Alienation of Affection?

August 15, 2026

Connecticut does not recognize a civil claim for alienation of affection and adultery is not a crime. Adultery that caused the breakdown of the marriage is a factor a court may consider in Connecticut when a judge enters alimony or property division orders in a divorce. The following article from the April 18, 2026 edition of The Wall Street Journal may, nonetheless, be of interest to my readers. It is written by Elizabeth Bernstein.

The Homewrecker Lawsuits Rocking North Carolina

A few states still allow a spouse to sue a ‘homewrecker’ for breaking the marriage; the case of a former Arizona senator and her bodyguard

In October 2024, Heather Ammel found a message from another woman on her husband’s phone. “I miss you. Putting my hand on your heart. I’ll see you soon,” it said.

Ammel decided to write back: “Are you having an affair with my husband?” she texted from her spouse’s phone. “You took a married man away from his family.”

Then Ammel took a surprising step: She sued—not her cheating husband, but the woman who was having a romantic relationship with him. This was Kyrsten Sinema, the former U.S. senator from Arizona. Ammel’s husband, Matthew Ammel, was employed as a security guard for Sinema at the time.

North Carolina, where the Ammels lived, is one of just a handful of states with a “homewrecker law” that allows a jilted spouse to sue a third party for damages for a marital breakup. And it isn’t just illicit lovers who might find themselves in the crosshairs. Meddling in-laws, persuasive friends, even a therapist or clergy member are all fair game.

To win an “alienation of affection” claim, as it is known legally, a plaintiff must prove three points: that there was genuine “love and affection” between the spouses before the third party intervened. That this love and affection was alienated and destroyed. And that the defendant’s “malicious acts” caused the loss of affection.

Kyrsten Sinema watches Matthew Ammel speak at an Arizona House Appropriations Committee meeting in February 2025.

Notably, plaintiffs don’t have to prove that adultery was involved, as the alienation-of-affection claim covers emotional persuasion. A sexual affair is covered by another homewrecker charge—called “criminal conversation”—that many spurned spouses file simultaneously.

While proponents of these cases say that they support and strengthen marriage—serving as a deterrent for bad behavior—most states have scrapped them as relics of a distant past. In January, the New Mexico Supreme Court banished the lawsuits, calling them “anachronistic” and “dehumanizing.” Utah has passed a repeal that is set to take effect next month. And some lawmakers in North Carolina seek to follow suit: A bill introduced in the state Senate last spring seeks to abolish both homewrecker laws.

Critics of homewrecker cases say they have no place in an era of no-fault divorce. They claim that the laws are widely abused as a blackmail tool in divorces, enrich lawyers and let spouses who misbehave off the hook, treating them as passive objects with no agency. Messy matters of the heart can’t—and shouldn’t—be adjudicated by a court of law, they say.

“Alienation of affection presumes this very simplistic arrangement where you are devoted to your spouse until some third person comes in and breaks it up and then can be blamed,” says Julie Mayfield, a Democratic North Carolina state senator who is a co-sponsor of the bill seeking repeal. “But I think that any therapist, any counselor, anybody who has been through divorce can tell you that for an affair to begin, there is already likely a problem with the marriage.”

The repeal effort is currently stalled in North Carolina’s legislature, Mayfield says, just as past attempts have languished. She doesn’t expect it to pass in the Republican-led legislature, she said.

Homewrecker claims—also dubbed heart-balm actions—are rooted in English common law, dating back to a time when a wife was considered “chattel,” or the legal property of her husband. He could sue if she was stolen or enticed away. North Carolina adopted this common-law concept. Then, as women gained their legal independence, the state created a new rationale for the law—the preservation of marriage—and allowed women to sue, too.

A few other states, including Mississippi and South Dakota, still allow such lawsuits. Yet North Carolina, which doesn’t limit the amount of compensatory damages that can be awarded, remains the most aggressive battleground. In a 2011 case, one of the largest homewrecker suits in U.S. history, a judge awarded $30 million to a woman who sued her husband’s mistress, alleging that she had intentionally destroyed their marriage. In 2018, a judge awarded a jilted husband almost $9 million, after he alleged that another man lured his wife away.

Big verdicts are warranted in “certain circumstances where the third party really harms the marriage and there is significant loss,” says John Vermitsky, a trial lawyer in Winston-Salem, N.C., who works about 30 alienation-of-affection cases a year. He estimates that there are more than 400 cases annually in North Carolina—and that 99% involve a relationship that is sexual in nature.

“Take the classic case where you have a 28-year-old, very attractive secretary who seduces a 65-year-old married man to get a better life,” Vermitsky says. “It is appropriate on those occasions where you have done harm to take action.”

In a case in November that moved the homewrecker laws well into the 21st-century digital era, a jury sided with a woman who accused social-media influencer Brenay Kennard—who has nearly three million followers on TikTok—of breaking up her marriage by flirting with and luring away her husband. After a riotous jury trial and accusations including flirtatious hair twirling, exchanging explicit videos and suggestive dancing in the bathroom of the marital home, the jury ordered Kennard to pay $1.75 million in damages.

Kennard appealed the judgment, claiming that the case harmed her reputation and cost her income—on the stand, she said she had been called a stalker, a liar and a Jezebel. Her own ex-husband then sued the man she had an affair with under the same homewrecker claim.

In the 14-page complaint against Kyrsten Sinema, Heather Ammel accused the former senator of intentionally seducing her husband, and having a sexual affair with him despite knowing he was married with three children. Ammel claimed that Sinema sent her husband “romantic and lascivious” messages and sexually suggestive photos—including one where she was wrapped in a towel—on the encrypted messaging app Signal.

The complaint also alleged that Sinema had Matthew Ammel accompany her on trips to Napa Valley and New York and that she lavished him with gifts, paid for psychedelic treatment and encouraged him to bring MDMA, or ecstasy, on a work trip so she could “guide him through a psychedelic experience.”

“Defendant expressed to Mr. Ammel she keeps waking up during her sleep and reaching over for his arms to hold her,” the complaint stated, referring to a message from Sinema that Heather Ammel discovered had been sent to her husband.

In her declaration in the case, Sinema admitted to the affair but disputed many of the specific claims, including that she sent a photo of herself wearing a towel. She also said she had no recollection of encouraging him to bring ecstasy on a trip.

Sinema has laid out her defense: Her relationship with Matthew Ammel occurred outside of the state’s jurisdiction.

“The opposite of the allegations is true,” she said in her declaration for the case. “I had no knowledge at the time I initiated any communications with Mr. Ammel that he was located in North Carolina at the time.”

Elizabeth Bernstein writes a column for The Wall Street Journal that explores social psychology and the manifold aspects of human interactions. She focuses on how we can best relate—to others and to ourselves. Elizabeth has been at the Journal for more than 20 years and has previously covered higher education, philanthropy, psychology and religion at the paper, all areas in which personal relationships loom large. In her work, she has ranged far and wide, from exposing the backlash against excessive emailing of baby photos to a detailed narrative reconstruction of a matricide. She has received awards from organizations including the New York Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Deadline Club, the Education Writers Association and the American Psychoanalytic Association.

Elizabeth received a bachelor’s degree in journalism and English from Indiana University and a master’s degree in journalism with honors from Columbia University. She has completed a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT, which focused on brain science, and a Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism.

She lives in Miami, where she is an avid sailor and scuba diver.

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Alienation of Affection?