- Limpopo wife loses claim to her husband’s Government Employees Pension Fund after affairs and false maintenance claims.
- Judges find adultery, dishonesty, and financial dependence amounted to “substantial misconduct”.
- Case serves as a stark warning that infidelity may not only ruin marriages but also cost spouses their financial rights.
In 2015, a 30-year-old woman married a 57-year-old man in a union governed by community of property, meaning all assets and debts would be shared equally. The marriage began with apparent promise, the husband, a government employee, provided for the household, while the wife stayed at home. Their first child arrived in 2016.
Yet beneath the surface, tension was brewing. By 2019, the wife had moved out of the marital home. Although she returned briefly, cracks in trust, respect, and honesty had already formed, cracks that would eventually expose the full scale of betrayal,
The drama intensified when the wife had two children outside the marriage, in 2019 and 2022. She falsely claimed the husband was the father, seeking maintenance from him in court. Only after DNA tests confirmed he was not did the truth emerge.
The husband testified that she had disappeared with his bank card, using his money to fund a lifestyle that included extra-marital affairs, while he remained financially responsible for the household.
Lies under oath and financial exploitation
The High Court highlighted that the wife had lied under oath to obtain maintenance, an act that compounded her misconduct. Furthermore, she had never been employed during the marriage, meaning all improvements to the home and household expenses came from the husband’s earnings.
This total financial dependence, combined with deception, painted a picture of a spouse taking advantage of the other’s trust and generosity, a factor the court considered crucial in determining the fairness of dividing marital assets.
Judges’ verdict, misconduct with consequences
On appeal, the wife argued that infidelity alone could not justify forfeiture of marital benefits. The judges agreed that adultery in isolation is not grounds for stripping someone of their financial rights,
However, South Africa’s Divorce Act allows courts to order forfeiture when a spouse would be unduly benefitted, considering the duration of the marriage, the causes of its breakdown, and substantial misconduct.
In this case, the court found that although the marriage lasted eight years on paper, it was only two years, her adultery directly contributed to the breakdown, and her lies, false maintenance claims, and reliance on her husband’s money amounted to substantial misconduct. Taken together, these circumstances made it clear that allowing her to share in the Government Employees Pension Fund would be unfair,
Judge M Naude-Odendaal, with Judge JD Stroh in agreement, therefore concluded that the appeal could not succeed, and the forfeiture order was upheld with costs.
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