Legal Question in Family Law in Virginia

Re: Adultery

If you can prove the adultery, there would be no support. That is the one fault for which no spousal support would be payable unless it would be manifestly unjust for the court not to order support. Proof is the hard part. Unless the e-mails admit sexual intercourse or unless your son is willing to testify against his mother as to her admission of adultery, you would have a hard time proving the adultery. Depending on your respective salaries, however, the court may not order support anyway.

With regard to your retirement benefits, each of you is entitled to a marital share of the others retirement benefits. The marital share is figured by a fraction, the numerator of which is the total # of months you were married to each other while participating in the retirement plan, the denominator of which is the total # of months you participated in the retirment plan (e.g. your wife was participating in a plan for 20 months while you were still together as husband and wife and by the time she retires will have participated in the plan for 360 months; the fraction would be 20/360). This is then multiplied by 50%. The result is the percentage of the retirement benefit that the other party would be entitled to. If her attorney said she'd be entitled to 1/2 of your retirement but you wouldn't be entitled to any of her retirement that could be because she didn't start to participate in the plan until after the two of you had separated. If she was participating prior to the date of separation, you would be entitled to something.

It sounds as if you may need counsel of your own to assist you in understanding things and in negotiating a fair settlement of the issues. You can contact the state bar association for a referral, your local, county bar association or you may contact my office: Elizabeth Ann Jones, P.C., 226 Maple Avenue West, Suite 202, Vienna, VA 22180 (703) 281-7606.