Legal Question in Family Law in Virginia

Re: desertion and divorce

It depends about the attendant facts and circumstances for which you've provided no information. If you took off for California, leaving children and spouse with virtually no contact, that would be one situation whereas if you merely took up new residence across town with regular visits to the home along with financial and emotional support for any child(ren) remaing there, that, obviously, would be quite another.

The former situation might well qualify, legally speaking, as abandonment and a fault ground for immediate divorce by the abandoned spouse whereas the latter almost certainly would not.