Since the news broke out about the hacking of the extramarital affair website Ashley Madison, it's safe to assume that there are a lot of nervous married folks who are afraid of getting caught.

If a spouse learns about their spouse's infidelity through this hack, can they use it as evidence in their divorce case? Or, will family law judges look the other way?

If the innocent spouse obtains the information via the long list of names that could be revealed by the hackers, it may be admissible as evidence in a divorce case depending on where the couple lives.

Many Judges Won't Consider Evidence of Adultery

Despite the common misconception, many judges won't care about evidence of an affair, even if an unfaithful spouse's name was on Ashley Madison's client list.

Therefore, if a spouse finds out that their husband or wife was a client of Ashley Madison, and they learn all the sordid details of their spouse's exploits, it won't affect the typical divorce proceeding, and in many jurisdictions a judge won't consider any evidence of infidelity.

Judges will occasionally be interested in a litigant's love life when they are in a state, such as Texas that will consider evidence of cheating for alimony purposes, or when the cheater's love life has affected the children of the marriage or the couple's marital assets.

Most of the time, spouses bury themselves not because of an affair, but because of their social media posts that cause them to lose credibility. Imagine a husband who says he can't afford to pay child support but he posts pictures of his brand new $80,000 car on Facebook.

The real threat to Ashley Madison members is the guilt and embarrassment of getting caught and possibly divorced, as opposed to being penalized by an unfavorable divorce settlement.

For more information on how infidelity affects divorce in your state, reach out to a divorce attorney!