But my husband spent thousands of dollars on his girlfriend. Can't I get that back?

Very possibly. The funds will need to be documented in a process called Economic Contribution and may be calculated into the distribution of funds for such expenditures. After all, one-half of every dollar he spent on the girlfriend was his wife's.

Incidentally, having an affair is such a common occurrence that while the courts will often give a five or even 10 percent of the community property bonus for the pain inflicted on the non-offending spouse, certain things appear to really excite and anger judges and juries. People might be able to understand having an affair but they don't understand humiliation, injury to children or sadistic behavior. The times we have seen the greatest property divisions have been when someone took a mistress or boyfriend around family friends before the spouse knew about the situation and thus created a situation where friends of the spouse were laughing at her behind her back. Alternately, we have seen judges react punitively when a spouse brings a paramour around children before separation or has created situations where a spouse would intentionally find out about their infidelity in order to hurt the spouse. Those sort of things can be very profitable to document.