Hello. I am wondering if you can let me know if I could sue for Criminal Conversation? My husband and I separated and within a few weeks of separating we had several conversations over a 2 week period about going to couples therapy together. After those conversations he started a sexual relationship with another woman without my knowledge. We did sign a separation agreement because I do not work and I wanted to protect myself financially. We then went on a family vacation together during which this other woman was sending sexual pictures and instant messages to my husband without my knowledge. I found out about his relationship with her after that just by chance. I emailed her asking her to give us the space we needed as we had just separated the month before, had been together for 24 years and had 2 children. She kept pursuing him and continued having sex with him even though I asked her to stop. I met with a lawyer and sent my own letter(with input from the lawyer) threatening to sue her for criminal conversation but she still continued her sexual relationship with him. I finally convinced him to stop seeing her(he was with her for 2 months total) to go to couples therapy together. We quickly reconciled. He began staying at my house within a month and moved back in abut 6 weeks after he stopped seeing her. We have been living together now for over 4 months and do not plan on separating or divorcing. So considering that I have evidence of their sexual relationship, asked her to stop seeing/having sex with him and that our separation was obviously not permanent since we have successfully reconciled…can I successfully sue her for criminal conversation? Also, our separation agreement did not have a third party waiver which is why the lawyer I met with directed me to send her a letter threatening to sue her for criminal conversation to see if I could get her to back off. The lawyer had informed me that if I chose to sue, the outcome would be based on the jury’s decision, she was not sure if I would win. But, now that we have reconciled, does that solidify my case by showing that our separation was not permanent? Thank you.
No I do not believe so as you and your husband have reconciled and are together. Affections have not been permanently alienated.
More importantly, I hear you placing a lot of blame on this other woman but in the end your husband choose to continue to see her. Though I am glad that you and your husband are reconciling and working things out, I would bear this in mind. I am not condoning her actions, however your husband is the one who made a commitment to you, not this other woman.
And another related question…I saw “the other woman” in person recently and when I politely asked to speak to her, she flipped out, took her phone out, threatened that she was going to call 911 and that she was going to get a retraining order against me. 2+ million people in this area and she had to sit across from me in a waiting room, really?? She did not walk away and had plenty of nasty things to say to me, including lies about my husband to plant seeds of doubt in my mind. Apparently it was not enough for her to come between us this summer, she is still trying to come between us now. Any way, does she have any grounds to get a restraining order against me? She is twisting it back on me to try to make me the “bad guy”. Here is the contact I have made with her:
-I sent 3 printable pages of messages through Facebook over a 3 day period after I found out about her relationship with my husband politely explaining our situation and pleading with her to give us space to work through our issues and to go to couples therapy
-2 weeks later I sent a letter as advised by my lawyer informing her that I met with a lawyer about suing her for criminal conversation and listed out the facts of the case
-A few months after we reconciled my husband sent a short email explaining that we had permanently reconciled because she sent him a poem right before he broke up with her stating that “if 2 people are meant to be together, whether it be a month from now or a year from now…” when she knew he was going back to me to try to save our marriage.
-I sent a 1 page email (at the same time my husband emailed) stating some of the facts I knew about their relationship and constructively explaining how hurtful their relationship was to me and how wrong I thought it was
I would hope that this does not constitute harassment as I was trying to get this “other woman” out of our lives in order to save our marriage, and in the end, I succeeded. My final question is…if I do have a case to sue her for criminal conversation based on my post above, can I send a letter informing her of this without it being considered harassment? Thank you!
I am not a lawyer but I’ve heard that CC cases are extremely expensive and unless you have a solid case they aren’t worth the time or energy. Also, a jury is going to take into account that your husband was not forced into this relationship. He in his own free will entered into a sexual relationship with another adult, more importantly after a separation agreement was entered.
I would be careful about sending any type of correspondences to this women, it’s not worth the risk of her trying to put harassment charges on you.
