You used to have to prove adultery in order to get a divorce in New York state.
Family story time! My great-grandparents wanted to get divorced and were in New York, so my grandfather lay in a bed next to his mother-in-law under the covers and my grandmother took a photo to present to the courts. My great-grandmother apparently never even took off her coat.
That’s hilarious and somehow wholesome that everyone pitched in to get the separation
Woot to all the people that were horny but it was the legal system stopping them from cheating on their spouse.
Great now make it so if you cheat you lose the ability to get alimony.
And an open relationship is different then cheating.
Honestly, I think it’s high time we ditch old marriage laws in favor of much more individualized marriage contracts that are settled in civil court if they’re dissolved. Modern marriages are much more complex than traditional ones and our antiquated laws don’t deal with them well. We’d have to update laws/policies about hospital visiting, medical decisions, inheritance, etc, as well, but I think it would be worth it.
I was in favor of individual contracts for most of my life.
But there’s an issue - with individual contracts there’s a greater degree of uncertainty every time someone goes to court over them.
It’s the same as with individual contracts in other areas. Say, labor.
Power balance matters.
So - ideally yes, but in our real world with our real legal and enforcement systems - we may not be able to. Same as with labor, again.
Well I doubt it would be truely individualized. Probably something more like a menu of terms that everyone else is using would quickly develop. Maybe a few numbers to customize. But mostly boilerplate. And probably requiring arbitration.
So reading a 200+ page EULA before saying I do, got it.
Yes absolutely this. Cheating should not be a crime you go to jail for.
But it should have consequences. I think a good way to go is a law that unless there is a prenup that specifically deals with cheating, and unless it was an agreed to open relationship or there was otherwise permission to cheat, a cheater is ineligible for alimony and must be considered morally suspect for the question of child custody.Consider the following (IMO common) scenario: One spouse is abusive and does not care about the children. Maybe it’s a malignant narcissist and their family is like property for them.
The other spouse cares about the children and may be the only one doing any real parenting. Also they suffer the loveless, abusive marriage. At some point they meet someone that cares for them and somehow that leads to cheating before they can escape the marriage.
In this scenario the children should stay with the cheater and the alimony should not be depending on who cheated. (Both IMO of course).
In that scenario, the spouse doing the parenting who isn’t a narcissist should divorce the narcissist. Or keep their pants on until the divorce happens.
‘somehow that leads to cheating’ No it does not ‘somehow’ lead to anything.
Either the person is in control of their actions, in which case they should have the self-control to postpone sex at least until divorce process begins, or they are not in control of their actions and are helpless to prevent themselves from sleeping with the other person, in which case they are not the paragon of virtue you paint them to be. They may well be a better parent than the narcissist, which is why I don’t say custody should be automatic. I am only saying that infidelity should be strongly considered in custody decisions.
I find your lack of empathy for abuse victims quite concerning TBH.
I have a ton of empathy for abuse victims.
Having something shitty done to you, doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to be shitty.
Cheating is not okay, even if your spouse is abusive. Leaving an abusive spouse is a valid reaction. Cheating is not.And from a legal perspective, the second we open up the can of worms of ‘This person is shitty there for it’s okay to be shitty to them’ you create a slippery slope that could easily be used by shitty people against good people.
I have a ton of empathy for abuse victims.
It’s pretty obvious that you don’t.
Having something shitty done to you, doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to be shitty.
I did not say that.
This person is shitty there for it’s okay to be shitty to them’
I did not say that.
you create a slippery slope that could easily be used by shitty people against good people.
So, according to you malignant narcissists are good people? Okay
I did not say that
But you did. Not in so many words, but you said it.
I made the simple point that cheating is not okay, that there should be consequences for cheating. You brought up abuse victims. I said abuse victims should leave their abuser rather than cheating on them. And you said I have no sympathy for them.
The logical conclusion from your statement, is that you think abuse victims cheating on their abuser is okay. And that me saying they should leave their abuser rather than cheating on them is without empathy.If I’m understanding the situation wrong, can you clarify your position a little? Are you or are you not trying to say that it is somehow okay for abuse victims to cheat on their abuser? And if you think that is okay, why?
At some point they meet someone that cares for them and somehow that leads to cheating before they can escape the marriage.
If you can’t keep it in your pants for the sake of your kids I don’t feel bad for you. You’re not gonna die from not fucking. Jesus christ lol
that’s the opposite of the point of these laws. the entire point of this and no fault divorce is that the state shouldn’t dictate relationships. how are you going to adjudicate cheating anyway?
