Although according to U.S. Rates and Statistics, the divorce rate has been on the decline since 1980, the fact remains that there are people out there still getting divorced. While it may not be as high as the 50 percent rate that has long become the go-to stat, no marriage is perfect which means no marriage is safe from divorce. While experts try to predict what leads to divorce as means to lessen the amount of them, in the past few years there's been a new factor: social media is a reason why people get divorced.
You may think that your little flirtations with your crush from high school are NBD, but the truth is that some partners don’t like that behavior. Whether you’re in a long-term relationship or married, Facebook, and the Internet in general, can be sources of temptation and drama. According to family law firm McKinley Irvin’s new infographic, with one in three marriages ending because of an online affair, Facebook and Match.com are playing big rolls in the reason people divorce. And the problem with Facebook is that the evidence is all right there ― unless you’re smart enough to delete your tracks, of course.
From jealousy to creeping in on their partner’s social media accounts to divorce because of online behavior, here are seven ways social media is ruining your relationship.
1. More Than 10 Percent Of People Say Facebook Is A Source Of Jealousy And Danger
According to 15 percent of people, social media is absolutely dangerous to their marriage, while 16 percent can point their fingers to Facebook as causing jealousy in their relationship. The threat is so real that 14 percent of adults admit to combing through their partner’s social media accounts looking for evidence of cheating, virtual or otherwise.
2. Facebook Usage Is The One Reason Couples Fight
As the McKinley Irvin study found, it’s not just what a partner does on social media (liking every photo of their ex, maybe?), but the amount of time they spend on it. When it comes to the biggest arguments in couples about social media, the complaint is always how much time a partner wastes on it.
3. A Third Of People Keep Their Social Media Passwords From Their Partners
While marriage is supposed to be about everything, for a third of social media users, keeping their passwords private from the prying eyes of their partners is a must. The study also found that one in 10 of adults admit to hiding certain posts or message from their partners on Facebook.
4. Less Than 10 Percent Have Secret Social Media Accounts
For those who are just tired of hiding their behavior on social media from their partner, getting really sneaky is the best way to go. It’s that group, eight percent of adults, who just have a secret social media account all together. At least that way they can’t feel bad about hiding posts or changing their password every other day to really make sure their partner is clueless, right?
5. A Quarter Of Couples Fight About Facebook Weekly
Whether it’s because of Facebook usage or a partner’s behavior on it, for 25 percent of couples Facebook causes a fight at least once a week. People are fighting about it so often, that Facebook leads to confrontation in one in seven married couples, forcing the discussion of divorce to come up.
6. A Fifth Of People Doubt Their Relationship Because Of What They’ve Found On Facebook
According to the study, one in five people have found something on Facebook regarding their partner that has made them feel “uneasy” in their relationship. But despite that less than half of spouses confront their spouses about their discovery.
7. Majority Of Lawyers Use Social Media Evidence In Divorce Cases
As McKinley Irvin points out, what a partner “shares” on online can also be shared in a courtroom during a divorce case. In fact, 81 percent of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers have used social media as evidence in cases, with the top three being state of mind while being on social media, communications on it, and the time and place of said events.
Source: https://www.bustle.com/articles/100673-why-social-media-causes-divorces-and-7-ways-its-ruining-your-relationship
Laws that mandate equal parenting time are not always in children's best interest.
The November 2014 elections included a North Dakota voter initiative emblematic of the vigorous debate taking place nationwide about child custody.
The “Parental Rights Initiative” required courts to award “equal parenting time” to both parents after divorce or separation. The measure was defeated by a sizeable margin (62% to 38%) but it represents only the latest round in a combustible campaign to change how child custody cases are decided.
A history of child custody (in a nutshell)
Colonial Americans followed the English common law rule that upon divorce the father retained custody of his children. Fathers had the right to the physical custody, labor and earnings of their children in exchange for supporting, educating, and training them to earn their own livelihoods or, in the case of girls, marry a man who would support them.
Colonial mothers, though deemed worthy of honor and deference, were not endowed with legally enforceable parental rights.
This paternal preference continued well into the 19th century. In fact, the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls – the first women’s rights convention – listed the fathers’ automatic custody rule among its principal complaints. But women began gaining the upper hand as our legal system dealt with two cultural transformations: the industrial revolution’s remaking men into marketplace wage earners and the emergence of a “separate sphere” for women as domestic caregivers.
By the early 20th century, motherhood had attained near-mythical status. Under the “tender years” presumption, custody of young children was almost exclusively awarded to mothers upon divorce.
It took a social revolution to unseat the tender years doctrine and replace it with gender-neutral custody standards.
Mounting divorce rates in the 1960s and ensuing decades provoked a lively debate about parental roles and custody issues. The movement for gender equality, along with the rise of fathers’ rights groups, called attention to the importance of both parents in the care of children at the same time as loosening the link between gender and parental roles.
The end of formal rules dictating a result favoring one parent over the other led to the adoption of a more inclusive but less definitive standard of deciding custody cases based on the “best interests of the child.” This standard opened up the possibility of excessive judicial discretion as well as a threat of inconsistency in the results, resulting in hotly contested custody battles.
From the rule of one to the sharing of custody
No matter how child custody was determined, one rule continued to be ironclad: custody was indivisible. After a marital breakup, only one parent could properly raise the children, with the other parent entitled merely to visiting rights. Until the late 20th century, courts regularly refused to allow divorcing parents to share custody. The dominant view was that after divorce a child needed the full time stability of a home run by one parent.
