The overuse of posting, texting, and tweeting can be dangerous to your marital well-being and finances.
With social media, you can now play out your dreams impulsively online, but there’s a catch: the evidence never goes away. We see this online evidence used frequently in family courts to demonstrate irreconcilable differences or parental alienation, and we see the searches used as evidence of a potential or actual significant other.
In a recent survey, many attorneys report they’ve seen a spike in the number of cases using evidence from text messages. Indeed, text messages are allegedly the most common form of evidence, followed by emails, phone calls, GPS and Internet search histories. People assume texting is safe because messages aren’t easy to print out – but it can be done.
So, think twice before complaining on any device about the shortfalls of your spouse, and think three times before searching for an old or a new love. Spousal complaints are a form of emotional betrayal once they are published online, and the conversations with old or potential new loves can be the beginning of the end of your current one.
A good rule is that you should not tweet, post, or in fact email anything you wouldn’t want your spouse – or more importantly their attorney and a judge – to see, sometimes even blown up on a screen in a courtroom. Anything in writing leaves a paper or digital trail that can and usually will come back to haunt you.