North Carolina’s so-called homewrecker laws are back in the spotlight after Heather Ammel filed an alienation-of-affection suit in Moore County Superior Court accusing former U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of pursuing her husband, Matthew Ammel. The complaint alleges romantic messages, gifts and invitations to trips, and even a suggestion to bring MDMA on a work trip. This dispute raises questions about faithfulness, accountability and whether the law should let betrayed spouses seek damages when marriages are harmed.
The filing lays out a dramatic portrait of what the plaintiff calls a sustained pursuit: Signal messages described as “romantic and lascivious,” presents and trips to Napa Valley and New York. It even claims Sinema encouraged Matthew Ammel to bring drugs for a guided psychedelic experience. Those specifics are what make alienation-of-affection suits shocking to some and cathartic to others.
North Carolina remains one of the few states that still recognizes alienation of affection, where a spouse can sue a third party for interfering in a marriage. Plaintiffs in these cases can seek substantial damages, and juries in the state have handed down seven-figure verdicts in past cases. Supporters say the law fills a gap by offering monetary relief where ordinary divorce law does not.
University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox frames the debate in simple cultural terms. “It’s interesting,” he said, noting that fidelity remains one of the few norms most Americans still uphold. “These laws are designed to reinforce the marital bond and secure the importance of fidelity in marriage,” he added, pointing to a broader public belief that vows still matter.
Wilcox digs into consequences most people prefer not to discuss in cocktail-party conversations. “What people fail to see is the way what happens in our marriages affects adults, kids and communities,” he said, and he backs that up with hard findings. “Kids whose parents get divorced are about half as likely to graduate from college,” he noted, warning that divorce can leave deep emotional and social scars.
He does not let the culture off the hook: “So this idea that infidelity is just some private little matter between two consenting adults is simply not true,” Wilcox said, arguing that adultery ripples outward. From his perspective, the law reflects a community interest in preventing those harms, not just punishing personal failings.
Veteran family lawyer Charles R. Ullman makes the legal case for keeping these remedies on the books. “It’s one of the few ways that people feel like they get some type of relief,” he said, explaining why betrayed spouses often turn to alienation-of-affection suits. Ullman stresses the practical angle: in the family law world, there are limited tools to address a paramour’s role in the collapse of a marriage.
Ullman is clear-headed about how remedies work in practice. “In the family law context, you’re not going to get monetary relief because of an affair,” he said, so a suit against a third party can sometimes be the only path to recovery. “We have all kinds of laws that allow us to recover for losses due to someone else’s behavior,” he observed, comparing alienation claims to other civil remedies that let people recoup damages.
For conservatives who still believe in marriage as a public good, the law has a simple moral logic: third parties shouldn’t be free to destroy families. Ullman puts it plainly: “I think it’s more about trying to find a remedy,” and he adds that lawsuits can give “the person that’s been wronged an opportunity at getting some type of relief.” That sounds like common-sense justice to many voters.
The case also illustrates how modern technology changes these fights. “I can’t tell you the number of times you have the high-school sweetheart scenario,” Ullman said, explaining how old flames find each other online and resurrect fantasies. Encrypted messaging, disappearing photos and late-night DMs make it easy to conduct affairs with fewer witnesses until the communications surface in court.
North Carolina also recognizes a related claim called criminal conversation, and Ullman explains the distinction neatly. “Alienation of affection is the stealing of the emotions, the heart,” he said, while “Criminal conversation is the idea that you have an exclusive right to the sexual relationship of your spouse.” Those two doctrines come from a different era, but they still shape courtroom strategies today.
Defenders of the laws argue they are not about moral policing so much as addressing quantifiable harms to families and children. “Nothing good happens when you get divorced,” Ullman said bluntly, pointing to financial fallout, emotional damage and the way divorce reshapes a child’s future. “When people find out their spouse has had an affair, more often than not there’s almost a reaction very similar to shock,” he added, underscoring how devastating these betrayals can be.
A big part of the argument from the right is about elites and accountability. Wilcox says the Sinema allegations tap into a wider frustration: “This case gives us an example where our elites are doing things that undercut what is probably the most important institution in our country.” For voters who value fidelity and family stability, that feeling matters at the ballot box as much as it does in the courtroom.
The Ammel complaint has thrust old laws back into the national conversation and forced a choice: roll back remedies that some consider archaic, or accept them as tools to hold people accountable for breaking marriages. Either way, the fight over these statutes will stay political because they are about values, consequences and whether the law should stand between a betrayed spouse and any hope of redress.
