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Rediff.com  » News » Internet, SMS increases divorce: Report

Internet, SMS increases divorce: Report

March 15, 2004 20:04 IST
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The advent of emails, mobile texting and Internet chat rooms has caused a significant rise in marital strife and relationship breakdown, the Times, London, reports.

In an article titled 'Text and email flirts send love towards rocks' the paper said, 'According to one of Britain's leading divorce lawyers, Internet sites such as friendsreunited.com have allowed bored and disaffected spouses to revive school romances by email away from the prying eyes of their partners. Text messaging has made it easier than ever to arrange clandestine meetings, while the proliferation of sex chat rooms has created a whole new challenge to marital harmony: virtual infidelity.'                                                                              

Husbands and wives now frequently complain of becoming Internet widowers or widows, after being left to sit alone as their partners spend hours at their computer downloading games or obsessively researching trivia on the net, the article said.

Sandra Davis, partner and head of family practice at the law firm Mischcon de Reya, which acted for Diana, Princess of Wales, in her divorce, said she was convinced that electronic communications had made it easier to begin affairs and to keep them going, the paper said.

At least one quarter of her clients now cited the Internet or text messages as contributing to the collapse of their marriage.

"It has been our experience that those of our clients who cite adultery as the cause of the breakdown of their marriage find, increasingly, that new forms of communication have been instrumental in the initial conception of infidelity," the paper quoted Davis as saying. 

Davis began to take an interest in the effect of texting and the Internet on marriages after two male clients came to her with almost identical reasons for seeking a divorce.  Both had been married for more than 15 years. Dissatisfied with their marriages, both had successfully tracked down the first love of their life. After resuming a relationship with their former sweethearts -- neither of whom was married -- they sought divorce from their wives, the Times said.

Davis then commissioned a survey of 1,500 adults by market research company TNS to find how widespread this phenomenon was. According to the survey 46 per cent said they believed that e-mails, texting and chat rooms had led to a big rise in infidelity.  Nearly 30 per cent admitted using electronic communications to flirt with potential partners or nurture an affair. Of those, 22 per cent confessed to doing so every day, while 62 per cent did so once a week.

Angela Sibson, chief executive of the relationship advisers Relate, told the Times that more than 10 per cent of couples who contacted Relate blamed the internet and texting for their problems. "Often the internet was just a symptom of deeper troubles in the marriage," Sibson said.

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