Emotional Affair

Is an emotional affair considered Infidelity? How would you prove your spouse had an emotional affair? How would it affect that person getting alimony?

I do not think that emotional affairs are considered in alimony cases by the courts. That would fall under the alienation of affection heading by which you would sue the 3rd party for alienating your spouse’s affections from the marriage.
This is expensive to pursue and difficult to prove, from what I’ve read, and I wouldn’t think there would be any true gain from it. It won’t change the cause and it won’t make it right. IMHO, the only justice is in the case where the 3rd party knew the person was married and carried on in the hopes to destroy the marriage. It’s difficult to place all the blame on someone else when the spouse is the one who betrayed the marital trust.

Stepmother’s right. The only way an emotional affair can really come into play is through a charge of alienation of affection. These are expensive cases, and if the paramour doesn’t have money, you’re not going to get anything from them, and the process may be humiliating to go through as you will probably be asked questions you don’t want to answer.

If gifts were lavished upon the paramour, then I suppose one could make an action during alimony proceedings that the spouse had wasted the estate of the marriage, but that would depend strongly upon that one circumstance and the degree of abuse of marital property.

I think part of the problem lies in where the line is between a friendship and an emotional affair. One person’s friendship can be considered an emotional affair by the other party. Just my 2 cents…

North Carolina does not recognize emotional affairs as infidelity.