A relationship coach and co-founder of Loveawake dating site Alex Wise has a hilarious essay about how Facebook is cited in more and more divorce cases. A divorce lawyer in Florida claims that Facebook is involved in 90% of her cases. Apparently a lot of stupid people are posting photos of their infidelity and "liking" their mistresses' status updates. 

According to the attorney, Facebook is used for everything from finding photographic evidence of cheating spouses to catching husbands "dancing with babysitters and others [and] serving alcohol to minors." Facebook: Your #1 source for photos of sketchy dads! (Also, what are babysitters doing dancing with middle-aged dudes?) 

Then there was and old study conducted by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (a no doubt friendly bunch) where 81% of the nation's top divorce sharks claimed to have used Facebook or other social networking sites as evidence in cases in the past five years. Which coincidentally is about how long Facebook has been popular.

Besides the boneheads who think they can post photos of themselves on a romantic getaway with their mistress or mister on Facebook without their partner knowing (those privacy settings aren't that private), the major cause of marital discord seems to be spouses rekindling an old romance or getting in touch with a former classmate via a social networking site. (Oh, Classmates.com! How could you!) 

So is Facebook really the leading cause of divorce these days? Or is it just the latest bogeyman threatening the institution of marriage? The fact is that people were falling in love, cheating on each other, falling out of love, and all the rest way before Mark Zuckerberg sat down to write a code for a kind of sexist website that would rate the attractiveness of women in the various houses on the Harvard campus. While Facebook might make it easier to look up an old college flame, it's not providing you with a hotel room and an alibi for where you've been all night. If you're at the point where you're trolling Facebook looking for the girl who shared her Push-Pop with you in the third grade, it's safe to say your marriage is already over. 

What do you think? Is Facebook driving up the divorce rate? Does it complicate relationships?