Facebook Fueled Divorce: Let’s Stop Blaming Social Networking!
Divorce lawyers are increasingly citing social networks as the source of many cases of murdered marital bliss. One attorney from Rosen Law Firm in Raleigh (UK) has argued that “Social media is a factor in almost every [divorce] in one way or another today.” Alice Stubbs of another Raleigh Law Firm; Tharrington Smith LLC supports this statement:
“In the last five years, Facebook, MySpace – all the social networking sites have changed the face of domestic law, and we obtain a lot of evidence from social networking.”
It is important to note however, that correlation and cause are two different things. With 600 million logging into Facebook incessantly on a daily basis (and 66 million into MySpace accounts), it is hardly surprising that social networks are often copping the blame.
Facebook fueled divorce is something that I have experienced almost first-hand recently; my step father of 14 years walked out on my mother and his three children (all aged under the age of twelve). To begin with, the reason he gave for leaving was so that he could “clear his head” but it was not very long until we stumbled across comments and activity on his Facebook account involving a woman that he attended school with years ago.
Turns out that my (now ex) step father had been communicating with this women via Facebook for quite few months on the sly.
Of course, Facebook in particular is a platform that gives you access to the ins and outs of many of your friends (and your less close acquaintances) which can make your life look unexciting in comparison, sparking a “greener on the other side” mentality. This can fan the fires of the temptation to cheat.
It is all too easy to blame the social networking websites themselves though. Whilst these platforms can present opportunities for cheating, a man who wants to “play away from home” will do so via whatever means that are available to him – it’s not like men were never unfaithful before the birth of MySpace and Facebook!
My once step dad is a man that needs to have his ego massaged regularly – even when he is undeserving of such praise. If Facebook did not exist (or in fact, the internet as a whole) there would still be many avenues in his life that would present him with opportunities to cheat. He could have easily left my mother for a woman he had met in a bar, or even our local Tesco’s!
We should all stop blaming social networking websites for the behavior of those that decide to break the sanctity of marriage with their polyamorous actions.
Kat Cole is a copywriter by day and a gig-goer by night. She plans to surprise her love-abandoned mother with a number of vacations next year, including Orlando holidays and Caribbean holidays.
I wonder at what point people will actually go back to holding actual people responsible for their actions. It’s ridiculous.
There is always something a cheater finds to blame on.