--- title: Why Do People Cheat? Facebook, Writes This Divorce Lawyer description: James Sexton, author of "If You’re In My Office, It’s Already Too Late," writes that the site is a top cause of a cheating wife or husband canonical: https://time.com/5208108/facebook-cheating-infidelity-divorce/ author: James Sexton article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-03-26T17:21:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:42:09.149Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Divorce Lawyer: Facebook Is a Cheating Machine og:description: "If you’re vaguely unhappy with your relationship or marriage: Stay away from Facebook" og:url: https://time.com/5208108/facebook-cheating-infidelity-divorce/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2aae27260a43c0ba/69892bb1ab6d770c206b22f4/phone-facebook-divorce-infidelity-cheating.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1732 og:image:height: 974 og:image:alt: phone-facebook-divorce-infidelity-cheating og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Divorce Lawyer: Facebook Is a Cheating Machine twitter:description: "If you’re vaguely unhappy with your relationship or marriage: Stay away from Facebook" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2aae27260a43c0ba/69892bb1ab6d770c206b22f4/phone-facebook-divorce-infidelity-cheating.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Divorce Lawyer: Facebook Is a Cheating Machine > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs takes readers inside the newsroom, revealing the journalists, ideas and editorial choices behind the stories shaping the global conversation. 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Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: How Much It Costs to Get Divorced MONEY [Watch (HLS stream): How Much It Costs to Get Divorced MONEY](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/9d6qPR1N.m3u8) (1:33)  _Published 2017-05-19. Untying the knot has become big business. Here is the cost of getting divorced._ by [James Sexton](https://time.com/author/james-sexton/) ## James Sexton Mar 26, 2018 5:21 PM UTC  Smart Phone in web of wires Smart Phone in web of wiresJan Stromme—Getty Images by [James Sexton](https://time.com/author/james-sexton/) ## James Sexton Mar 26, 2018 5:21 PM UTC From time to time, in moments of transient loneliness, do you long for some temporary distraction or brief mental escape from your day-to-day life? Do you ever think about people you slept with when you were single, or people you wanted to sleep with? Wonder what they’re doing now? Would you like to peek in, perhaps even anonymously, on what those people are doing? Don’t kid yourself. You’re an idiot if you use Facebook. If you’re vaguely unhappy with your relationship or marriage, and especially if you’re more than vaguely unhappy with it: Stay away from Facebook. The vast majority of what you’ll find there is unhappiness masked as happiness. It will f-ck with your head, your heart, and your relationship. If I had a dollar for every divorce caused by infidelity that started on Facebook, I would have… well, just about the same amount of money I have. (Bless you, [Mark Zuckerberg](http://time.com/5210799/mark-zuckerberg-addresses-delete-facebook-campaign-after-cambridge-analytica/).) Facebook is the single greatest breeding ground ever for infidelity. Nothing that has come before — not swingers’ clubs and key parties, not chat rooms, not workplace temptations, not [Ashley Madison](http://time.com/4011062/ashley-madison-hack/), [Tinder](http://time.com/money/4713971/tinder-millennials-dating-apps/) or Grindr; no, not even porn — comes within a thousand miles. I don’t keep detailed statistics on these things, but if I had to estimate I would say I get two or three new cases per week that feature infidelity that started or was made easier to perpetuate by Facebook. Who knew one platform could cause so much chaos? Facebook is foreplay. Facebook facilitates adultery and infidelity generally. Facebook gives you the means, the excuse and the cover to communicate with people you have no reason, no business, to talk to. Their day-to-day life has nothing to do with yours — not anymore, anyway. In many cases, perhaps the majority of cases, you follow and chat with this individual because you remember him or her fondly, as he or she might remember you; the memories are from a simpler time in your lives, when you were in college, or high school, when maybe you had a lot more sex, and when nervous possibility was in the air. (You’re probably remembering it with more fondness than it merits.) Your life was about going to class, and smoking weed, and working a crappy part-time job with no real responsibilities so that you’d have enough money to afford frivolous, enjoyable garbage. Look at enough bullshit highly curated vacation photos on Facebook and you’re bound to find the truth of your life gradually, then suddenly, more depressing than it probably is. I am confronted by infidelity every day of my work life. I have heard about so many mountains and oceans of it that I even came up with an infidelity taxonomy (see Chapter 14 of my book [_If You’re In My Office, It’s Already Too Late_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250130778/ref=as%5Fli%5Fqf%5Fasin%5Fil%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=time037-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1250130778&linkId=59f16ab1fbc7f0fcabbc119de0e8f548).) In my own practice, and I would wager in the practice of almost every other divorce attorney in the era of social media, infidelity that begins online, usually through Facebook, is the single most common seed for the mighty oak that eventually becomes a full-blown affair. Oh, and in case you’re interested: Every status you post on Facebook may be used against you in a court of law. In addition to those terms of service that everybody agrees to and nobody reads (not even lawyers), there should be some Facebook Miranda rights that are read to you when you sign up: --- > “” --- I was going to write a sentence or two here about how it isn’t my intention to single out Facebook among the numerous social media platforms, but let’s be honest: Facebook is in a class by itself. Instagram has some of the same features (and the beautiful filters make your life look even better!) but not so much of the business stuff that gives the plausible deniability needed for efficient infidelity. Married people aren’t really using Snapchat for that reason. You can’t really claim you’re using Snapchat to “check what time the tire store opens this weekend” or “read reviews of the new dim sum place down the street.”  Henry Holt and Co. There’s a popular saying in Alcoholics Anonymous, meant to discourage people in recovery from hanging around bars: “If you sit in a barbershop long enough, eventually you’re going to get a haircut.” Quit Facebook. You don’t need the temptation and you don’t need to create the temptation for someone else. Let the past be the past. Don’t put the future in jeopardy just to indulge in some frivolous nostalgia. The negatives far outweigh the positives. I quit Facebook a year ago, and when people ask me why, I tell them candidly: I don’t want to look in people’s windows anymore to see what they’re doing. Even if they want me to. Especially if they want me to. Don’t waste your life crafting an advertisement for how great your life is. Get out there and live a great life. _Excerpted from_ [If You’re In My Office, It’s Already Too Late: A Divorce Lawyer’s Guide to Staying Together](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250130778/ref=as%5Fli%5Fqf%5Fasin%5Fil%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=time037-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1250130778&linkId=59f16ab1fbc7f0fcabbc119de0e8f548) _by James J. Sexton, published by Henry Holt and Company April 10th 2018\. Copyright © 2018 by James J. Sexton, esq. 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