At-Fault Divorce in South Carolina: Grounds, Proof, and Alimony

An at-fault divorce in South Carolina lets you bypass the one-year separation that no-fault cases require by proving your spouse’s misconduct fell into one of four categories: adultery, physical cruelty, habitual drunkenness or drug use, or desertion for at least a year. A fault case can reach a final decree as soon as three months after you file, and if you can prove the misconduct, it can permanently reshape alimony and how the marital property is divided.

Before any of that, you have to meet residency. If only one spouse lives in South Carolina, that spouse must have lived there for a year before filing; if both spouses live in the state, three months is enough.¹

The Four Fault Grounds

Adultery. South Carolina defines adultery as carnal intercourse between a married person and someone who is not their spouse. You don’t need direct proof of the sexual act — circumstantial evidence is enough.²

Physical cruelty. Actual violence, or threats of violence, that endanger a spouse’s life or health. One heated argument won’t clear the bar. Courts look for conduct severe enough that staying in the home became unsafe.

Habitual drunkenness. A settled pattern of alcohol or narcotic drug use frequent enough to break down the marriage.¹ A single episode doesn’t count. The court is looking for a fixed habit that produced real domestic or financial harm.

Desertion. One spouse leaves the marital home for a continuous year, without the other’s consent and without justification, with no intent to return.¹ Because desertion already requires a full year, it doesn’t offer the speed advantage the other three grounds do.

Proving Adultery

Adultery is the ground most searchers ask about, and it has a distinctive proof standard. Because sexual acts happen in private, South Carolina courts use a two-part test: you must show both inclination and opportunity.

Inclination is evidence that a romantic or sexual relationship existed. Text messages, emails, dating app profiles, affectionate photos, and even an emotional affair can establish it. Sexting isn’t adultery on its own, but it’s strong evidence a spouse was disposed to cheat.

Opportunity means the two people were alone in a private setting long enough to have a sexual encounter. Surveillance footage showing both entering and leaving the same hotel room or home is the classic proof. Credit card statements for hotel stays, neighbor testimony, and admissions in messages also work. A court once found adultery proved based on a spouse sharing a cruise ship cabin with another person, even though the spouse denied anything happened.

You do not need a confession or a photograph of the act. But you do need both halves of the test. Flirty texts without opportunity won’t get there, and two people alone in a house without any sign of a romantic connection won’t either.

Corroboration Is Required

South Carolina judges will not grant a fault-based divorce on the filing spouse’s testimony alone. You need at least one independent source confirming the grounds — a witness, a document, or a record. Family court rules specifically reference “corroborating witnesses” who speak to jurisdiction and the grounds.³

What corroboration looks like depends on the ground:

For adultery: private investigator surveillance, hotel receipts, texts or emails showing a romantic relationship, photos, and testimony from friends or neighbors.
For physical cruelty: medical records, police reports, photographs of injuries, and testimony from anyone who witnessed the violence or its aftermath.
For habitual drunkenness or drug use: financial records showing heavy spending on alcohol or drugs, DUI or drug-related arrest records, family or friend testimony about the pattern, and treatment program records.
For desertion: testimony from someone who knows the spouse left and hasn’t returned, lease or utility records showing the departing spouse set up elsewhere, and written communications confirming the departure was intentional.

Start collecting this before you file. Weak corroboration is where fault cases fall apart, and the other side’s attorney will press every gap.

Defenses Your Spouse Can Raise

Filing on fault grounds doesn’t guarantee the judge will grant the divorce. Any of these defenses, if proved, can sink the claim.

Collusion. If the court finds both spouses coordinated to manufacture grounds, it must deny the filing. The statute is explicit: a judge cannot grant a divorce when the misconduct happened with the filing spouse’s knowledge or agreement for the purpose of getting a divorce.⁴

Connivance. Similar to collusion, but involves one spouse’s scheming rather than a joint effort. If the filing spouse consented to or set up the misconduct they’re now complaining about, that can be a complete defense. Entrapment is the classic example.

Condonation. Forgiveness. If you learned about the affair and then resumed the full marital relationship, a court may find you condoned the conduct. The defense is conditional though: if the offending spouse commits new misconduct, the original forgiven conduct can be revived as a ground.

Recrimination. The defendant argues the filing spouse also committed conduct that would independently qualify as grounds. If both spouses committed adultery, a fault-based divorce may be denied. Recrimination cannot block a no-fault divorce based on one-year separation, so even a successful recrimination defense leaves the no-fault path open to either party.¹

These defenses matter most when alimony is on the line. Even if recrimination blocks a fault-based case, a spouse who committed adultery can still lose alimony rights regardless of who filed first.

