WKYC.com

Cleveland woman discovers husband’s ‘other’ wife via Facebook

July 29, 2010 | By Eric Mansfield | Download PDF of Article

She knew her husband took a lot of business trips. Now she knows why.

“Megan” said she didn’t suspect her husband of another marriage until the evidence was on her computer screen.

Her relatives pointed her to the other woman’s Facebook page where Megan discovered multiple photos of her husband and the woman together.

A few weeks later, dozens of wedding photos also showed up on Facebook showing Megan’s husband and his new bride.

“It’s rubbing that salt into the wound of already finding out that my husband’s having an affair,” Megan said. “The pictures are out there for the world to see. It’s not just that I have the knowledge, but I see the proof and everyone I know sees the proof and people I don’t know see the proof.”

Megan’s wedding took place in Italy in 2005, and by 2008, the couple had two children and a home in a Cleveland suburb. As a businessman with his own plane, Megan’s husband traveled a lot around the country and across the world.

Megan said she first became suspicious when her husband claimed to have been in China and even brought back gifts for the kids yet his passport had been at home the entire time.

To eventually learn on Facebook that her husband not only had another lover but now a second wife was devastating, Megan said. “If they’re going to have the affair, they’re going to have the affair,” she said. “But it’s extra. It adds impact to the hurt, when they’re posting the things they post about the affair. Pictures of the vacations they’re taking with the other, the lover, the extra person. (Facebook posts) just cause a whole new hurt.”

Common mistakes
Divorce attorneys are finding a staggering increase in evidence gathered through social media, according to CNN.

Andrew Zashin, a family law expert from Cleveland, said the artificial “celebrity” status that Facebook creates often clouds people’s judgment of how those posts and others will come back to hurt them in court.

If someone’s having an illicit relationship, they don’t know what the other side of that relationship is broadcasting to the world on Facebook,” Zashin said. “Often times we’ll see a man or woman denying an affair or a relationship. All of sudden, things start to unravel, not because they did something but because the other part of this illicit relationship did something using social media.

An attorney for Megan’s husband say that he doesn’t believe he needs a divorce because he learned after the fact that the marriage paperwork was never filed correctly in Italy and therefor they were never married.

Megan claims everything with the marriage was done “by the book” and that a prenuptial agreement was signed.

She plans to use pictures, posts, and other information from Facebook in her eventual divorce hearing.