Spending 2 or 3 Nights Per Week With Paramour Didn’t Constitute Cohabitation

Tennessee alimony case summary on termination of alimony due to cohabitation after divorce.

Deborah Ann Treadway v. Gregory Steven Treadway

The husband and wife in this Tennessee case were divorced in 2011 after a 19 year marriage.  They agreed to a marital dissolution agreement which called for the husband to pay $2,000 per month in rehabilitative alimony for 180 months.  It provided that the alimony would terminate upon the wife’s death or remarriage, and defined remarriage as both ceremonial marriage and cohabitation with an unrelated person of the opposite sex for more than thirty days.

In 2013, the wife filed a petition for civil contempt alleging that the husband had refused to pay alimony.  The husband asserted that the wife had cohabited for more than thirty days.  The trial court, however, held that the husband had failed to prove this allegation and awarded the back alimony.  In so holding, the court noted that the wife and the alleged cohabiter had separate homes and didn’t contribute to the upkeep of the other’s home.  They spent two or three nights a week at the other’s home, but didn’t have a key or receive mail there.  The husband argued that an intimate relationship, along with much time together, was sufficient to show cohabitation, even if there was no intermingling of funds.

The husband appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals, which agreed that the parties had a different meaning in mind for the word “cohabitation.”  However, it looked at the dictionary definition, and agreed with the trial court that there had been no cohabitation in this case.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling.

No. M2014-00898-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Mar. 24, 2015).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Alimony Modification in Tennessee Law | How to Modify Alimony.