He will admit cheating but not adultery

My husband cheated on me last year, 2 months after our wedding. I found out a month later and we have been living separately ever since.

It will shortly be our 1st anniversary and I will be filing for divorce. I want to file on the grounds of adultery, however he has told me he will not admit to this as he did not actually have sex with the girl. Apparently having sex is the legal definition of adultery, so even though they were intimate and did a lot of other sexual things, he has not technically committed adultery in his eyes.

I do not believe him for the following reasons:

- I found out that after their first encounter she took a morning after pill the following day and 2 pregnancy tests later in the week. (His explanation for this was that she was so drunk she was not sure what happened and took the pill/tests as a precaution).

- He cheated on me with her on 4 separate occasions, did very intimate things with her but didn''t actually have sex (yeah right!)

- When he was cheating and I was suspicious of his behaviour, he lied to my face over and over about it, and even swore on his own mothers life that he had not cheated.

I know I can go down the route of unreasonable behaviour, but because the hell he has put me through, plus the fact I think he is lying, I would feel so much better if he just admitted adultery. I know the end result is the same.

Is there any way round this for me? He will not budge at all.

It doesn''t matter what the legal definitions are, or what he did or didn''t do. Either way it does not make sense to use adultery when your husband is not willing to cooperate. You will be opening a whole can of worms, expense and hassle for yourself unnecessarily. If you use adultery then the burden of proof is on you. You need to prove 100% to the court that he committed adultery, which means you need some very intimate photos, or a baby with a paternity test. None of the things you quote above are sufficient proof in the court''s eyes.

You should use unreasonable behaviour. You can put a one of your facts, "the respondent had an inappropriate relationship with another woman".

Hi TFSM,
Welcome to wiki, but sorry you are here.
As Cookie says adultery is very difficult to prove, also it is seen as ''bad form'' to name the other party so although I can understand the desire to name and shame it is not always the best way to go about things.

LB

Hi TFSM,

My situation is strikingly similar to yours, stbxh had an affair 6 months into the marriage, left two months after it began and has been living with her for the last 18 months. Like you i wanted to divorce on the grounds of adultery and probably for all the same reasons. I wanted him to admit he was in the wrong!! My solicitor has written to my stbxh asking him to sign a statement confessing to adultery which so far has been ignored. I think we are probably going to go forward with Unreasonable Behaviour and just stating his affair as one of the facts as cookies suggests.

Are you using a solicitor? I would see what they suggest. Mine has written to stbxh to agree grounds before we move forward which is why he is asking him to admit adultery. It was worded in a way that stbxh wasnt to blame for the end of the marriage but that he did commit adultery. Maybe this is something your solicitor may want to do to ''test the water'' so to speak, and if you ex agrees great, if not, you need to assess how important the divorce is to you and why you are doing it. As much as i want it acknowledged that my marriage ended because my husband cheated, i want a divorce more!!