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 Mississippi, alienation of affection is a recognized cause of action. This means that if a spouse has an affair, the other spouse may have the right to sue the third party—the paramour—with whom their spouse had an affair, on the grounds that this third party is responsible for the loss of love and affection in the marriage. Mississippi law allows for such claims, which are based on the premise that the third party's actions resulted in the alienation of the spouse's affection. Additionally, in cases of divorce, Mississippi courts may consider adultery and other forms of marital misconduct when deciding on the division of the marital estate. This could potentially lead to an unequal division of assets in favor of the non-adulterous spouse, as a form of recognizing fault in the dissolution of the marriage.