Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan) and wife Linda were married for 24 years when Linda filed for divorce in Florida in November 2007. The media was aware that the couple was having marital problems when the couple attended therapy on their reality television show “Hogan Knows Best.”

There have been recent reports that Terry was having an affair with his daughter, Brooke’s, friend, 33 year old Christine Plante. According to Ms. Plante, the affair was not the cause of the divorce, and it began after Linda and Terry had already talked about ending their marriage.

How Will the Affair Affect the Divorce?

Custody: Florida is a no fault divorce state which means that when seeking a divorce a person must only show that the marriage is “irretrievably broken.” An affair may call into question the moral fitness of a spouse and could affect child custody issues, but in the Hogan (Bollea) case one child (Brooke) is no longer a minor and the other (Nick) is seventeen years old, so there will be no custody issues. Courts usually defer to the preference of teenage children 16 years or older when determining what parent the child will live.

Property: An affair by one spouse could have an impact on the divsion of marital property. For example, the spouse having the affair may buy gifts for his or her girlfriend/boyfriend or pay for trips. If the spouse uses community property funds to make these purchases, then the spouse responsible for those expenses must pay them back. A spouse involved in a dissolution proceeding who knows or suspects that his/her wife or husband had an affair during the marriage should review credit card statements and bank statements to determine whether their spouse spent any community funds on gifts or expenses for the boyfriend or girlfriend. These are the types of expenses that the offending spouse must pay back.

So, since Florida is a no-fault state, Linda has no legal recourse in terms of being entitled to more than she normally would in the divorce, but there are certainly precautions that she can take to ensure that she does get not end up “paying” more for the affair than she has to.

According to reports, Hulk Hogan’s wife Linda, filed for divorce in mid November. Apparently Hogan (whose legal name is Terry Gene Bollea) learned that Linda filed a petition for dissolution when he received a call from a reporter. The parties have been married for 24 years and have two children together, Brooke and Nick. Hulk Hogan is a former professional wrestler and the Hogan family has a popular reality show on MTV called “Hogan Knows Best.”

Nick is facing felony charges for reckless driving from an auto accident which left his passenger with severe brain damage. Some speculate that the strain on the family caused by Nick’s accident may have contributed to the parties’ divorce. However, an episode of Hogan Knows Best shows the parties attending marriage counseling, indicating that there was a rift between the couple well before the accident.

Terry and Linda were married in Los Angeles, California, but Linda filed for divorce in Florida. Legally, a party must meet a state’s residency requirements in order to file for divorce in that state. Since Linda and Hogan having been living in Florida they did not meet the residency requirements of California which requires that at least one party live in California for at least six months “immediately prior to the filing of the petition.” (see: California Petition for Dissolution, Form FL-100)

The parties only have one child under the age of eighteen, Nick. In her petition for dissolution Linda requested primary physical custody of Nick, which means that Nick would reside with Linda the majority of time and have visitation with Hogan. Since Nick is seventeen years old, the court will probably let him decide who he wants to live with the majority of time. The courts recognize that a minor of this age is able to decide which parent they want to live with. The courts also recognize that it would be extremely difficult to force a seventeen year old to reside with a parent he or she does nor want to live with.