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Cheating was a much more greater logistical challenge before we had texting, Facebook and the ability to place online personal ads on Craigslist.org or Backpage.com.
Now, after a moment of spousal neglect or a fight with your wife, you can reunite with a long-lost girlfriend from high school, a flirtatious co-worker or even an anonymous person ready for sex — often within a matter of minutes. This makes the definition of cheating and adultery more complicated. It also makes it harder to catch your wife “in bed with the other man.”
In my practice, I have seen spouses use the GPS of an iPhone to time their rendezvous with a lover within minutes of the arrival of the wife from the grocery store.
Clients have reported using their lunch hour at work to meet their girlfriend at a hotel for a quickie.
Others, whose choice of preference is more of the nature of a series of random hookups, utilize the “personal sections” of websites to be very explicit, with revealing photos of themselves (sometimes enhanced) including what they want to do and with whom they want to do it (usually a wide-range that their spouses are shocked to learn).
The Backpage.com users are explicit with fantasies, and border on solicitation of prostitution. They list whether one will “host,” i.e., come to your place; “girlfriend style,” meaning that they will agree to act like they like it, will snuggle afterward, and possibly agree to not use any protection. Backpage.com users also utilize terms such as “will bring party favors,” which is code for sexual toys/drugs or alcohol.
Conversely, if one wants to keep his marriage active and work on hiding the ugly truth of an affair, you can find other openly “committed” marrieds seeking other marrieds. AshleyMadison.com (the married, cheaters’ version of dating site Match.com) affords the public a forum to coordinate schedules with a married person who is like-minded in wanting to maintain the facade of the marriage while getting the benefits of outside sex.
The world of cheating has expanded from chance encounters, hoping to run into an ex at the grocery store, to a world where you send out your desire to cheat out into the world via Facebook, AshleyMadison, Craig’s List, or the like. You get reply emails at the click of a button.
For marriages, technology can be a dangerous thing because all of the ads and postings are indelible on the web, regardless of whether they are deleted. I often subpoena them in cases of cheating. Also, text messages, both frequency and content, to lovers or “emotional paramours” are also able open to discovery in litigation.
High-tech cheaters’ notes to each other are not saved on paper love notes or attached to bouquets of flowers. Now, the divorce lawyers have more fodder for adultery cases thanks to the blow-by-blow records provided via email, texts and online postings of the other party’s deception. When we used to have to hire private investigators, now we can check the Facebook status of an opposing party prior to filing, listing themselves as “single” to understand that the marriage is over.
Be careful what you ask for. Although high tech cheating is easy and convenient, its damage to the family and children can be even worse because the indiscretions are available for all of the public to view.
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Natalie Gregg
The Law Office of Natalie Gregg
(972) 829 – 3923
[email protected]
Read more at www.NatalieGregg.com.
