you do? Quite a lot, actually. And most of it matters more than an alienation claim ever would have.

Related Video · 8 min

Alienation of Affection: Can I Sue My Spouse for Cheating on Me?

Attorney Jill Coil breaks down how alienation of affection claims work and which states still allow them. Video credit: Jill Coil.

What Divorce for Infidelity Actually Looks Like in Illinois

Illinois became a pure no-fault divorce state in 2016 as part of the same reform wave that killed alienation of affection. Under the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (750 ILCS 5), you don’t need to prove adultery, cruelty, or any other fault ground. You file on “irreconcilable differences.” That’s it.

But no-fault doesn’t mean the affair is irrelevant. It means the affair won’t be the legal basis for the divorce itself. Where infidelity absolutely does matter is in the financial fallout.

Illinois divides marital property through equitable distribution under Section 503. “Equitable” doesn’t mean 50/50. It means fair, based on a long list of factors: each spouse’s contribution to the marriage (including homemaking), the duration of the marriage, each spouse’s economic circumstances, and critically, whether either spouse dissipated marital assets.

Dissipation. That’s the word that should have been all over that Reddit thread instead of “alienation of affection.”

When a spouse spends marital funds on an affair, on gifts for the affair partner, on hotel rooms, on a second phone plan, on trips, on supporting children born outside the marriage, that’s dissipation. And Illinois courts take it seriously. If Chris was spending marital income on Hanna or their children together during the marriage, the poster could argue that those funds should be credited back to her side of the property division. A family law attorney would want bank statements, credit card records, Venmo history, every financial trail showing where marital money went that wasn’t for the marital household.

For a stay-at-home mom with no income and no car titles in her name, this is where the case gets built. Not in suing the boss. In proving where the money went.

The Retirement Money Nobody Thinks About Until It’s Too Late

One commenter actually nailed something important:

“After 10 years of marriage, a partner is entitled to retirement funds. Inform your lawyer about pension or 401k. Also consider children’s college.”

— via r/legaladvice

The ten-year mark isn’t a magic threshold in Illinois the way it can be in some states (California’s ten-year rule for spousal support duration is the famous one), but the instinct here is right. Retirement accounts accumulated during the marriage are marital property in Illinois, regardless of whose name is on them.

If Chris has a 401(k) through his construction company, or if Hanna’s company offers benefits and he’s been contributing to retirement accounts from his $100k salary, those funds are subject to division. The poster would need a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO) to divide any employer-sponsored retirement plan. A QDRO is a court order that tells a plan administrator to pay a portion of the participant’s benefits to an alternate payee, in this case the ex-spouse. Without one, the retirement plan has no legal obligation to split anything.

The Department of Labor publishes a detailed guide on QDROs that’s worth reading, but the short version: your divorce attorney drafts it, the court signs it, and it gets submitted to the plan administrator. Don’t let this fall through the cracks in settlement. I’ve seen cases where people finalize a divorce, forget about the retirement accounts, and then spend years and additional legal fees trying to go back and get a QDRO issued after the fact.

For someone like this poster, married nine years with no independent income, the retirement accounts could represent the single largest marital asset after the house. Construction workers with steady employment often have solid 401(k) balances, especially at $100k/year. That money is half hers under Illinois law.

What She Should Do Before Saying a Word

The poster said she hadn’t told her husband she knows. Smart. That silence is leverage, and here’s how to use it.

First, consult a divorce attorney before anything else. Not after a confrontation. Not after he moves money. Before. Many family law attorneys offer free or low-cost initial consultations, and in a situation with financial control dynamics like this one (he gives her “spending money,” her name isn’t on the car titles), the attorney needs to understand the full picture before advising on strategy. Illinois Legal Aid Online maintains resources for people who need help finding representation.

Second, gather financial documentation quietly. Bank statements. Tax returns (she should have copies; they filed jointly). Credit card statements. Mortgage documents. Car loan paperwork. Any records showing his income, spending, and assets. If he controls the finances, she may not have easy access to all of this, but an attorney can subpoena records during discovery. The goal before filing is to know enough to prevent him from hiding or moving assets once he realizes divorce is coming.

Third, document the affair. Screenshots of the phone messages. Dates, times, anything that establishes the timeline and the scope. Not because Illinois requires fault grounds, but because dissipation claims require evidence that marital funds were spent on non-marital purposes during the breakdown of the marriage. The affair timeline is the dissipation timeline.

Fourth, understand the house. She said her name is on the home. That matters enormously. If her name is on the deed, she has a legal ownership interest regardless of who makes the mortgage payments. The home is almost certainly marital property (purchased during the marriage), and Section 503 of the IMDMA governs how it gets divided. She shouldn’t leave the house voluntarily without legal advice. Leaving can complicate custody arrangements and property claims.

Fifth, the cars. Her name isn’t on the titles, but that doesn’t mean she has no claim. If the cars were purchased with marital funds during the marriage, they’re marital property. Title alone doesn’t determine ownership in an Illinois divorce. The court looks at when the asset was acquired and with what funds.

Spousal Maintenance: What a Stay-at-Home Mom Can Expect

Illinois has a statutory formula for spousal maintenance under 750 ILCS 5/504. For marriages lasting nine years, the duration of maintenance would be calculated at 44% of the marriage length, which works out to roughly 3.9 years. The amount is based on a formula: 33.33% of the higher earner’s net income minus 25% of the lower earner’s net income, with a cap that the recipient’s maintenance plus their own income can’t exceed 40% of combined net income.

For a stay-at-home mom with zero income married to someone earning $100k, the maintenance calculation would be meaningful. Not life-changing-forever money, but enough to bridge the gap while she rebuilds financial independence. An attorney can run the exact numbers based on his actual net income after taxes and deductions.

And here’s something the Reddit thread didn’t mention: the court considers “any impairment of the present and future earning capacity of the party seeking maintenance” when deciding whether to deviate from the formula. She stayed home. She raised their kids. Her career gap is a direct result of a marital decision they made together. That context weighs in her favor if there’s any dispute about whether maintenance is appropriate.

The fact that his affair partner earns $300k is irrelevant to the maintenance calculation. Hanna’s income doesn’t factor into the divorce at all, except indirectly: if Chris has been funneling money to Hanna or their children, that spending could be dissipation, which shifts the property division.

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