You cannot sue your spouse’s lover in Pennsylvania. Alienation of affection in PA was abolished by statute decades ago, and the related tort of criminal conversation was wiped out by the state Supreme Court in 1976. No civil claim lets you collect money from a third party for breaking up your marriage. Adultery still matters, but only inside the divorce itself.
The Statute That Closed the Door
Title 23, Section 1901 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes abolishes all civil causes of action for alienation of a spouse’s affections.1Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 23-1901 – Actions for Alienation of Affections Abolished It does not matter whether the third party is a romantic partner, a coworker, a friend, or anyone else outside the marriage. The claim is gone.
One narrow exception survives in the statute’s text: the abolition does not apply when the defendant is a parent, sibling, or someone who formerly stood in a parental role to the plaintiff’s spouse.1Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 23-1901 – Actions for Alienation of Affections Abolished It is almost never invoked and does nothing for a spouse who wants to sue a paramour.
Criminal Conversation Is Also Gone
Alienation of affection had a companion claim called criminal conversation. Despite the name, it was a civil lawsuit, not a criminal charge. The only elements were a valid marriage and proof the defendant had sex with the plaintiff’s spouse — adultery itself was the wrong.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court abolished criminal conversation in 1976 in Fadgen v. Lenkner, calling the tort an “anachronism” and a “pious yet unrighteous” relic, and reasoning that it was unreasonable to impose liability without allowing a meaningful defense about the state of the marriage before the affair.2Justia. Fadgen v. Lenkner Between Section 1901 and Fadgen, no surviving legal theory in Pennsylvania lets you recover damages from the person your spouse slept with.
You Cannot Repackage the Claim as Emotional Distress
Some betrayed spouses have tried to work around the ban by filing claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud, or interference with contract against the third party. Pennsylvania courts have shut that approach down.
In Laidlaw v. Converge MidAtlantic, a Philadelphia court granted summary judgment against a husband who filed exactly these kinds of tort claims against the man who had an affair with his wife and the man’s employer. The court held the claims were “vestiges of abolished heart balm torts” and that a plaintiff cannot avoid the prohibition by relabeling an alienation of affection claim.3First Judicial District of Pennsylvania. Timothy Laidlaw v. Converge MidAtlantic et al. Opinion
Intentional infliction of emotional distress in Pennsylvania requires conduct that is extreme and outrageous, going beyond all bounds of decency. Participating in an affair, standing alone, does not clear that bar. Something additional would need to be present, such as a sustained campaign of harassment, threats, or deliberate public humiliation, before a court would let the claim proceed. For almost every betrayed spouse, this path is a dead end.
What Adultery Can Still Do Inside Your Divorce
Pennsylvania allows both no-fault and fault-based divorces. You cannot punish the third party, but you can use the affair against your spouse in several ways.
Fault Grounds and Timing
Adultery is one of six grounds for a fault-based divorce. The statute lets the “innocent and injured spouse” file on this ground, which bypasses the waiting periods that apply to no-fault filings. A mutual-consent no-fault divorce requires a 90-day waiting period and affidavits from both spouses that the marriage is irretrievably broken; a contested no-fault divorce requires living separately for at least one year.4Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 23-3301 – Grounds for Divorce A fault filing has no comparable wait, though proving the adultery brings its own difficulty.
Alimony
Adultery’s biggest effect usually shows up in alimony. Courts weigh 17 statutory factors when deciding whether to award alimony, how much, and for how long. Factor 14 is marital misconduct, which includes adultery.5Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 23-3701 – Alimony A judge has discretion to reduce or deny alimony to a spouse who cheated, while still weighing the length of the marriage, each spouse’s earning capacity, health, age, financial resources, and the standard of living during the marriage.
Timing matters. Misconduct during the marriage counts. Misconduct after the date of final separation does not, with one exception: abuse of one spouse by the other is always relevant regardless of when it occurred.5Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 23-3701 – Alimony An affair that began before separation carries more weight than one that started after.
Property Division
Pennsylvania follows equitable distribution, meaning property is divided fairly but not necessarily 50/50. The statute directs courts to divide property “without regard to marital misconduct.”6Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 23-3502 – Equitable Division of Marital Property The affair alone will not get you a larger share of the house or the retirement accounts.
Dissipation is the exception. One of the property-division factors is each spouse’s contribution to or dissipation of marital wealth.6Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 23-3502 – Equitable Division of Marital Property If your spouse spent marital funds on the affair — gifts, hotels, trips — a court can adjust the distribution to account for the waste. You have to prove the spending, not just the affair.
Child Custody
Adultery alone rarely moves a custody outcome. Courts decide custody on the best interests of the child, not a parent’s moral failings. An affair becomes relevant only if it exposed the child to harm, such as witnessing inappropriate behavior, being asked to keep secrets, or being mistreated by the new partner.
Filing in Another State Rarely Works
Pennsylvania is far from alone in abolishing these claims, but roughly half a dozen states still allow alienation of affection suits, with North Carolina and Utah the most prominent. Suing in one of those states is harder than it sounds. You generally need to establish that the court in that state has jurisdiction over the defendant, which usually requires the affair itself or the defendant’s residence to have a real connection to that state. A Pennsylvania resident whose spouse had an affair entirely within Pennsylvania cannot simply file in North Carolina to borrow its law. An attorney experienced in multistate family law can tell you whether your facts create any viable jurisdictional hook; for most Pennsylvania residents, the answer is no.
Getting Proof Without Committing a Crime
If you want to use an affair against your spouse in a fault filing or an alimony argument, how you gather evidence matters as much as what you find. Checking your spouse’s email, phone, or accounts without permission can trigger serious legal exposure.
The federal Stored Communications Act makes it illegal to intentionally access an electronic communication service without authorization. Logging into your spouse’s email without permission can bring civil liability for damages and attorney’s fees, plus criminal penalties of up to five years in prison. Recording is also tightly limited. The federal wiretap statute generally requires one party to the conversation to consent, but Pennsylvania is a two-party consent state: everyone in the conversation must agree. Secretly recording your spouse’s calls or in-person conversations can expose you to criminal charges and make the recording useless as evidence.
The safer route is a private investigator who knows what surveillance is legal in Pennsylvania. An investigator can document public behavior, photograph meetings, and establish patterns without crossing lines that would damage your divorce case or land you in criminal court.