Court rules woman can serve divorce papers via Facebook: Like?
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Spouses looking for a quick exit from their marriages now have a new way to serve divorce papers: Facebook.聽
According to聽The New York Daily News,聽State Supreme Court Justice Matthew Cooper allowed aspiring divorc茅e Ellanora Baidoo to serve her husband,聽Victor Sena Blood-Dzraku, with a .聽The message is to be repeated once a week for three consecutive weeks or until 鈥渁cknowledged鈥 by Ms. Baidoo鈥檚 husband, a man whom news reports characterize as rather uncommunicative.
The couple married in 2009 in a civil ceremony. Media reports state that 鈥淏lood-Dzraku has only been in touch with his wife via phone and Facebook.鈥
Many on Twitter reacted with jokes about needing new buttons to "Decline Divorce Request," and other quips.
Still, there's something to be said for using the world's most popular social networking service for a legal notice. As Nancy Van Tine, a Massachusetts lawyer specializing in domestic relations, points out, 聽before this case, the customary practice when one of the parties was missing was to publish a summons in a newspaper local to where he or she last lived.
"I think the Facebook service is way more effective, especially if the missing party has a Facebook account," says Ms. Van Tine. "The point of service is to put the other side in a divorce on notice. Given the spreading effect of Facebook (and other social media) I am pretty sure he鈥檚 more apt to learn of the divorce with a Facebook post than a legal publication."
To one New York couples therapist, it's only natural that Facebook would become the next venue where divorce battles are declared and waged.
鈥淪ocial media has served to make us more disconnected than we鈥檝e ever been before,鈥 says Andre Moore, director of Marriage & Couples Counseling NYC.聽鈥淔acebook has our heads spinning.鈥
Mr. Moore, a psychoanalyst and聽couples therapist, says that the immediacy of social media has done marriage and relationships more harm than good.聽聽
鈥淨uick or short, that鈥檚 only good if you鈥檙e in Special Forces or in an emergency situation," says Moore. "You鈥檙e reacting and not coming at the problem in a meaningful way.鈥
鈥淭here are ways to work through a lack of communication,鈥 he says. 鈥淣othing quick was ever good as a long-term solution. Getting married quick. Getting divorced quick. It鈥檚 not going to end well.鈥
That said, there is something to be said for a clean break.聽"In a lot of cases, unless there are children involved, it can be very healthy to have that total disconnect from the other person after a divorce," says Sevin Philips, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and聽founder of the national聽,聽which has 109 offices nationwide. In this case, however, he adds that, "The husband has a legal responsibility to communicate for the purposes of divorce."
But kids, of course, can complicate the picture: 鈥淢y advice if there are children as a result of the marriage," says Moore, "is to try and work it out through family therapy because going down to family court here is a blood bath!鈥
Moore concluded, 鈥淲ith all that we see, Facebook, social media, courtrooms and all of that aside, we really do believe in marriage in this joint we work in here. We really do believe that most people can make it. If I didn鈥檛 believe it I wouldn鈥檛 be taking classes this week, myself, to keep up on all the latest ways to help.鈥
He adds, 鈥淪ure, new challenges, issues come with new things like social media. So we learn new ways to cope and new ways to reconnect in a more tangible way in places where saying someone is a 鈥楩riend鈥 means something more than clicking on their name.鈥