An article in today's Daily Mail struck a cord:
A growing number of marriage break-ups are being blamed on Facebook as love cheats are caught online.
Lawyer Emma Patel has revealed that EVERY divorce she has dealt with in the past nine months has involved the social network website.
Married couples meet other users online and send 'flirty messages' or have 'inappropriate suggestive chats' which spouses can use in divorce cases.
Sites like Second Life, Illicit Encounters and Friends Reunited are tempting couples to cheat on each other.
A growing number of marriage break-ups are being blamed on Facebook as love cheats are caught online.
Lawyer Emma Patel has revealed that EVERY divorce she has dealt with in the past nine months has involved the social network website.
Married couples meet other users online and send 'flirty messages' or have 'inappropriate suggestive chats' which spouses can use in divorce cases.
Sites like Second Life, Illicit Encounters and Friends Reunited are tempting couples to cheat on each other.
I've little doubt that these sites create a dynamic between people that wasn't there previously, although a site with a name like "illicit encounters" doesn't really need researching to realising what its all about.
In the days before the internet tracking down old friends or lost family members could take months of research - searching through telephone directories, writing speculative letters and so on.
Now just a little ingenuity with a search engine can throw up all sorts of possibilities. One of the joys of Facebook and Friends Reunited has been making contact with people I would otherwise never see again.
Several months ago I had a really distressing call from a dear friend. Her husband of twenty five years had left her a few years back and she needed to find his new business address for an old client who had called the family home.
She had placed his name on google and expected to get his business site. She got that all right, and a lot more. Her former husband had remarried during the course of last year. Both he and his new partner had opened blogs about the wedding and their love. He said things like "I never knew what it was like to love until I met X".
To be honest it was a bit sickly, using the sort of language that shouldn't really be placed into the public domain. For me it was a mildly amusing to see someone make an absolute prat of himself. To my friend it was like a dagger in her back. Given the circumstances it seemed totally inappropriate to make such a public display that would eventually be seen by a very hurt person.
This must have pastoral implications when divorced people come to churches for weddings (the Methodist Church in the UK marries more couples where one of the parties is divorced than almost any other).
Happy couples need to be reminded that Facebook postings, blogs, and galleries of wedding pictures can be seen by others who may not share the happiness. That almost by default they may be hurting someone who was once very close. It needs a little care.
Happy couples need to be reminded that Facebook postings, blogs, and galleries of wedding pictures can be seen by others who may not share the happiness. That almost by default they may be hurting someone who was once very close. It needs a little care.
