I have a friend who has been married for a few years and has a house he was buying well before the relationship began, so the mortgage is only in his name. His wife has an alcohol problem, and when she started getting verbally and physically abusive, he had her removed from the house by the police and put a restraining order on her.

They are currently in the process of getting a divorce, and she is insisting that she can get his house as "community property", but I have been led to believe by other friends who have been divorced that the only way she can get the house that's in his name is if he allows it to be listed as property they got together.

Any thoughts on who is right? In the state of Maine, is the house he had started paying for before she was even part of the picture something she can now steal away from him as part of the divorce settlement just because he let her move into it when they got married, or is his property safe?

It depends. The money that he put into the house is definitely his. But did he put in money from "communal" funds after they got married? And house the house appreciated since the marriage? She might have a claim to part of that.