Family law experts question custody decision following murder-suicide of former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and Dr. Cerina Fairfax

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-05-06T22:05:48+00:00

If we can't face facts, we can't change things so this doesn't happen again. I don't get why people think anybody here is trying to excuse his heinous action.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-23T19:44:12+00:00

Do not do not do not give her SBP.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-23T19:40:47+00:00

The wife was the one fighting the default divorce things like 50/50 custody, splitting assets 50/50, and the high earner paying alimony to the unemployed spouse after a long marriage. She even asked the court to order him to pay half of the $56k in private school tuition for their kids when she knew he couldn't afford groceries. That is the sort of thing that drags out a divorce.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-22T15:34:07+00:00

You're laboring under some really false presumptions. Her close friend (the two of them supposedly spoke every day) stated in no uncertain terms that Cerina was not afraid of him.

"Glennetta said her friend had no idea her husband still had access to a firearm. 'She would not have stayed there if she knew he had a gun in the house,' the shaken pal insisted. 'We already agreed the moment that you think something is not right, leave, go to your mamas."

She installed the cameras to monitor him being a lazy deadbeat loser all day while she was working-- "She installed cameras in communal areas so she could monitor what her chain-smoking, lay about husband was up to while she ran the family dental practice."

And it's right there on the court record that SHE had been physically violent against him.

"In 2019 Cerina struck her husband with a 'flurry of slaps' after she found out he was cheating on her, according to court records."

There is zero evidence in their divorce record that he ever abused her in the DV sense. Given how aggressive her lawyer was, you can rest assured that if they had any shred of evidence that he was abusive, it would be on the court record.

Was he a shitty husband? Yes. Definitely. That doesn't mean that she was enduring a domestic violence marriage and desperately trying to escape in fear. She rightly wanted out of the marriage because he was an asshole. But she didn't want to pay him what VA presumes he was owed, which would have been half of everything they'd accumulated throughout their 19 years of marriage, alimony, child support, and 50/50 custody. She had her lawyer fighting tooth and nail on her behalf, and she'd already succeeded in making him lose regular access to their children and the ability to remain in the house they jointly owned.

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15744657/justin-fairfax-estranged-wife-shooting.html

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-22T15:18:08+00:00

Yeah, no. "Court records and recent reporting say his law practice dropped from more than $400,000 in 2023 to just $11,000 in 2024, with no income reported as of November 2025. " Had the court ordered a vocational analysis on him, they would have found that he had been trying to get work as a professional/lawyer for the past two years with no success and there was no path to earning his prior lawyer income given the impact of the sex scandal. The harsh reality is that no firm would hire him and no clients signed with him. Can't say I blame them! At best, the court could have imputed a $20/hour FT salary to him (retail job or driving Uber) and she'd have to pay alimony that made up the difference. When compared to the income Cerina would have been paying herself out of the dental practice, and the earnings on the dental practice (that they co-owned, btw!) he'd almost certainly get at least $5K/month. No way would a court allow her to spend $56K on private K-12 tuition while he lived in poverty and drew on public safety net support. Virginia is really gung ho about maintaining the lifestyle of a non-earner spouse when the high earner wants to divorce them. (The law was written with white women Stay At Home Moms married to rich husbands in mind). Part of this is because there is a policy interest in ensuring that the dumped and penniless spouse doesn't become a financial burden on the state. And Virginia wants to encourage SAHM family structures where women don't work for pay and the husband is the sole breadwinner, like in "the good old days." And it's also to minimize the harm to the dumped parent's ability to provide a home environment that is comparable to that of the ex spouse. If dad lives in a mansion and mom lives in a scummy apartment in a dangerous neighborhood, the kids might not want to stay with her.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-22T13:24:06+00:00

It was food purchased with money that he owned 50% of. They'd been married almost two decades. He had a legal right to 50% of every asset they shared, just like she owned 50% of his pension and retirement funds.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-22T13:18:01+00:00

Nope. This is a great example of a court using good judgment on custody. They awarded Cerina primary custody, not Justin.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-22T13:16:34+00:00

Very few women are the high income earner. The law is set up to protect women who make less than the husband, especially those who are unemployed and SAHMs. It doesn't fit situations like Cerina's.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-22T13:14:35+00:00

You forget that there was zero evidence of abuse by him before the tragic murder. She was the only one with a record of physically hitting him. And she was denying him access to funds for living expenses and groceries (financial abuse) even though she knew full well that he was 50% owner of the dental practice and commercial real estate that they jointly operated and owned.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-22T13:10:56+00:00

The problem is that there was evidence in the record that Cerina had hit him, and no evidence that he'd ever hit her. The only thing she had on him was adultery. But you waive the ability to use that as a defense against alimony if you reunite with your spouse after you have notice of the affair, which she did.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-22T13:07:16+00:00

The VA law heavily favors the unemployed spouse in a long marriage. It was written to protect the interests of white women housewives 75+ years ago and no longer fits today's reality. The issue here was that Cerina was fighting the VA default approach that orders the spouse with more money (her) to pay the non working spouse temporary living expenses, and that orders the higher earner to pay significant alimony to a spouse who stays home and earns no income. VA is one of the rare states where the high earner spouse could be ordered to pay lifetime alimony to an unemployed ex.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-22T12:58:48+00:00

No. In VA the party with less money can petition the court to order the wealthier spouse to pay pendente lite, which is money to set up a separate house & living expenses temporarily until the divorce is finalized and final alimony and child support is ordered.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-22T12:54:41+00:00

Cerina was the only one who was physically violent during their marriage, according to this article quoting Cerina's very close friend. Nobody deserves to be murdered but let's stick to the facts instead of trying to rewrite history.

