Can I sue for Alienation of Affection or Criminal Conversation in Mississippi?

Question

My wife of 9 years cheated on me with someone from work. I found out by the cell phone records. I also checked her voice mail one day and found a message he had left. I gave her the option to call it off. She said she would. A few weeks later I checked the phone records and found where she had called him again. She also did not come home that evening even though it was her dy off. I set her things out of the porch and called her on her cell to come and get them. She came home and saw her things and called the police. The police came and made her leave. She got her own place and filed for divorce. We divorced almost two years ago. Before we divorced I got a bill from a doctor's office through my insurance showing where she had been treated for an STD. She later told me that this man had given her an STD. In the State of Mississippi, adultery is a felony. I have often thought about suing this man for Alienation of Affection. But we are divorced now. Can I still use this man for this? Every marriage goes through troubles. When the spouse has no options he or she comes home and repairs the marriage. We had both just gotten good jobs and I thought we'd buy a house and have a baby. After this I had to file bankruptcy and then I lost my job right after the divorce as my office was shutting down. I had nothing. I lived in a hotel. This man used my wife and later dumped her and got married to someone else after getting a thrid girl pregnant. Can I sue?

Answer 1

alienation of affection is a term that I guess is still on the books in many places.. I doubt that many places bother trying to prosecute such things, since it is fairly widely accepted that adults make their own choices. In other words (to turn it around).. there is no woman on the planet, who has the power to "make" you stop loving your wife or "makes" you cheat on her, if that is in your heart.  Same for there being "no options".. someone fixes a marriage, only if they have the desire or intent to stay in a relationship/ marriage.

Alienation is the kind of term that makes it sound like someone is your "property", which someone else took.  Does not work like that, in real life. As for your job.. if the office was shutting down, that is unrelated to your divorce.

I doubt that you would get very far, trying to sue him.  

Answer 2

Yes, Mississippi is one of the few states that still recognizes alienation of affection as an actionable tort.  In fact, in 2007, the Miss. Supreme Court upheld a $750,000 judgment in an alienation of affection lawsuit.  Have fun.