Getting your marriage dissolved doesn’t seem the easiest thing to go through, and neither is your social life during this time. How should you act at work, in the company of friends, at a family meeting, and online? Is it okay to post anything about your life and divorce itself or should you completely ignore this procedure on social media? These questions flee your mind without any trace of a quick solution, so here we are for you with this guide on managing social media and divorce. If you don’t want to screw it all, feel free to follow the steps below.
Review your Facebook wall
Before you start the process of divorce, take a look at your Facebook feed. This is to analyze your online behavior and understand whether it can cause any questions in the court. Are you too harsh about certain political views? Do you post a lot of Friday party pics with drinks in hand? Remember that your social media may not represent your real life, yet they create an image of what kind of person you are. Be sure to remove posts and check-ins that may make you look unreliable, superficial, or unintelligent.
Create a strategy for the next few months online
Now that you made your feed look more decent, start inventing a digital strategy for the time your divorce’s going on. What you need to do is meet your lawyer and get their advice regarding the content you can post without consequences now. Depending on the circumstances of your case, they may advise you to stop posting at all or allow only neutral content that will not harm your positive image in court. Once you get their recommendations, write down do’s and don’ts for yourself online for the coming months and describe the kinds of pictures and posts you may publish.
Talk to your kids about using social media
If you have kids in a primary or secondary school, be sure to talk to them about the way they should social media now. You don’t need to tell them that Facebook causes divorce and throw out the most painful facts of your personal life, yet you have to explain to them what they can’t post anymore (regarding their parents and divorce).
Besides this, you may have a general talk on social media and marriage problems to let them know how these things are connected and what they can do to prevent them when they grow up.
Don’t stalk your partner online
We’re not sure whether your attorney told you that but you have to refuse following your future ex’s every move online. Although it may seem too tempting to check their Instagram and Facebook accounts a few times a day, trust us: it won’t do anything good to you.
Stalking your partner online after a break-up causes a lot of anxiety, stress, and misinterpretation of their new life and desire to bring your relationships back. Needless to say, it’s hardly realizable: you already broke up, you are heading to the court to get it finalized, so why should you stroke your mind by dreaming about the impossible restoring of your bond?
Refrain from joining dating apps
Before you receive your divorce decree, you shouldn’t hurry to start a new relationship. Although it may look logical: to find someone else to cure you of the recent split-up, that’s not the best idea in the long run. First, it’s likely to not work in the long run. You are just using another person to heal yourself, and that’s not ethical towards them. Second, it may destroy your humble image in court, especially if you are divorcing due to infidelity of your partner. A judge will be skeptical about your sincerity if you claim that your husband is cheating on you while trying to find a new boyfriend online.
The best thing you can do is wait until you get your divorce confirmation document and then join online dating platforms.
If you’re in doubt, don’t post anything
Although you should have already developed your social media strategy by now, you still may have doubts whether a certain post can cause social media marriage problems. In such a case, we recommend avoiding any pics, check-ins, or other status updates if you are not sure about their expediency. If the post you’re about to publish can make you look too flirtatious, arrogant, or vengeful, it’s probably not the post you need to upload.
Say “no” to divorce details online
This has a few purposes. First of all, you don’t want random people who happen to be your Facebook friends to know why and when you’re going to get divorced. Therefore, sharing anything on your social media, including printable divorce papers, may cause unnecessary gossip around you. Second, your Facebook page can be viewed during the discovery of your case in court. You wouldn’t want a judge to explore it and find any comments on your marriage, divorce, the quality of investigation, etc. All of that may harm you and affect the outcomes of your marriage dissolution.
Don’t text about your divorce anyone
Since it’s possible to take screenshots of your private messages as well, don’t type anything to your friends about your break-up as well. If you want to talk about it, better do it in person, so that your talk couldn’t be recorded, saved, and used against you.
Don’t allow tags on your friends’ posts
No one says you should live a boring life while going through a divorce, yet it will be wise to hide your ways to spend time then. Having a party with your friends can have a therapeutic effect on you and help you get over your husband faster, but appearing in your friends’ feeds with the tipsy pictures is not the best thing you can do. Thus, block tags on others’ posts online to avoid embarrassment.
Wait until the divorce is finalized
The universal tip will be to put your social media life on hold until you receive your divorce decree. Once you have it, you’ll get out of close attention from the court, so you will be free to post anything you find worth sharing with your friends.
As you can see, handling social media accounts during marriage dissolution isn’t that overwhelming. You have to think twice before you post anything tricky though; but as divorces are usually done in weeks or a few months, managing to live without an active social media life is what you need to learn.
