CHICAGO / Hundreds of millions may be flocking to Facebook to be social and to network.  But statistics continue to show that social networking can often leads to divorce.  In fact, the newest divorce Facebook study shows that one in five marriages are destroyed by the nation's most popular website.

The latest divorce Facebook study conducted by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers found more than 80 percent divorce attorneys say they have seen an increase in the number of cases using social networking evidence during the past five years, according to a recent survey of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML).  

“We’re coming across it more and more,” said licensed clinical psychologist Steven Kimmons, PhD, of Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill. in reaction to the divorce Facebook study. “One spouse connects online with someone they knew from high school. The person is emotionally available and they start communicating through Facebook. Within a short amount of time, the sharing of personal stories can lead to a deepened sense of intimacy, which in turn can point the couple in the direction of physical contact.”

Divorce Facebook study: The fallout

Everything that a cheating spouse posts on Facebook, and any other site online, can and often is used as evidence. 

"In court, they put on their best face, but their true beliefs and character are often unmasked in their social media communications," says Christopher Melcher, a Los Angeles family law attorney.  "One client, who thought she had a solid marriage, found out that her husband had been matched on eHarmony with her friend, claiming his status to be 'single.'" 

One British company backed up the findings in the divorce Facebook study.  Divorce-Online told The Sunday Mail that Facebook was named in one-fifth of the divorce petitions the service was involved with last year.

Stories of people whose marriages were destroyed by affairs that began on social networking sites abound on the Internet. It’s enough to make some people swear off online technology for life. Though there are no hard-and-fast rules to follow, there are some safeguards couples can apply to decrease the chance of online relationships getting out of control. For starters, do a self-assessment of why you’re using online sites.

“Look at the population of the people who are your online friends,” Kimmons says. “Is it a good mixture of men and women? Do you spend more time talking to females versus males or do you favor a certain type of friend over another? That can tell you something about how you’re using social networks. You may not even be aware that you’re heading down a road that can quickly get pretty dangerous, pretty fast to your marriage.”

Another safeguard is to spell out from the beginning with your online contacts what your expectations are of social networking relationships. Also, it’s a good idea to not engage in intimate conversation with someone who is not your spouse.

“From the start tell your online friend that you’re not looking for anything more than establishing old contacts with people to find out how they’re doing,” Kimmons says.

In some instances, couples could share passwords with each other and place the computer in a common area in the house or apartment.

“It’s not that people are going to read what you’re writing, but they’ll see what you’re doing,” he says. “Then it’s not a secret.”

Couples can also set parameters around how much time and when they are online each day.

“If you’re doing this at 2 o’clock in the morning with no one watching because you don’t want anyone else to know about it, that should be a signal to you that this is something approaching a boundary line or you’re at least moving in that direction,” Kimmons says.

Though Facebook holds the distinction of being the unrivaled leader for online divorce evidence with 66% citing it as the primary source, it's not just Facebook that's been tapped in divorce cases.

"Tweeting about how much you hate your ex or how you plan to get revenge by taking the kids may feel good at the moment, but the judge will view them differently," says Melcher.  "We've seen cases where parents are ordered not to remove the children from the state, then post pcitures of their out-of-state vacation with the kids on Facebook.  Tweeting about your new job after declaring to the court that you are unemployed is also a bad idea."

To reach LA divorce attorney Chris Melcher, please contact Shannon Hannon-Oliviero with The Publicity Agency (www.thepublicityagency.com) at  or phone (813) 708-1220. 

This press release was distributed by PR NewsChannel (prnewschannel.com).