The greater social and legal acceptance of shared custody in recent decades came about when parents began shouldering more equal parenting responsibilities. State legislatures, courts, and parents themselves began to value the opportunity for a child to continue a strong and meaningful relationship with both parents. The new approach sought to avoid treating one parent as merely a visitor, and to reduce the trauma of marital dissolution for children. Sharing custody also became a way to circumvent the brutal dynamics of adversarial child custody litigation.
An important 2014 study shows that child custody norms are significantly changing in the 21st century, with the proportion of parents sharing custody rising dramatically. In fact, we reached a major milestone in the past decade: for the first time since the mid-19th century, custodial arrangements that did not provide sole custody to mothers constituted a majority.
The vocabulary of child custody is also adapting to shared parenting.
“Decision making” and “parenting time” are replacing “legal custody” and “physical custody.” The modern terms reflect a cultural pivot toward mutual child rearing responsibilities rather than declaring a winner and a loser. On balance, then, it appears that our society has adapted the best-interest-of-the-child standard to provide some variant of shared custody. In custody cases today, both parents increasingly enjoy significant, though not necessarily equal, amounts of parenting time.
The problem with presumptions, and a better alternative
Legally enforceable presumptions, such as the one proposed and rejected in North Dakota or the one that the Governor of Minnesota vetoed in 2012, are problematic. An equal parenting presumption shifts the starting point for a custody determination from the child’s best interests to how the parents will divide the 168 hours in a week so that each parent handles half the child rearing.
A 50/50 presumption alters the critical issue from what’s best for the child to how we can treat the parents equally. That’s not the same question at all. A legal presumption of equal parenting time effectively converts the current focus on the child’s welfare to a best-interests-of-the-parents standard.
There is another alternative, better than having a judge decide the child’s best interests and far better than a legal presumption.
In the past few years, separating and divorcing parents have begun taking matters into their own hands by crafting “parenting plans” for their children. These blueprints for post-divorce child rearing allocate parenting time and decision-making authority for each child, depending on the child’s particular needs and circumstances. A good parenting plan also sets out dispute resolution options (such as mediation or a parenting coordinator) for the inevitable time when the parents will face unanticipated child rearing problems.
Many states — Arizona is a leader on the issue — are redefining the issue of parenting after divorce from a demand for custody by one parent to a requirement that both parents work together to create a “parenting plan.” These plans further the public policy goal that children have frequent and continuing contact with both parents, and that both share in the responsibilities of raising their children.
Parenting plans may be crafted from scratch, or they may be customized from a menu of templates and sample plans available from court or private organization websites. Parents often negotiate these plans by themselves, with the help of a mediator, or through counsel. The plans should be flexible but fairly detailed, describing each parent’s area of responsibility in providing for the child’s residential and physical care as well as emotional well being, both at the time the plan goes into effect and as the child ages and matures.
Unlike a court custody order, a parenting plan can include mechanisms to adjust to children’s developmental changes as they age and to other significant family transformations.
Parenting plans are homemade custody resolutions, and courts remain a last resort for deciding contested custody cases. But the parenting plan movement is providing approaches towards sharing custody more in keeping with child development research and less likely to lead to further damaging litigation.
The failed North Dakota “equal parenting time” initiative sought a rigid resolution of the most sensitive issue after divorce: how can parents who no longer live together continue to raise their children.
Our society is gradually adopting shared parenting by choice, not by mathematical formula. We should encourage the movement toward parenting plans rather than legal briefs, mediation rather than litigation, and sharing the parenting rather than dividing the child.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/14/no-children-should-not-spend-equal-time-with-their-divorced-parents/?utm_term=.a4023e9a4b16
The widespread use of social media has presented new opportunities and challenges for people experiencing family separation and/or parenting disputes, and can frequently change the nature of evidence in the family courts. Family Law Accredited Specialist Simone Green shares some of the positives and negatives of social media in Family Law cases.
Beneficial use of social media in Family Law
One of the benefits of the widespread use of social media is that the courts can serve documents via Facebook or similar social media accounts in circumstances where the other party cannot be located through any other means.
In the case of Macguire & Klein [2016] FamCA 874 (5 October 2016), the father made an application for sole parental responsibility for his eight-year-old daughter after he discovered the mother had left the child with her grandparents and essentially disappeared. Despite extensive efforts by the father to locate the mother and serve her with court documents, he was unsuccessful. The father did manage to contact the mother through her Facebook Messenger app and received a reply. His solicitor then forwarded a cover letter notifying her of the date of the hearing, together with the Court documents, via her Facebook account. The mother did not attend Court but as the Court was satisfied that she knew of the Application because the message had been marked as ‘seen’, the father was granted sole parental responsibility for the child by way of an undefended hearing.
Ugly side of using social media in Family Law
The darker side of social media presents itself when people vent their anger, frustration or hate for their former partner on social media pages, post hateful memes or photos, or even post photos which contradict statements otherwise made in evidence. For example, one party may be tagged in photos by others in situations they have otherwise denied in statements to the court; for example drinking alcohol while caring for children, or bragging about new possessions in circumstances where they deny having means to pay spousal maintenance and child support.
To avoid the social media traps that can come back to haunt you during separation, Streeterlaw advises you do the following:
- Delete all your social media accounts during the separation process
- If not possible or not willing to delete social media accounts, then do not post content.
- If you must post content, ensure that you do not say or infer anything that you would not say, write or show to your grandmother. Do not say anything negative about your ex-partner, his/her friends, family or children, or (and yes, it has happened) the judge.
- Assume that anything you post will appear in your ex-partner’s affidavit, be read in court and make great cross-examination material for your ex-partner’s bulldog barrister. The same goes for text messages and emails.
- Encourage your friends and family not to post negative material about your former spouse online.
