Alienation of affection and criminal conversation are potential legal claims or causes of action against a person who committed adultery with your spouse—the paramour or lover with whom your spouse had an affair. These claims are based on the idea that the person with whom your spouse cheated destroyed or alienated the love and affection in your marriage.

Alienation of affection claims are no longer recognized by courts in most states—but Hawaii, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah do recognize such claims. And in some states that do or do not not recognize such claims, the cheated-on spouse may seek an unequal division of the marital estate based on fault in the breakup of the marriage.

The details of alienation of affection laws (sometimes called heart-balm laws) vary from state to state among the states that do recognize such claims.

In Minnesota, the claims of alienation of affection and criminal conversation are not recognized by the courts. Minnesota is among the majority of states that have abolished these causes of action, which historically allowed a spouse to sue a third party for willfully interfering with the marital relationship, typically through an affair. As such, an individual in Minnesota cannot legally pursue a case against a person their spouse had an affair with on the grounds of alienation of affection or criminal conversation. However, when it comes to the division of marital property in a divorce, Minnesota courts may consider marital misconduct as one of many factors in deciding whether to award spousal maintenance (alimony) or in the division of property, but this does not extend to the ability to sue a third party for the breakdown of the marriage.