A paramour is a person who is a love or romantic interest of a married person who is engaging in adultery with the paramour. Spouses engaged in adulterous affairs with paramours sometimes give gifts to their paramours, and often spend marital or community property on such gifts. The non-cheating spouse may pursue a reimbursement claim and ask the court to order the spouse who spent marital assets on a paramour to reimburse the marital or community estate—by returning the gift if it retains its value (jewelry) or replacing the funds with the cheating spouse’s separate property funds.

In Iowa, which is not a community property state but rather an equitable distribution state, the issue of adultery can have an impact on the division of marital assets during a divorce. While adultery itself is not a criminal offense in Iowa, it can be considered when determining how to divide property. If a spouse has used marital assets to buy gifts for a paramour, the court may take this into consideration when dividing assets. The non-cheating spouse may argue that the spending on a paramour was a waste of marital assets and seek reimbursement or a larger share of the remaining assets to compensate for this waste. The court will look at the circumstances of each case to determine if reimbursement is appropriate and how it should be handled. This could involve returning the gift if it retains value, such as jewelry, or compensating the marital estate with separate funds from the cheating spouse.