'Model husband' shatters image of love

Famous couples who have parted their ways

Wang Xiuquan is a senior marriage lawyer at the Beijing Chang'an Law Firm

The case I'm currently handling involves a couple in their late 20s, who got married two years ago. They are both from Beijing, have good jobs and are financially stable.

The wife suspected that her husband was having an affair, so she asked a friend who works for the Public Security Bureau to check the records of her husband's hotel bookings in Beijing. She discovered that her husband's claims that he had been away on business trips at certain times were untrue.

After following him secretly for several days, she found out that he was seeing another woman and that they were behaving like lovers in public. On one occasion, she saw the two together and phoned her husband, but he claimed to be out of town and said he was very busy.

When the husband flew to another city to pick up his lover at the end of the Spring Festival holidays, his wife finally confronted him.

Faced with the undeniable facts about his affair, the husband agreed to a divorce. Luckily, the couple doesn't have children, but they do have jointly held property and it will take time to reach an agreement about that.

China's Marriage Law clearly states that when couples divide their joint property, the law will favor the innocent party, and Clause 47 states that the transgressor must provide compensation.

However, in some families the couple hides private assets from each other, and so transparency is crucial.

Wang Xiuquan spoke with He Na.