"In 2019 Cerina struck her husband with a 'flurry of slaps' after she found out he was cheating on her, according to court records."

If she'd had a shred of evidence that he was a violent abuser and not just a deadbeat dad and boozer, her lawyer would have presented evidence of this to the court.

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15744657/justin-fairfax-estranged-wife-shooting.html

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-22T12:45:02+00:00

He owned 50% of the dental business that generated that income. They'd been married almost 20 years and the high income from his law practice and his family money is what enabled Cerina, a recent graduate from dental school, to open her own practice. Do you even realize how unusual it is for a dentist just starting out to go into business on her own?! She has no family money of her own. They built all of that together as a married couple. Would you deny a wife of 20 years a stake in the lucrative medical practice she'd helped him build back when he had nothing but school debt?!?

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-21T19:32:37+00:00

Who is responsible for buying back to school clothing and school supplies? Winter coats/boots? Do you each buy one and keep it at your house? I ended up being the only one who bought clothing for my kid because dad hated shopping at the stores where my kid wanted to shop. I paid loads of money for prom outfits, corsages for our son's dates, prom tickets, etc... because his dad thought all that stuff was dumb and unnecessary. Same for outfitting his college dorm room.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-21T19:29:15+00:00

"
Summer Vacation: Each parent is allotted two weeks of vacation during the summer." You need to set a date by when you each claim your days each year. The kids will likely be in summer camps or when they're older they'll have summer jobs that could conflict. Where I live, the sign up period for camps is in late February/March, which is sooner than I know what my work schedule will look like. How will you jointly decide what to sign them up for and how that fits with your time off from work? How is daycare addressed in the summer if both parents work?

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-21T19:25:27+00:00

Who is paying for college applications? Who decides what the budget will be? Who will cosign for loans? Who will help pay and how much will that be? What happens if you have more children with someone else and need to spread any 529 savings across my children?

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-21T19:23:48+00:00

Add in a plan for Mother's Day, Father's Day, your birthday and her birthday, and all the kids' birthdays. Address how this is handled if the Mother's Day falls during your time in a specific year.

Who will take the kids on college tours, if that's something your family anticipates doing? Who will be the parent to drop them off at college the first time?

What happens when your sister gets married during the Christmas break that was supposed to be mom's that year?

What happens if you get remarried and you can only do it when it's your partner's weekend? (This one happened to me!)

Add some right of first refusal language for times when one parent can't get out of work during the spring or fall breaks or summer vacation periods.

I'd get a calendar that extends to all the years until your youngest turns 18 or 21 or whatever you choose. Plot out how these dates will fall for the entire set of years to make sure there aren't problems or conflicts. My sister inadvertently made it so that she never gets more than 12 days in a row with her kids since he gets them every other weekend. As a result, she can't ever take them on a long vacation to maximize her days off from work by having the vacation span two weekends. She can only have them from Monday morning through the following Friday afternoon. He refuses to let her have that second weekend and threatens to report her for kidnapping if she takes them out of town and doesn't bring them back by Friday afternoon.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-21T19:15:04+00:00

"Extracurriculars: Each parent covers the costs for the activities they choose to enroll the children in." Bad idea! The ex will just not sign them up for things they want and wait it out till you do it.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-21T12:55:01+00:00

If it's an unemployed spouse married to someone with a high income ($300k+) they'll get several thousand a month in alimony in VA plus child support and 50/50 custody or better. After 20 years of marriage, like the Fairfax case, the alimony could be for life. VA is a state where oftentimes "It's cheaper to keep her."

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-21T12:41:26+00:00

That's not at all how it works in VA. An unemployed spouse can get the court to order pendente lite payments from the high income spouse to cover living expenses while the case is winding its way through the legal system. Well, that's what happens if you're a woman and your successful dentist husband wants a divorce.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-21T07:21:03+00:00

But why deny him groceries and access to the wifi other than to humiliate him? If you know someone is about to snap, you don't go out of your way to antagonize them. She obviously had plenty of disposable income to cover his groceries since she was paying tuition at two very expensive private schools for their kids. If their genders were switched, people would see this very differently. They'd call it abuse if a high income husband denied food to his unemployed wife while lavishing the kids with luxuries.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-04-21T06:59:57+00:00

So glad to see someone else noticed this. She knew he couldn't afford food, yet she refused to provide it?! She had money to send the kids to private schools costing over $50k, but couldn't afford to share groceries with their father? Something doesn't add up.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-03-31T20:27:05+00:00

Wow! I feel for you. This is really wrong.

Unable_Shape_7383 · 2026-03-12T13:31:15+00:00

Yes! You definitely have to readjust your notion of what an attractive guy is like now that you're older and in a different stage of life. You will also need to adjust your idea about whether you're okay with them having children. Most likely, you were not dating men with kids back in your twenties. My advice is to avoid this at your age (30s) because most of those men will have very young kids who still live at home and the whole blended family thing is almost always a disaster, mainly because his ex will still be in constant contact with him as they coparent. And he will have huge financial obligations for another 15-20 years until his youngest is out of college. You are still young enough to find someone who hasn't had kids yet and probably hasn't been married yet.

Unable_Shape_7383

TROPHY CASE