Social Media During a Michigan Divorce or Custody Case
If you’re going through a divorce or fighting for custody of your children in Michigan, your social media accounts may be the most dangerous thing on your phone right now. What you post — or what others tag you in — can find its way into a courtroom and seriously undermine your case.
Why Social Media Matters in Family Law Cases
Michigan courts decide custody based on the “best interests of the child” standard, weighing factors like parental fitness, stability, and the ability to facilitate a healthy relationship between the child and the other parent. In property division and spousal support disputes, financial credibility matters enormously.
Social media can put all of those things in jeopardy in an instant.
Attorneys — both yours and your spouse’s — routinely review social media profiles as part of case preparation. Anything publicly visible is fair game in discovery. Even content you believe to be private can be subpoenaed or obtained through screenshots shared by mutual friends. Michigan courts have admitted social media evidence in family law proceedings, and judges do pay attention to it.
Common Ways Social Media Hurts Cases
1. Posts that contradict financial claims
If you’re claiming financial hardship in a spousal support or child support dispute, photos from a weekend trip to Vegas or screenshots of a new car purchase tell a very different story. Courts take notice when a party’s lifestyle doesn’t match their sworn financial disclosures.
2. Photos involving alcohol, drugs, or risky behavior
In a custody case, anything that suggests poor judgment around your children, or even when your children aren’t present, can be raised to question your parenting fitness. A photo at a party isn’t automatically disqualifying, but it gives opposing counsel something to work with, especially when combined with other evidence.
3. Negative posts about your co-parent
Venting about your ex online is understandable. It’s also a serious mistake. Michigan courts consider each parent’s willingness to support the child’s relationship with the other parent. If your social media shows a pattern of badmouthing, hostility, or attempts to alienate the children from their other parent, a judge will take that seriously — and it won’t help you.
4. Posting about a new relationship
Introducing a new romantic partner too soon, or broadcasting a new relationship while your divorce is still pending, can complicate both the emotional and legal landscape of your case. It may affect how a judge perceives your credibility, your stability, or your motivations, particularly in a contested divorce.
5. Location check-ins and timestamps
These can create problems you wouldn’t anticipate. A check-in at a bar on a night you claimed to be working late, or a timestamp that contradicts your account of events, can damage your credibility in ways that are difficult to walk back.
What You Should Do Right Now
Stop posting about the case: This seems obvious, but it bears repeating: do not discuss your divorce, your custody dispute, your co-parent, your attorney, or the court proceedings in any public forum. Not on Facebook, not on Instagram, not in a public Facebook group, not in a neighborhood forum.
Audit your existing profiles: Go back and review what’s already there. While deleting evidence that is subject to a legal hold order can itself become a legal problem (spoliation of evidence), removing content that simply makes you look bad — before it becomes relevant — is a conversation worth having with your attorney.
Tighten your privacy settings: This is not a guaranteed fix, but it reduces casual exposure. Set your profiles to “friends only,” review who is actually on your friends list, and be cautious about accepting new connection requests while litigation is pending. Assume that anything you share with even one mutual connection could reach opposing counsel.
Talk to your children about it too: Your kids may be posting things without any awareness of how it could affect the case. They aren’t trying to hurt you — but a teenager’s Instagram account can become a source of evidence just as easily as your own.
Be careful with messaging apps: Text messages, DMs, WhatsApp, and similar platforms are also discoverable. The same rules that apply to public posts apply to written communications: don’t write anything about the case, your ex, or related finances that you wouldn’t want a judge to read.
A Note on the Other Side
Everything above applies equally in reverse. Your attorney can and should review your spouse’s social media as well. If your co-parent is posting content that contradicts their claimed income, demonstrates dangerous behavior around the children, or reflects attempts to turn the kids against you, that information can be relevant to your case.
Social Media Can Be Used Against You
You don’t have to go completely dark online during your divorce or custody proceedings — but you should treat every post as if opposing counsel is going to see it, because they very well might. The temporary satisfaction of a pointed status update is never worth the damage it can do to your case.
If you have questions about how evidence might affect your divorce or custody matter in Michigan, speaking with an experienced family law attorney before it becomes a problem is always the better move.