How?
If person a is shown to have been cheating then person a loses any claim to alimony.
Pretty simple.
Person A in divorce court “judge I want alimony”
Person B in divorce court “your honor Person A was cheating here’s the proof”
Judge “ no alimony will be awarded from Person B to Person A”
Why should anyone be allowed to get alimony after cheating? That’s just insult to injury.
Your spouse cheats you walk in on it and now you want a divorce. Added bonus you have to pay money to the cheater for life???
How does that make sense?
It should literally be law that the alimony goes away at that point.
Yeah indentured servitude as punishment for being victim of a cheater. That’s just pure injustice and the state shouldn’t be enforcing that.
Here’s something nuts . I have three down votes and six up votes. Think about that. There is a solid percentage of people that think I’m wrong in saying what I said.
Even Canada doesn’t have that implemented, I wouldn’t count on that any time soon. In Canada, your wife could cut off your finger and cheat on you then file for divorce, then you’d have to give her half of your house (even if it was your childhood home you fully owned long before your marriage) and pay her alimony if you make more than her. Also if you have kids, she’s very likely going to win custody of them.
It’s a bit fucked up lol
In some states in the United States, if you get a divorce, they go back to birth so for example, a child home would be split up. But in most states, they only go back to the date of marriage. I will say : I’ll never get married ever. But if I was dumb enough to do it, I would absolutely never get married in a state that (during a divorce) went back to birth. And I would never live in that state (while married) either. What’s mine before the marriage is mine what is hers before the marriage is hers.
No one should be able to claim the ability to take something before the marriage ever existed. That’s just my opinion.
And yeah, I doubt it would ever get implemented.
People who are so concerned about that possibility can just require their prospective spouse to sign a prenup with conditions like that on alimony, as a condition of getting married.
Yup, that’s a great way to start a marriage. “I love you with all my heart and want to be with you forever. Also, I don’t trust you, so let’s get a prenup.”
The law needs to protect people by default. It’s just impractical not to. You have to keep in mind that humans are not perfect rational agents.
If someone has this strong of a concern about potentially having to pay alimony in the future and their partner is this bothered by practical attempts to alleviate that fear by preventing an issue, then maybe they’re just not right for each other and shouldn’t get married.
Alimony laws also vary enormously by jurisdiction, and people could also just e.g. not marry someone who doesn’t work or isn’t planning to. Or only marry someone who gets paid close enough to the same amount that alimony likely wouldn’t come into play regardless.
I think you have an overly optimistic view of the world.
I think I have a realistic view. Usually terminally online men don’t understand how alimony even works or how rare it is in the first place. I suppose they just get off on these kinds of justice porn theoretical outrage scenarios.
People change. Often for the worst and it’s completely out of your control.
There are a number of states where the prenup is all but worthless.
I do wonder the legal definition used here. I hope the law doesn’t consider it cheating if you tell them about it first, regardless of if they say yes
Just my opinion, if my spouse (I’m not married) walks up to me and asks if they can sleep with someone else and I say no. Then they do it anyway. I would absolutely call that cheating. Then I’d call a divorce attorney. If I had to pay alimony after the divorce I’d be extremely bitter.
If I had to pay alimony in a situation like that, I would become a criminal fast.
Your partner is not your property. They have the right to fuck who they want.
They dont have the right to endanger your health, which is why they need to tell you
In the context of the comment chain, you’re saying that a person who willfully violates a monogamous marriage vow should still be able to claim alimony in the event of a divorce, simply because they informed their spouse they were doing it?
Fuck that. What the hell are you thinking? Please tell me this isn’t what you mean.
Marriages shouldn’t be monogamous. Thats antiquated and ridiculous
Some people get married for tax benefits, and the law shouldn’t say anything about whether or not the marriage is poly or mono. I mean, sure, let people opt into it if they want legally enforced monogamy, like a prenup. But by default marriage shouldn’t require monogomy. Thats insane.
Wow. Way to give polygamists a bad name, dude. Can’t let the monogamists have their slice of happiness, huh?
Pathetic. I’m glad you’re in the extreme minority, what a horrendous opinion you have.
I literally said its OK to be mono. Just that it shouldn’t be required.
Also its polyamory, not polygamy
There is absolutely a difference between having an open relationship where both parties consent, and having a relationship where one person just sleeps around, but it’s totally fine because the other was informed it was happening.
Your partner may not be your property, but that doesn’t mean that sleeping around just because you told them it was happening is ok.
