So you promised to take care of your wife and children, and now you are held accountable to that promise? Buhu.

I know a woman whose husband divorced her because she had a totally senseless affair with her best friend's husband.

It is not well understood that women are often the aggressors in domestic violence.

If you dont believe me consider that such abuse is most common among lesbians.

    you promised to take care of your wife

It's not an unconditional promise. The promise assumes that the partner does the same. Yet only men are being punished (via taking their children, houses, monies), a clearcut violation of their human rights that bayesianhorse is defending.

The usual wedding vows do not contain these conditions. Seems unfair, but then again, you don't need to marry, and not without a marriage contract...

Yes they do.

   I take you, ..., to be my husband and I promise before God and all who are present here to be your loving and faithful wife, as long as our lives shall last. I will serve you with tenderness and respect, and  ...

In other words, where the love stops, the tenderness, where she is unfaithful, she has broken the 'contract'. In that case there is no reason for the other side to uphold his part. No reason other than the near certainty that he will loose his house, his money and his children, ...

Actually, cheating is not really breaking the contract. The unconditional promise includes "bad times". It's not really "his house" and "his money" anyway, because without a marriage contract, these where already partly hers in any case.

It's a sexist standpoint to assume that all the wealth belongs to the husband, or that he earned it alone, even when the wife never got a paycheck.

Adultery is a reason for divorve. The "bad times" refers to calamities beyond the partner's control like illness, accidents. The marriage contract is only valid as long as both parties stick to it. Adultery is a voluntary choice and automatically invalidates the (conventinal) marriage contract.

Nobody says that house etc should automatically go to the husband. It should go to those who put the work in to build/buy the property. There are cases, alas rare as of 2015, where this is the wife. In this case, the house should go to the wife. However, as you know well, in the vast majority of cases, this is the husband. Staying at home is not really work. So de facto the contemporary practise of US divorce courts massively violates husbands' rights. As simple fix would be to institute (1) no fault = no alimony, and (2) shared 50/50 custody as norm. Anything else is sexism and cannot legitimately be defended.