Social Media and Your Divorce – Don’t Mess it Up

When going through a divorce, it is important to have a social support network. Even under the best of circumstances, a divorce can be an extremely stressful, emotional process.

However, it is also important to distinguish between a social support network and plastering details of your divorce and personal life on social media. On the one hand, you have close friends and family members who can help you through these trying times. On the other, you have a potential minefield for greatly harming your chances of getting what you want out of your divorce.

Why Discussing Your Divorce and Personal Life on Social Media is a Bad Idea

When it comes to protecting your interests in a divorce, the less information you make available online, the better. This isn’t to suggest that it is acceptable to do things you shouldn’t and then try to hide them, but rather that publicizing information that doesn’t need to be publicized is just a bad idea when it comes to your divorce.

Let’s consider a couple of hypothetical but very real examples:

• A divorcing spouse who has a history of drug abuse is seeking joint custody. In the divorce, he or she is attempting to establish a pattern of sobriety. After attending a happy hour to celebrate a co-worker’s retirement, the spouse posts a photo on Instagram that makes it look like he or she spent a night out drinking at the bar.

• A spouse with a relatively low-income job is seeking alimony. He or she makes enough to rent an apartment and put food on the table, but not to support a healthy spending habit. To blow off steam, he or she pulls out a credit card and makes a hefty purchase – and then shows it off on Twitter and Facebook.

In each of these scenarios, the social media poster hasn’t really done anything wrong. The spouse in the first example wasn’t even drinking. In the second example, maybe the spouse had spent months saving up to pay off a special purchase. But, how are these posts going to look when they show up as evidence in the divorce? Not good.

While these spouses may be able to argue around what their pictures and posts appear to show, this could very well be an uphill battle. Plus, instead of working efficiently toward their desired outcomes, they now have to spend time and money defending themselves against their own social media posts. If they had just stayed off of social media, these situations could have easily been avoided.

Contact Our Divorce Law Firm in Orlando, FL

Contact the experienced Orlando divorce lawyers at McMichen, Cinami & Demps today for legal assistance. Contact our Orlando, FL office at (407) 898-2161 to schedule a free consultation.

McMichen, Cinami & Demps – Orlando Office
1500 E Concord St
Orlando, FL 32803