No, adultery is not illegal in Kentucky. The state has no criminal statute against extramarital affairs, and no one gets arrested, charged, or jailed for cheating on a spouse. Kentucky also handles divorce on a purely no-fault basis, so adultery is not a ground for ending a marriage either. It can still matter in a divorce, but only in a few specific ways involving money and, occasionally, children.
No Criminal Penalty for Cheating
Kentucky’s penal code does not list adultery as an offense. Roughly 16 states still keep criminal adultery laws on the books, though prosecutions in those states are rare. Kentucky sits outside that group entirely. The state treats fidelity as a private matter between spouses, not something the criminal system polices.
That does not mean an affair carries no legal weight at all. The consequences, when they exist, live in family court and a handful of civil statutes, not in a courtroom with a prosecutor.
You Cannot File for Divorce “Because of” Adultery
Kentucky recognizes a single ground for divorce: that the marriage is irretrievably broken with no reasonable prospect of reconciliation.1Justia. Kentucky Revised Statutes 403.170 – Marriage – Irretrievable Breakdown There is no fault-based option. Either spouse can petition by stating under oath that the marriage is beyond repair, and the court does not assign blame.
A lot of online summaries get this wrong and suggest you can file “for adultery” in Kentucky. You cannot. The only question in front of the judge is whether the marriage is broken.
Before the divorce is finalized, the spouses must have lived apart for at least 60 days. Living apart can include staying under the same roof, as long as the couple is no longer in a sexual relationship.1Justia. Kentucky Revised Statutes 403.170 – Marriage – Irretrievable Breakdown The 60 days run from the date the separation begins, not from the date you file.
Where Adultery Can Still Affect a Kentucky Divorce
Spousal Maintenance
Kentucky calls spousal support “maintenance.” A court can award it only when the requesting spouse lacks sufficient property to meet reasonable needs and cannot become self-supporting through appropriate employment. The statute then lists factors like each spouse’s finances, the length of the marriage, the marital standard of living, and the paying spouse’s ability to pay. Marital misconduct is not among those factors.2Justia. Kentucky Revised Statutes 403.200 – Maintenance
Kentucky case law has given judges limited discretion to consider adultery when setting the amount of a maintenance award. A court cannot deny maintenance outright because the requesting spouse had an affair, but the affair may shift the dollar figure. In practice, the role is narrow, and most maintenance decisions turn on finances, not fault.
Property Division and Dissipation
Kentucky divides marital property under an equitable distribution approach, aiming for a fair split rather than an automatic 50/50. By statute, the court must divide marital property “without regard to marital misconduct.”3Justia. Kentucky Revised Statutes 403.190 – Disposition of Property An affair, standing alone, will not change who gets the house or how a retirement account is split.
The one real opening is dissipation. If a spouse spent marital money on the affair itself (hotels, gifts, trips, a separate apartment), the other spouse can raise a dissipation claim. The point is not to punish the cheating; it is to account for marital funds spent for a non-marital purpose during the breakdown of the marriage.
The spouse raising the claim has to produce enough evidence that marital funds were wasted. The burden then shifts to the accused spouse to show the money served a legitimate marital purpose, such as household bills or family expenses. If that showing fails, the court can offset the waste by awarding the other spouse a larger share of what remains. For most adultery-related divorces, this is the mechanism that actually moves the numbers.
Child Custody
Custody is decided under the best interests of the child, with factors ranging from each parent’s wishes and the child’s relationships to everyone’s mental and physical health and any history of domestic violence. The statute also tells courts they “shall not consider conduct of a proposed custodian that does not affect his relationship to the child.”4Justia. Kentucky Revised Statutes 403.270 – Custodial Issues – Best Interests of Child
An affair that had no effect on the children is legally irrelevant to custody. A judge cannot cut your parenting time just because you cheated. Where adultery can matter is when the relationship directly affected the child, for example by exposing the child to instability, neglect, or harmful situations. The question is always whether the child was harmed, not whether the marriage was.
You Cannot Sue the Other Person
Kentucky once allowed a spouse to sue the person their partner had an affair with under a theory called “alienation of affection.” The Kentucky Supreme Court abolished that claim in 1992 in Hoye v. Hoye, calling it rooted in the “antiquated premise” that a spouse is the other’s property.5Justia. Hoye v. Hoye There is no civil claim in Kentucky today against the third person in an affair.
Being Falsely Accused of Adultery
Kentucky cuts the other way on one point. Under KRS 411.040, an accusation of adultery is actionable on its own, meaning the person falsely accused can sue for damages without having to prove specific financial harm.6Justia. Kentucky Revised Statutes 411.040 – Accusation of Incest, Fornication, or Adultery Most defamation plaintiffs have to show concrete losses like lost income. This statute removes that hurdle for a false adultery accusation, leaving a lower bar than an ordinary defamation claim.