If you dont consent to your poly partner fucking someone else, you’re saying “your body, my choice”
Thats so fucked, and I can’t believe you’re defending it
You have no conception of how contracts work do you?
Contracts involve things people aren’t entitled to all the time. Nobody is entitled to have someone else meet them for lunch at 1 pm either. You can’t dictate someone else’s movements that way.
Oh wait! Unless they agreed to meet you there at 1pm.
Fascinating, the way promises can turn a lack of entitlement into legitimate entitlement.
This article is literally about changing that contract because its based on an antiquated concept of some old book that claimed it was the word of some mythical creature in the sky
We’re updating the contract for a reason.
If a poly person is with a monogamous person and wants to sleep with a new partner, end the relationship with the monogamous person. The monogamous person can stay out of the relationship if they know the other person is poly, too.
Sure. I’m talking about a poly person in marriage with a poly person. They shouldn’t be able to be criminalized for fucking someone else if they told their partner about it first.
If you dont consent to your poly partner fucking someone else
Whoa buddy, drop the assumptions. You’re assuming your partner is poly. Among other things.
Thats so fucked, and I can’t believe you’re defending it
I can’t believe you’re defending cheating and then excusing it as “we’re just poly” (Even though you absolutely did not make that clear to begin with, and are now changing the circumstances of your argument. Maybe list out any assumptions you’re using?)
I would never marry anyone who wasn’t poly. The law is the one making assumptions here.
My point is that it shouldn’t be possible for my spouse to persue criminal action against me for fucking someone else in a poly relationship if we’re married. Thats fucked.
The law shouldn’t make it not allowed to fuck someone outside your marriage by default. As I said before, thats cool to make it optional like a prenup, if you’d like, but it shouldn’t be the default
Do you know what alimony is?
Fuck me finally. It was a the only thing keeping me a chronic virgin.
Talking like a the famous plumber doesn’t help either
I’m just waiting on incoming news about Hochul cheating on her husband.
But can you legally marry multiple people
I hadn’t seen any Marx Bros in so long, I was thinking of a different Captain Spaulding and was wondering why I don’t remember this quote. lol
Good, no one needs to go to jail unless someone’s hurt
And not just their feelings
Correct
I mean, fair, but doesn’t really seem like something worth the effort one direction or the other, doubt that law was being enforced much.
We should reduce as much as possible laws that make something illegal but aren’t enforced. It creates uncertainty about your position and allows authorities to threaten citizens for unrelated reasons.
That’s true but I imagine doing so would quickly become tedious and that initiative would inevitably be used for nefarious purposes.
What would become tedious, eliminating crimes from the books? I’m not saying we need to go on some campaign, just here’s a law that isn’t being used, isn’t just, and they’re getting rid of it. That’s good.
IIRC correctly the process for striking a law is more or less the same as making a new one, so for every single little antiquated thing and protest bill somebody got passed you’d have to do the same thing with all the associated foot stomping and bitching from anyone and everyone motivated to either stop you or do something else.
So like … work? Legislators would have to work?
Remember that’s why a whole slew of anti-abortion laws were able to put back into place recently because they were just left on the books. Same for a lot of other laws involving interracial marriage, gay marriage, gay relationships in general, freedom of religion, Etc… these laws are usually left on the books because people hope they can be used again one day. Getting rid of them protects us all. I don’t care if it’s tedious.
Even if it is tedious, it is work that is worth doing.
Nah, fuck that. If a law isn’t enforced it shouldn’t be a law. Things being illegal because it’s “too much effort” to make it legal is bullshit.
Criminal Court? 👎 Civil Court? 👍
Quite literally what civil court was made for
Its not cheating if you tell them
That is definitely not how it works.
It’s not cheating if you break up the first relationship beforehand, you mean?
If someone told me “your body, my choice,” then the relationship is ended there and then
And if someone tells me they’re unable to distinguish between making a promise and having their rights violated, I’d be ending that relationship too.
It’s* not
It kinda should be IMO. If you can’t not be faithful, don’t fucking get married and be a cheating piece of shit.
It shouldn’t be enforced by the state
Do you not see the issues with having the state enforce that?
You won’t get a lot of argument that cheating is a shitty thing to do but the government doesn’t need to be involved in peoples relationships.
yeah great idea. criminalise everything. had your freedom to the state. the american dream
If you’re worried about the American dream I have shit loads of horrible news for you since you haven’t been paying attention for the last 40 fucking years apparently.