Thanks for your responses. I am curious about my legal rights, she touts herself as a southern Christian yet her behavior was nothing but. I know the jury would consider his free-will but most of the instant messages sent in the first few weeks after they met were sexual, this was not a mature, adult relationship, it was a delusional “affair”. Our therapist is treating it as an affair because it started behind my back while we agreed to go to therapy and because of the complete delusion they both had about the relationship. They told each other they loved each other after only a week and began the sexual relations then also as well as staying overnight at each other’s houses. They met in a bar at a singles meet-up where they cuddled up to each other and took 3 dozen pictures of them together on their phones that night. She allowed him to spend time with her 15 year old son just 3 days later. He stayed overnight at her house when her 15 and 10 year old children were there and they only knew each other a few weeks. She brought him to her mother’s house for a weekend as well as an overnight out of town at her brother’s! This woman was trying to get him into her entire family as fast as possible and wanted to believe it was the “real thing”! The night she met him she knew we had agreed to go to therapy and also knew we were going on a family vacation a week later. She told him “If anything is going to happen between you and your wife it will be while you are on vacation”…then she made sure that did not happen by sending pictures of herself in lingerie as well as sending sexual instant messages and trying to video-skype the whole time we were there, while his wife and children thought he was downstairs “working”. When he told her he was going back to me to try to save our marriage, they decided to go out on the town for one last night. She told him “I should not have had sex with you since you are going back to your wife”, then he spent the night at her house one last time when he told her he was never going to speak to her again because he was going back to me! Yes, my husband is responsible for his role as a husband and father and he failed during this time. I am not making any excuses for him, trust me, but we have worked through this and he was truly a broken person after our separation, he was desperate and enjoyed the attention as pathetic as that sounds. With the way he acted with her and the way he treated me after I found out about her, I did not even recognize him after 24 years, he had truly lost his mind and got caught up in the “high of the affair” with someone new. My husband now sees the relationship for what it was, a delusional “affair” and nothing more, he knows he did not love her and feels he was acting out his anger & resentment through his relationship with her. He also sees that she did not have pure motives, she was selfish and acting in her on interest instead of doing what was right as a decent person and as a Christian. I suffered a tremendous amount of stress while he was with her which my family, friends and therapist can testify to. This was an extremely traumatic time for me to know that my husband was having a relationship/sexual relationship with another woman. I could not eat or sleep and felt sick all the time, I lost about 15 pounds and had a lot of trouble even functioning for the full month after I found out about her until I convinced him to stop seeing her. I am upset after her reaction when I saw her the other day. She came between a husband and wife when there were children involved as well and she has no remorse. And she said things to try to come between us again now, after she knows we have permanently reconciled. I know I need to leave it to God but I would just like to know my legal rights.
The “delusional” here is you. Sorry to be blunt, but you sound absoultely insane with your blame of this other woman here. Why on earth would you want to go after her when your husband was just as much at fault? It makes no sense that you’d forgive your husband while wanting to sue this other woman. All I hear is “she did this, this, and this…” Do you not understand that your husband also did all these things to you? And, he’ll likely do them all over again since he seems to have a total doormat that completely excuses his behavior and blames the other woman for all of his own actions.
She didn’t come between a husband and wife…your husband was willing and quite eager to step outside the marriage. He did that. He did that alone.
I appreciate the 3 responses trying to have me see my husband’s responsibility in this. I am not offended by you calling me a “doormat” as that is actually a term I used with my husband because that is exactly how I felt. However, please understand that I actually am not a doormat, I am a very strong woman with strong convictions. I am strong enough to have fought for my marriage and family, especially because I saw my husband acting completely out of character during the time he was involved with this other woman. He has shown remorse and we have been working through these issues in therapy, I would never stay with him otherwise. It takes a very strong woman to forgive her husband and continue to love him after what has occurred. My husband realizes that what he did was very wrong morally and from a Christian perspective. This “other woman” does not have any remorse or see anything wrong with what she did and she treated me with complete disrespect when I saw her in person just the other day. It sounds like I am listing out that “she did this, this and this” because the lawsuit would be against her. The fact is that there are laws in our state that allow you to sue the paramour and I am just curious about my legal rights given all of the details described here.
The attorney you consulted with was correct. An action for criminal conversation does not require that the stay married. It requires a showing that a third-party had sex with a married person. The outcome will depend on the judge or jury.
Just wanted to emphasize what another poster pointed out, in that CC and AOA cases are very expensive to pursue, and there is no guarantee that you would get anything back out of it (financially or otherwise). Lots of laws are on the books that are very antiquated, they exist in writing but not in practice. For example extra-marital affairs are actually illegal however it’s been a long time since anyone has been criminally prosecuted for it. The reality is no one really “cares” anymore. Society has changed, bigger fish to fry and all that.
Thanks, I do realize what is involved as it sounds like the lawyer I met with last summer informed me well. I was being told by some people that I did not have a case so I was just curious if I was indeed informed of the laws correctly. I just wanted to know my legal rights.
You should really focus on your husband and your marriage. She obviously has issues,there is no point in giving her your attention, it doesn’t matter now and it won’t matter in the future, your hsband needs to get his priorities straight and stop acting like a teenager with raging hormones.
Yes it does take a strong woman to forgive and love someone unconditionally after they have wronged her…even though you are in therapy, you don’t seem too confident that this will solve the problem since you keep contacting the other woman to stop seeing him…let me tell you something, a cheater is a cheater is a cheater…if its not her it will be someone else…y’all got a lot of work to do.!