Charlotte Divorce Lawyer Blog

Before the age of the internet, divorce attorneys used subpoenas and private investigators to glean the truth from opposing parties. Now, with the advent of social networking sites, the first place many attorneys can find incriminating evidence is on Facebook. Social networking discovery skills have become critical for many divorce attorneys who seek to support certain aspects of their cases. Incriminating information gleaned from social networking sites can sway the outcome of alimony disputes and child custody battles, particularly if the information discredits the party in the eyes of the presiding judge.

Eighty percent of attorneys surveyed by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers reported a rise in the number of cases litigated that relied on social media over the past five years. Because Facebook boasts over 400 million users, most parties to litigation are bound to have created social networking accounts at some point in time. However, last week Facebook announced a tightening of users’ privacy settings in response to many user complaints.

National Digital Forensics, Inc., a North Carolina company that mines online media sites for information, reports that requests for social media searches from divorce lawyers have surged recently. The company’s senior investigator estimates that about half the social media cases they investigate expose some form of adultery.

If you have twins or triplets, your marriage is 17 percent more likely to end in divorce than parents of children who were not multiple births. According to the Twins and Multiple Births Association, multiple births create money woes within families, which induces stress in the household.

Women who have been diagnosed with cervical cancer have a 40 percent likelihood of getting divorced, whereas men who have been diagnosed with testicular cancer have a 20 percent likelihood. Norwegian Cancer Registry researchers suspect that these statistics exist because these two types of cancer affect sexual activity and afflict mainly younger people. Conversely, breast cancer survivors, who are typically older, are 8 percent less likely to divorce.

According to the Delaware-Johns Hopkins Project for the Study of Intelligence and Society, a person of “below average” intelligence is 50 percent more likely to be divorced than one of “above average” intelligence. Spouses with IQs of 100 have a 28 percent probability of divorce in the first five years of marriage, as compared to a 9 percent probability for those with IQs of 130 or higher.

If a wife is two or more years older than her husband, her marriage is 53 percent more likely to end in divorce than if her husband was one to three years younger. According to the Melbourne Institute researchers, wide age gaps between spouses can create many problems, including sexual discord. Because our society is focused on personal satisfaction and happiness, marriage partners are less likely to be satisfied with one who is not their chronological or physical equal.