Adultery in Maryland divorce cases no longer works the way it once did. Since October 1, 2023, infidelity is not a ground for divorce at all, so a cheated-on spouse can’t use it to skip the separation period or file immediately. It can still matter, though, when the court decides alimony and how to divide marital property, and it matters most when the unfaithful spouse spent marital money on the affair.
Why Adultery No Longer Speeds Up a Divorce
Before the 2023 reform, a spouse who discovered an affair could file right away under Maryland Family Law Section 7-103 on adultery grounds, bypassing any waiting period. The General Assembly repealed every fault-based ground and replaced them with three no-fault paths to an absolute divorce.1Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Family Law Section 7-103 – Absolute Divorce
The current grounds are:
- Six-month separation. The spouses have lived separate and apart for at least six continuous months before filing. Couples who have “pursued separate lives” qualify even if they still share a roof or separated under a court order.
- Irreconcilable differences. One spouse states that the marriage has permanently broken down. No separation period is required.
- Mutual consent. Both spouses sign a written settlement agreement resolving alimony, property distribution, and any issues involving minor children, then submit it to the court for approval.2Maryland General Assembly. 2023 Regular Session Senate Bill 36 Chapter 645
If your spouse won’t cooperate on a settlement, irreconcilable differences is the fastest available path. Filing on the fact of the affair itself is no longer an option.
How Adultery Can Still Affect Alimony
Maryland Family Law Section 11-106 tells the court to weigh twelve factors when deciding whether to award alimony, how much, and for how long. One of those factors is “the circumstances that contributed to the estrangement of the parties.”3Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Family Law Section 11-106 – Alimony
An affair that broke the marriage fits inside that language. A judge can weigh it when deciding whether the cheating spouse should pay alimony, how large the payments should be, and how long they should run. It is one factor among twelve, though. Courts also look at each spouse’s ability to be self-supporting, the standard of living during the marriage, the length of the marriage, the age and health of each party, and the financial resources of both sides. Adultery alone won’t guarantee a larger award, but paired with other factors it can move the number.
How Adultery Can Still Affect Property Division
Maryland divides marital property equitably, meaning fairly rather than automatically fifty-fifty. Family Law Section 8-205 uses the same “circumstances that contributed to the estrangement of the parties” language when courts decide a monetary award, so infidelity can enter the analysis here too.4Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Family Law Section 8-205 – Marital Property
An affair does not automatically forfeit anyone’s share, though. The court balances estrangement circumstances against each spouse’s financial and nonfinancial contributions to the family, the value of each spouse’s separate property, the length of the marriage, and other factors. A judge who finds one spouse’s infidelity was the central cause of the collapse might adjust the split, but nothing about adultery triggers an automatic penalty.
Dissipation of Marital Assets
Where adultery does the most concrete damage to property division is when the cheating spouse spent marital money on the affair. Courts call this dissipation: the waste of shared assets for purposes unrelated to the marriage. Hotel rooms, gifts, vacations, or a partner’s living expenses paid out of joint accounts can all qualify.
A successful dissipation claim generally has to show that the spending happened while the marriage was breaking down, that it involved marital funds or joint debt, that it benefited only the cheating spouse or the affair partner rather than the family, and that it happened without the other spouse’s knowledge or consent. When a court finds dissipation, it can award the innocent spouse a larger share of the remaining marital estate to make up for the wasted funds. Section 8-205’s catch-all factor, which lets the court consider “any other factor that the court considers necessary or appropriate to arrive at a fair and equitable monetary award,” gives judges broad room to do this.4Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Family Law Section 8-205 – Marital Property
Does Adultery Affect Custody?
Usually, no. Maryland’s child custody statute, Family Law Section 9-201, lists sixteen factors for determining a child’s best interests, and adultery is not one of them. The factors focus on the child’s stability, each parent’s relationship with the child, the child’s needs, the parents’ ability to co-parent, and the child’s physical and emotional safety. Maryland courts have long held that adultery alone does not make a parent unfit.
The statute includes a catch-all letting the court consider anything relevant to the child’s physical, developmental, and emotional needs. So if an affair exposed the child to inappropriate situations, introduced someone who posed a safety risk, or was tangled up with substance abuse or mental health problems that affected parenting, those facts can come in. In those cases the issue is the harm or risk to the child, not the affair itself.
Proving Adultery in Family Court
Because infidelity can move alimony, property, and sometimes custody, how you prove it still matters. Maryland’s traditional standard required showing both opportunity (a realistic chance to be unfaithful) and disposition (behavior suggesting romantic or sexual intent toward someone else). That framework grew up around adultery as a divorce ground, and the same kinds of evidence work when you’re presenting infidelity as a circumstance that contributed to estrangement.
Useful evidence includes text messages, emails, social media communications, financial records showing unexplained spending, photographs, and witness testimony. Some spouses hire private investigators, who can legally follow someone in public, take photographs in public spaces, and conduct stakeouts. A private investigator in Maryland must be registered with the state and work under a licensed private detective agency. Evidence gathered illegally, such as by hacking into a phone or computer, recording someone without consent, or trespassing, is generally inadmissible.
The burden of proof in a divorce case is preponderance of the evidence: the judge only needs to find that infidelity more likely than not occurred. That’s a much lower bar than the criminal beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard, which makes showing an affair in family court far more achievable than many people expect.
Adultery as a Crime
Adultery is technically still a misdemeanor in Maryland. Under Criminal Law Section 10-501, a conviction carries a fine of $10.5Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Criminal Law Section 10-501 – Adultery Prosecutions are essentially nonexistent and have been for decades. For any practical purpose, the consequences of infidelity in Maryland play out in family court, not criminal court.