Being able to be a cheating shitbag with no consequences should be the least of your concerns at this point.
Yet somehow you’re arguing to make it worse.
Hope your life never gets destroyed by a cheater, enjoy your ignorance.
Ahhh
Now it makes sense.
If someone cheated on you. Go live your best life. Because there’s something else that commonly happens to guys if they don’t, and it seems to be what’s happening here
I don’t think anyone is saying that it’s ok and there should be no consequences, just that it’s not a matter for the law. The law isn’t really about what’s moral and immoral. There are plenty of immoral things that are legal and moral things that are illegal. I think it’s wrong to cut in line but I don’t think we should be locking people up for it. I also think in many cases stealing is morally justifiable but I don’t necessarily think we should make stealing legal.
I think it’s wrong to cut in line but I don’t think we should be locking people up for it.
IDK, you might be onto something here.
This is why we need to bring back stockades. Perfect punishment for that kind of shit. Just lock someone up in public let people deride them and throw vegetables at them all day and then let them go.
Bro that’s totally out of date and makes no sense in the context of our current societal situation.
Let them throw pringles.
Pointing to other bad decisions to justify your bad decisions is a bad look no matter what, friend.
I was married, we had an open relationship from the start. How is that criminal?
That’s not cheating, that’s an open marriage. They’re two different things.
It would have been criminal under the law. I cheated, she cheated. It was the law, whatever agreement she and I had was immaterial.
That’s just how the system is. My wife and I are into bdsm. Legally speaking I’m guilty of spousal abuse because she legally can’t consent.
So we just ignore the law. But if we ever divorced acrimoniously she could rake me over the fucking coals.
Why she can’t consent? Is she underage wtf?
It must be a weird edge case. You can certainly consent to being beaten, humiliated, degraded, etc.
One thing you cannot consent to where I live is to be touched sexually while you are asleep. The moment you become unconscious (as though that were a thing with a clear, bright line definition) any sexual consent you have given is deemed to have been revoked. This seems rather paternalistic to me since you can consent to have your leg chopped off while you sleep, but whatever. There have been cases where police and crown prosecutors went after charges because someone talked about letting their husband have sex with them while they slept; ie they had moral consent but not legal consent, and so were charged with sex crimes over the protest of their willing partner.
A woman can’t consent to being hit in my state. Or at least that was the common consensus when we were social about it.
I just looked it up and some random website says it’s fine with consent so either the entire community was misinformed, something has changed, or that website was full of shit.
What about boxing or other contact sports?
You don’t have to be married to cheat. You are right, they are totally different things. Marriage is a legal status that has nothing to do with sex. Asexual people can get married. Two straight men can get married. People in open relationships can get married.
You want it to be illegal to cheat. That’s bonkers. How would that even work? Do you really want the state investigating your intimate relationships to make sure they are legal??
Why should only sexual intercourse get that kind of protection? If my partner and I swear that we will share our feelings with each other, and I find out that they have feelings they’ve been keeping from me but sharing with someone else, that is cheating. But as long as there isn’t a dick and a vagina involved, it’s okay? Like where do you draw your lines, and why do you want those lines enforced by men with guns?
I’ve been cheated on and divorced. My ex was seeing a divorce lawyer lol. That was some fun times with depositions and constant harassment since they had 24/7 legal access.
Even with all that said, I don’t think cheating should ever be criminalized. Just gotta be careful who you marry or date. I still have never learned my lesson lol.
Yeah, Anyone who thinks cheating should be a crime isn’t emotionally mature enough to be in a relationship in my opinion. It’s a horrible thing to cheat on someone, but laws aren’t for hurt feelings.
Every couple that wants the legal rights grants by marriage must be monogamous whether they want to or not, because it gives you feelings that you are unwilling to process when confronted by committed but nonmonogamous relationships?
If a married couple want to fuck around with other people, why should that be a crime?
If they’re in an open marriage, fine, whatever, but cheating destroys lives and should have consequences.
It does have consequences. You mean you want cheaters to be punished. That’s a different thing.
Clearly they were cheated on and want them to suffer.
Which is both understandable, and just
But not in the legal system.
So you agree that it should have been repealed, then.
The law makes no distinction between the two. Open marriage? More like 5 years in a federal penitentiary waiting to happen because a cop coveted your wife. It’s your word against their’s unless you want the state to issue permits for sex or something.
What you’re looking for is civil court, which is entirely different from criminal court and works differently as well. And that already exists for cheating on your spouse.
