Facebook Infidelity: Cheating Spouses Go Online

Nov. 30, 2010— -- Facebook has apparently become the new "lipstick on your collar."

Twenty percent of divorces involve Facebook and 80 percent of divorce lawyers have reported a spike in the number of cases that use social media for evidence, according to a survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

It's so common that there's a website dedicated to Facebook cheating.

FacebookCheating.com's founder says he started the site after his now ex-wife had an affair with an old flame she re-ignited on Facebook.

The site is an outlet that gives tips on how to catch a cheating spouse in the age of social networks and heartbreaks across the Web.

"Facebook has ruined my marriage of almost 20 years," a man wrote on another support group website, marriagehelper.com. "My wife 'reconnected' with old boy friends and even started innocently flirting with a stranger."

Stories of infidelity posted on such websites illustrate how the social media network has helped to reconnect former lovers.

Even celebrities are not immune.

Actress Eva Longoria has said that husband Tony Parker strayed with a woman he kept in touch with on Facebook early in their marriage.

Indeed, real-life desperate housewives have discovered that opportunities to cheat aren't sitting at the next barstool but a keystroke away.

Couples Led Astray

Marriage counselor Terry Real said he believes that Facebook can provide a sort of fantasy for a cheating spouse.

"There is nothing more seductive than the 'one that got away' fantasy is always better than someone who's up to her eyeballs in bills and diapers," he said.

The Rev. Cedric Miller, a pastor in New Jersey, made headlines recently when he called Facebook a "portal to infidelity" and told his parishioners to delete their accounts after 20 couples confessed that Facebook led them astray.

Miller himself took a leave of absence because of his own (non-Facebook) sexual transgressions. He later admitted to having a three-way sexual relationship in the past.

A connection is made and it starts out platonic and can later turn into something more. But such connections cannot solely be blamed on Facebook, therapists say.

"Before it was e-mail, then before that it was the phone," Real said. "The problem is not Facebook, it is the loss of love in your marriage."