There are a lot of legal issues that’ll have to be addressed in your divorce. Property division, alimony, child custody and child support are all key problems that’ll have to be solved one way or another in your marriage dissolution. The process can be riddled with stress and anxiety, too, given the stakes involved and the impact that your divorce outcome can have on your future. As you try to cope with the emotional realities of your situation, you may be tempted to turn to social medial as an outlet for you fears, frustrations and uncertainty.
While posting on social media can give you an outlet and help you find support, it can prove disastrous for your divorce. It may not seem like it, but even the most innocuous posts can leave you backpedaling while trying to fight for the divorce outcome that you want.
There are multiple risks associated with posting on social media while your divorce is pending. Let’s take a closer look at some of them here:
- Property division implications: Your posts on social media might give a false indication of your financial standing, or it may be indicative of having more assets than what you’ve claimed in your divorce. As a result, your spouse might use your posts to argue that you’ve inappropriately hidden assets or that you’ve squandered them away. Your spouse might also use your posts to try to show that your financial positioning is stronger than you claim, which can have implications for spousal support and child support matters.
- Child support considerations: When the court is tasked with issuing a custody order, it will try to issue a decision that it thinks is in the child’s best interests. This means that the court will consider everything from the parents’ relationship with their children to any history of domestic violence or substance abuse. This is a wide-ranging standard, though, so basically anything is fair game to argue.
Therefore, your spouse might take your social media posts out of context to argue that you’re unsuitable as a parent. For example, a picture of you having a glass of wine with dinner might be used to try to show that you have a drinking problem, or posts venting about parenting challenges might be used to show that you don’t have the patience and skill to appropriately care for your child.
- Credibility issues: Unless you can resolve your divorce through settlement negotiations, you’re bound to testify in your case. When you do so, you want the judge to trust what you have to say so that they’ll hopefully rule in your favor. But your spouse might try to use your social media posts to show that you’ve made prior inconsistent statements or that you’ve otherwise lied about important matters. This can destroy your credibility with the court and make it hard for you to clearly and convincingly tell your side of the story.
Don’t become your own worst enemy in your divorce
There are a lot of mistakes that can be made during the divorce process. You don’t want to make them and destroy your own arguments on key legal issues. Therefore, it’s best to carefully think through your divorce strategy and refrain from using social media until your case is resolved. By being thoughtful here, you’ll hopefully set the stage for a divorce outcome that protects your and your child’s best interests.