The many ways in which social media can burn you during divorce

The temptation is always there now when something shocking or upsetting happens to you. You want to go on to Facebook or Twitter and rant your feelings away into cyberspace. You want to type the words so fast and with such ferocity that the keyboard nearly breaks. You want to use ALL CAPS to hammer home your point. You are just so upset and so angry, and you feel like this is the best — and possibly only — way to affect the situation.

In some situations, this may be an act that doesn’t necessarily earn you the consequences that it would if you had said those things to someone face-to-face. But when it comes to divorce, posting angry rants and other information online is a sure way to get you in trouble.

We’ve written about this topic in the past, so let’s cover a couple of situations where your social media information could come back to haunt you:

• Posts or tweets that contain harsh language or inflammatory commentary could be used against you to limit your time with your children, or it could even be used against you to block your claim for custody.

• Past private messages could be used to establish that an extramarital affair was going on, or that a spouse has hidden certain assets from his or her soon-to-be-ex.

• Photos, data, and other information on your social media profiles could be pieced together to establish a timeline of events. This timeline could then be used by your spouse to formulate a substantial argument against you, given whatever divorce topic it applies to.

Source: Forbes, “How Social Media Can Affect Your Divorce,” Jeff Landers, Aug. 20, 2013