Even with online divorce cases, two exes can walk away with a bitter taste in their mouths, and sometimes they can’t fight the urge to get that taste out of their mouths and onto a computer screen in the form of social media.
The most common use of social media in TMI divorce reveals and childish lash-outs is the Facebook status update, but any platform can be abused — Twitter, Google+, etc.
As much as you’d like to heap digital coals all over your former spouse’s head, lay off, especially if you’ve yet to sign the divorce papers. While this may seem very common sense, people post inappropriate details or comments every day for all the world to see, and in doing so, they’re setting themselves up for disaster.
We Live In A Screenshot Culture
We’ve probably said this before in one form or another, but you are the celebrity of your own life now. The moment you start accepting and sending out friend requests, you become a public figure. You can delete an inappropriate remark or a tacky picture, but it’s never truly gone because someone on your friends list may have taken a screenshot and saved it indefinitely. They can in turn share that screenshot with any of their friends, even if you eventually quit the social media game and delete all your accounts. Once it’s out there, it’s out there.
Your Posts Can Affect Settlements And Cause Future Legal Troubles
Take the case of Chad Lesko, who was accused of raping his own son as a revenge tactic by his son’s mother. She later admitted to making it up, and while lying about another human being isn’t enough to get you jail time, it will certainly give Lesko a solid foundation for pursuing civil action for libel.
So How Do You Cope With Your Divorce?
By almost any other means than blasting out your feelings on Facebook or another social media outlet, that’s how. Filing for divorce should not be a call for attention. It should be a private course of action between two people, who were unable to make their marriage work and who now want what’s best for themselves and their children, if they have any. Getting social media mixed up in that puts one at a high level of risk for not getting the settlement they want. It can also cause needless harm to others and negatively affect familial relationships. If you need attention that bad, buy a dog.
What’s the biggest social media over-share that you have ever witnessed?