Legal Question in Family Law in Virginia

Re: Is leaving the house, abandonment?

No, not necessarily, i.e., merely moving out of the house to another part of town, and maintaining whatever your familial obligations may be, including the support of and visitation with your minor children, if there be any, will not normally get you charged with desertion or abandonment.

However, picking up and "hightailing it" to California, so to speak, with no further contact by you with your family and failure to keep up with any support obligations which you may have, could very well result in such charges against you.