Filing, Service, and the Three-Month Clock

You file a Summons and Complaint for Divorce with the Clerk of Court in your county. The filing fee is $150.⁵ For a fault case, the complaint identifies the specific ground, the date of marriage, the date of separation, the names of any minor children, and enough factual detail about the misconduct for the court to evaluate the claim.

Divorce papers must be served personally. A process server or sheriff’s deputy delivers the summons and complaint to the defendant. If the defendant isn’t home, the papers can be left at the residence with someone of suitable age and discretion who lives there.⁶ When a spouse genuinely can’t be found after a diligent search, the court can authorize service by publication: you file an affidavit describing your search efforts, then publish notice in a newspaper for three consecutive weeks. This is a last resort, not a shortcut.

Then the clock. No evidence hearing can happen sooner than two months after filing, and no final decree can be entered sooner than three months after filing.⁷ The clock runs from the filing date, not the date of service. That three-month floor is the procedural payoff of a fault filing: no-fault requires a full year of separation before you can even file.

What Fault Changes for Alimony

Alimony is where fault carries its heaviest consequences. South Carolina imposes an absolute bar on adultery: a spouse who committed adultery before either the formal signing of a written settlement agreement or the entry of a permanent support order cannot receive alimony of any kind.⁸ The bar applies no matter the length of the marriage or the spouse’s financial need. That makes adultery the single most consequential fault ground in South Carolina.

For the other three grounds, misconduct doesn’t automatically bar alimony but is one of 13 factors the court weighs when setting the amount and type, provided the misconduct affected the couple’s economic circumstances or contributed to the breakup.⁸ A spouse who drained the family savings through substance abuse, for example, can see their alimony claim reduced on that basis. The other factors include the length of the marriage, each spouse’s earning capacity, the marital standard of living, physical and emotional health, custody arrangements, and tax consequences.

South Carolina courts can award periodic alimony (ongoing payments that end on remarriage, cohabitation, or death), lump-sum alimony (a fixed total, modifiable only by death of the recipient), rehabilitative alimony (support while a spouse gets training to become self-supporting), and reimbursement alimony (compensation for supporting the other through education or career development). A judge can combine more than one type in a single case.⁸

What Fault Changes for Property Division

South Carolina divides marital property through equitable distribution, which means fair but not necessarily equal. The statute lists 15 factors, and marital misconduct is the second one.⁹

Fault moves the needle on property when the misconduct affected the couple’s finances or contributed to the breakup. An affair by itself won’t necessarily shift the split, but an affair that involved spending marital funds on gifts, trips, or a second household almost certainly will. A spouse who depleted savings through drug or alcohol abuse faces the same kind of adjustment.

The statute also cuts off what the court can consider. Misconduct that occurred after the earliest of these events doesn’t count: entry of a temporary order in the divorce case, formal signing of a settlement agreement, or entry of a permanent support order.⁹ After those cutoffs, behavior is legally irrelevant to the property split.

What Fault Changes for Custody

Custody decisions turn on the best interests of the child, not on which spouse was at fault in the marriage. An affair alone doesn’t cost a parent custody. But when the fault ground involves violence or substance abuse, it directly shapes the custody analysis.

Courts must give weight to evidence of domestic violence when making custody decisions.¹⁰ If a parent who was the victim of domestic violence left the home, the court cannot use that departure against them. A parent found to have committed domestic violence can only receive visitation if the court can secure the safety of both the child and the other parent.

Safety conditions a judge can impose on a violent parent’s visitation include supervised visits, exchanges in a protected setting, required completion of an intervention program, a prohibition on alcohol or drug use during and for 24 hours before visitation, a ban on overnight visits, and posting a bond to guarantee the child’s return.¹⁰ In severe cases, a judge can prohibit visitation entirely.

1
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 20-3-10 – Grounds for Divorce
2
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 16-15-70 – Adultery Defined
3
South Carolina Judicial Branch. Rule 28 – Granting Certain Relief Without a Hearing
4
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 20-3-20 – Effect of Collusion
5
South Carolina Judicial Branch. Family Court – Court Fees
6
South Carolina Judicial Branch. Rule 4 – Process
7
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 20-3-80 – Required Delays Before Reference and Final Decree
8
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 20-3-130 – Award of Alimony and Other Allowances
9
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 20-3-620 – Apportionment Factors
10
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 63 Chapter 15 – Child Custody and Visitation