I have long been fond of telling people that divorce is a commercial transaction saturated in emotion to the point where people (including lawyers) forget it is a “transaction.”
Take a moment to inspect this 2014 Cadillac CTS recently found in a Philadelphia junkyard. Someone’s ex turned this Cadillac CTS into a rolling confession booth, and now it’s headed to auction . And realize that Detroit produced this baby nearly a decade after Carrie Underwood wrote a song about it that was, for a time, the top selling country song of all time. Before He Cheats – Wikipedia
We don’t have a date when the Caddie headed to auction was “autographed” by the angry ex boy or girlfriend. But one suspects this “oeuvre” is contemporary and that restoration of the car (not the relationship) will be at least $4,000. It’s not exactly the ding in the side you hope no one will notice.
About the time that Ms. Underwood published Before He Cheats my law partners asked me to help fill a table at a local dinner to honor local business leaders. There, I ran into a former client, the local business leader, who thought it a provident time to introduce me to his next fiancé. He did so with a flourish, adding that I would be tasked with preparing a prenuptial agreement. The future bride responded with: “I’ll waive everything but if he cheats, I want everything.” Ahem. This was my chance to suggest I needed a fresh drink while expressing the hope that all of this would work out for both of them.
As a student of history, I recently published an article on Pennsylvania’s history of marriage and divorce. My research informed me that in the early 18th century Philadelphia was a huge port at a time when a commercial voyage could separate married couples for 18-36 months or more. While the church taught and everyone hoped that celibacy would prevail during these separations, the local court dockets indicated that hope was often tempered with expectations that were not what the clergy were preaching. Legal divorce was well-nigh impossible to secure so we see lots of criminal charges and “legal notices” indicating that spouses were “done” with each other, the law notwithstanding.
I recently attended a state bar association seminar on child custody and “open marriages.” Pennsylvania still retains fault grounds, including adultery, for divorce although they are almost never employed. Through my career I observed that clients sometimes “tolerated” infidelity if they were convinced the sex was casual and avoided emotional commitment. I also sat through countless interviews where a client would describe a horrific marriage. Unemployment, criminal charges, and substance abuse were all tolerated for years on end. But then he or she “cheated.” Game over. This is war.
It has been 55 years since California brought us no-fault divorce. Yet, we still struggle with what we want from marriage and how a breach of those expectations should play out in an economic and custodial world. The financial and emotional cost of processing those breached expectations is enormous and consumes time and energy better devoted to “moving on” or “starting anew.”
Here is some data. Note well, the numbers reflect only “admitted” cheaters.
Infidelity Statistics 2026: 25+ Numbers That Surprise — South Denver Therapy
Note also that, as in so many aspects of modern society, women are “catching up.”