Facebook is reuniting long-lost friends, but it”s also being used to rekindle old flames.
The good news for divorce lawyers is that many of those old flames are married.
In a recent survey of its members, the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers found that 81 percent said they”ve seen an increase in the number of divorce cases that use social networking evidence.
Facebook, by far, is the primary source for the evidence, according to 66 percent of those surveyed. MySpace, with 15 percent, is next in line.
Columbus attorney Carrie Jourdan said cell phone records and Facebook are the first two places she looks for evidence of infidelity.
“If you”re worth your salt and there are hotly contested custody and grounds issues, you”ll check Facebook,” she said.
While Jourdan uses Facebook copiously, she warns her clients to go cold turkey on social media during an active case.
“What clients think is innocuous very well may be used against them,” Jourdan said.
People should be especially wary about posting photographs of purchases and relationships and of status updates, she said.
While Facebook makes it easier to cheat, the knife cuts both ways, as Stacey Boyes-Stuart, of London, Ontario, found out.
Boyes Stuart said she found out about her husband”s multiple infidelities through Facebook.
“If it weren”t for the information I learned on Facebook, I (would) still be married to someone I don”t even know instead of a great guy who treats me great,” she wrote on the “Facebook is a Home Wrecker” webpage.
Jen Snelgrove, who was also a member of the webpage, said people should keep in mind the source of the problem.
“Whether your spouse was to meet someone on Facebook or in Walmart doesn”t matter,” Snelgrove said. “If they are going to cheat, they will. Facebook isn”t the problem — the spouse is.”
Facebook, like all social media, is a tool that can be used for good or bad, said Missionary Union Baptist Church Senior Pastor Tony Montgomery.
“(Facebook) is a great mass communication device, but it”s like the Internet and anything else — misuses and abuses can cause problems,” he said.
Montgomery hasn”t counseled any of his members “yet” about Facebook-related infidelities, he said.
TIPS FROM THE EXPERTS
For those going through a divorce, FacebookCheating.com offers the following tips from attorneys:
· What you say can and will be held against you. If you plan on lying under oath, don”t load up social networks with evidence to the contrary.
· Beware your frenemies. Going through a divorce is about as emotional as it gets for many couples. The desire to talk trash is great, but so is the pull for friends to take sides.
· A picture may be worth big bucks. Grown-ups on a good day should know better than to post boozy, carousing or sexually explicitly photos of themselves online, but in the middle of a contentious divorce?
· Privacy, privacy, privacy. They”re called privacy settings for a reason. Find them. Get to know them. Use them. Keep up when Facebook decides to change them.
Source: FacebookCheating.com
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