For spouses on the path to divorce, social media can make a bad situation that much worst. Inflammatory postings can complicate the already challenging dynamics of marital dissolution.
Stay or go
While the obvious choice is to stay away from Twitter and Facebook to focus on self-care, certain habits are hard to break. Should the lure be too much to resist, avoiding negative screeds that can only inflame emotions.
Additional steps to minimize potential drama on social media include:
- Changing privacy settings to the maximum levels
- “Unfriending” or blocking people who will not be in your life post-divorce
- Encouraging friends not to tag you in posts and pictures
- Removing relationship status temporarily or permanently
- Avoiding online “investigations” of your ex-spouse
- Performing a self-Google search to remove anything incriminating
- Monitor usage of children, critical following finalization of the divorce
Computers in Human Behavior published a study that linked social media activity with reductions in marriage quality in every model studied. Those who forego social media are 11 percent happier in their unions.
Many extramarital affairs are born on social media. Facebook alone accounts for one out of every five marriages failing in the United States. The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers reveals that 81 percent of divorce attorneys are seeing more cases of inappropriate behavior and infidelity uncovered by searches for online evidence.
Staying on social media is an option, but with certain conditions. Being that posts can last forever, even when supposedly “deleted,” anyone, including young children, may one day come across a particularly nasty rant.
