No, you cannot sue for adultery in Florida. The state abolished civil lawsuits for infidelity decades ago, so a betrayed spouse has no standalone claim for money damages against a cheating partner or the affair partner. Adultery can still matter, but only inside a divorce case, where it may influence alimony, property division, and in narrow circumstances, custody.
The Lawsuits Florida Eliminated
Florida Statute 771.01 wipes out all civil claims for alienation of affections, criminal conversation (the legal term for sleeping with someone’s spouse), seduction, and breach of a promise to marry.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 771.01 – Certain Tort Actions Abolished Those were the causes of action that once let a wronged spouse take an affair partner to court. They no longer exist in Florida.
The practical effect is simple. No matter how damaging the affair, you cannot walk into a Florida courthouse and file a standalone lawsuit demanding compensation from your spouse’s lover or from your spouse for the act of cheating itself. Your only legal path for addressing adultery’s impact runs through the divorce process.
One boundary worth clearing up: living in an “open state of adultery” technically remains a second-degree misdemeanor under Florida Statute 798.01, carrying up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.2Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 798.01 – Living in Open Adultery Prosecutions under this statute are extraordinarily rare, and it is a criminal matter in any event. It is not a route to any payment or remedy for you.
What Adultery Can Still Do in a Divorce
Divorce is where infidelity actually gets legal traction in Florida. It can shift money, assets, and in some cases parenting arrangements, though not as a punishment for the cheating itself. Courts look at what the affair cost or caused.
Alimony
Florida’s alimony statute allows a court to consider “the adultery of either spouse and any resulting economic impact” when deciding support.3Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 61.08 – Alimony That phrase “any resulting economic impact” is doing the real work. A court is not interested in punishing infidelity as a moral failing. It wants to know whether the affair cost the marriage money.
A spouse who drained a joint savings account on hotel rooms, gifts, and trips with an affair partner gives the court a concrete harm to address. A spouse whose affair was discreet and cost the household nothing will find the court far less interested.
Property Division
Florida divides marital property under an equitable distribution model. The court starts from the premise that everything should be split equally, then adjusts based on relevant factors if there is justification for an unequal split.4Florida Senate. Florida Code 61.075 – Equitable Distribution of Marital Assets and Liabilities Adultery by itself does not change the split.
The exception is dissipation of marital assets. When one spouse spends significant marital funds on an extramarital relationship (lavish gifts, travel, apartment leases, credit card debt run up for the other person’s benefit), Florida courts treat that spending as waste. The innocent spouse can ask the court to account for those dissipated funds and award a larger share of the remaining estate to compensate.
Two details make dissipation claims tricky. You need to show the spending was intentional and wasteful, not just that your spouse spent money you disapprove of. And Florida imposes a two-year lookback period on dissipation claims, so you can only recover for assets wasted within two years of the claim. Gathering bank statements, credit card records, and transaction histories early matters if you suspect your spouse has been funneling marital money into an affair.
Child Custody
Florida courts decide custody (called “parental responsibility” and “time-sharing” in the statute) based on the best interests of the child. The law lists over 20 factors a court must evaluate, and one is “the moral fitness of the parents.”5Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 61.13 – Support of Children; Parenting and Time-Sharing; Powers of Court That factor is where adultery can enter the analysis, but the bar for it to actually matter is high.
An affair that took place away from the children and did not affect the parent’s caregiving usually carries little weight. Courts care about whether the conduct harmed or could harm the child. The situations that get a judge’s attention include exposing children to the affair partner in inappropriate circumstances, bringing instability into the home, neglecting parental duties because of the relationship, or subjecting the children to conflict and emotional turmoil tied to the infidelity.
Child support is a separate track. It runs on a guidelines formula driven by each parent’s income and overnight counts, and adultery has no meaningful role in that calculation.6Florida Senate. Florida Code 61.30 – Child Support Guidelines; Retroactive Child Support
Prenups That Try to Penalize Cheating
Some couples build financial consequences for infidelity directly into a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement. Florida’s premarital agreement statute lets parties contract on a broad range of financial matters, including property rights and the modification or elimination of spousal support, and the agreement must be voluntary, free of fraud or coercion, and not unconscionable at the time it was signed.7Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 61.079 – Premarital Agreements The statute does not specifically address infidelity penalty clauses.
Whether a Florida court would enforce one is an open question. Few Florida courts have squarely addressed it. If you are considering an infidelity clause, treat it as a negotiating tool with uncertain enforceability rather than a guarantee.
How You Prove Adultery Without Breaking the Law
If you plan to raise adultery in your divorce, how you collect evidence matters enormously. Florida is an all-party consent state for intercepting communications. Under Florida Statute 934.03, every person involved in a conversation must consent before anyone can record it.8Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 934.03 – Interception and Disclosure of Wire, Oral, or Electronic Communications Prohibited That is stricter than federal wiretap law, which only requires one party’s consent. Recording your spouse’s phone calls, installing spyware to read their texts, or intercepting their emails without their knowledge can expose you to serious legal consequences.
Violating Florida’s wiretap statute is a third-degree felony, carrying up to five years in prison.8Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 934.03 – Interception and Disclosure of Wire, Oral, or Electronic Communications Prohibited Evidence obtained illegally is typically inadmissible, which means the recording that proves the affair could be thrown out while simultaneously creating criminal liability for the person who made it. That is about the worst outcome in a divorce case.
Safer sources include financial records showing unusual spending, publicly available social media posts, testimony from people who witnessed the affair, and a licensed private investigator who understands the legal limits. A family law attorney can help you decide what evidence you actually need and how to collect it without stepping over the line.