Social Media and Marital Infidelity

Winda Putri Diah Restya

Psychology Faculty, University of Muhammadiyah Aceh,, Indonesia

Keywords: Cyber Infidelity, Marital Infidelity, Social Media

Abstract: Infidelity impacts negatively on relationship functioning and stability of the marriages making the

study of this phenomenon is crucial. In spite of widespread beliefs that relationship partners should

be faithful to each other, marital infidelity occurs fairly often nowadays and usually caused by the

existence of social media (Kioko, 2009). Therefore, the main objective of this study is to investigate

on how social media could lead someone into marital infidelity. Three primary research questions

were formulated through this study which are: what causes marital infidelity through social media

in the first place, how the participant define marital infidelity, and what kind of disloyalty

behaviour might be generated through social media. The participants on this research were three

divorced couples who were chosen by using a purposive sampling technique. While the picture of

marital infidelity through social media was obtained using the qualitative research method through

in-depth interview and nonparticipant observation. The result showed that the factor which drives

people to become unfaithful to their partner in the very first place is because there’s a feeling of

dissatisfaction and conflict in their marriage life. In addition, all research subjects agreed that the

existence of social media can lead someone into marital-infidelity because it perceived less harmed.

Another interesting finding on this study showed that there are some fundamental differences

between male and female subjects in defining marital infidelity, while the definition of disloyalty

according to women subjects refer to a very basic things men tend to judge disloyalty through

social media only occurs if it involves feelings or deeper if they are willing to leave their legitimate

partner for someone else.

1 INTRODUCTION

There is no obstacle in receiving and conveying

information in human life nowadays due to the rapid

development of technology, especially in the

communication sector, for instance, the growth of

social media. Social media can be defined as an

internet-based technology which allows people to

connect, to share information, ideas, and other forms

of expression through a virtual community (Obar &

Wildman, 2015). As Seopressor (2014) stated that, in

every four people around the world, one use social

network sites to communicate and share ideas with one

another. This is fascinating because, with the

widespread of internet users around the world, social

media have become important platforms for

establishing intellectual connections, social

movements’ outreaches, awareness creation, sharing

political views or interest, etc. In the other hand,

besides all these functions, using social media can

actually be harmful especially to a romantic

relationship system like a marriage. Marriage life, as

an institution that highly upholds privacy lately, has

become more open to the public through social media

networks and it makes the marriage becomes more

vulnerable. Research shows that increased usage of

social media could lead to marital problems, marital

infidelity, and divorce. Therefore, it is not surprising

that the current divorce rate caused by social media

continues to increase. Social media (and temptations

that come with it) is having a big impact on marriages.

In fact, one of three divorces starts with online affairs.

For example, in the U.S. alone, Facebook has been

linked to 66 percent of divorce and the 81 percent of

the nation’s top divorce lawyer claiming clients have

cited using social networks as damning evidence

against their spouses in the past five years

(Abramovich, 2013). Another study released in 2014,

which analyzed the relationship between social

media, marriage satisfaction and divorce showed that

using social media is negatively correlated with the

106

Restya, W.

Social Media and Marital Inﬁdelity.

DOI: 10.5220/0009438301060111

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Psychology (ICPsy 2019), pages 106-111

ISBN: 978-989-758-448-0

quality of marriage life and happiness, yet positively

correlated with experiencing conflict and having an

intention to divorce (Valenzuela, Halpern, Katz,

2014). In addition to that, Indonesia also experienced

the same phenomenon. The Manna Religious Court,

Bengkulu Province, recorded the divorce rate as of

the middle of this year reaching 447 cases, and most

of them were triggered by the unwise use of social

media (Sairun, 2018 retrieved from

www.liputan6.com).

This kind of case also happened in Aceh – the only

Indonesian Province practicing Sharia Law officially,

The Aceh Syariah Court, stated that divorce cases

throughout Aceh Province in 2018 increased by 13,11

percent compared to the previous year, where there

were at least 4,917 cases in 2017 then increased to

5,562. Through the preliminary interviewed with one

of the staff from Aceh Syariah Court, it’s well-

informed that the most commonly reported major

contributors for separation sequentially are domestic

violence, financial problems, continuous arguments

and disputes. Marital infidelity might not occur as the

major contributors as mentioned above but it always

appears in the trial as the major cause of the

continuous conflict between the married couple. The

same opinion was expressed by Scott, Rhoades,

Stanley, Allen & Markman (2013) who mentioned

that the marital infidelity became the second most

reasons for divorce.

Marital infidelity goes by any name cheating,

being unfaithful, being dishonest or having an affair

is a violation of a couple’s assumed or stated contract

regarding emotional and or sexual exclusivity

(Weeks, Gambescia & Jenkins, 2003). While Leeker

& Carlozzi (2012) defined it as a violation according

to the subjective feeling that one’s partner has

violated a set of marital norms. To conclude, digital

technology – innumerable social media platform,

have made infidelity far more accessible than it’s ever

been. Therefore, considering the enormous impact on

marriage sustainability, the research related to Social

Media and Marital Infidelity is significant, especially

to provide an empirical evidence related to this topic.

1.1 Research Objectives

The main purpose of this study is to investigate on

how social media leads into marital infidelity. The

author of this study divided the research objective

into two:

a. General Objectives: to identify factors that could

lead to marital infidelity

b. Specific Objectives: to assess the knowledge,

attitude and practice of the participants towards

social media and marital infidelity.

1.2 Research Questions

This paper aims to provide an answer to those

research objectives by these following research

questions, which are:

1) What causes marital infidelity through social

media in the first place?

2) What is the definition of marital infidelity through

social media according to the subject?

3) What are the forms of disloyalty behavior might

be generated through social media? And how is

the experience?

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Marital Infidelity

Marital infidelity might not a new subject to the

western world, but there are only a few kinds of

literature could be found here in Indonesia or in any

Asia studies. It might happen because the topic is still

considered taboo by the community. Therefore, the

discussion regardless of this topic is worth to be

studied. Marital Infidelity can be defined as

unfaithfulness by virtue of being unreliable and

cheating on the spouse that takes place despite a

commitment to exclusiveness (Zare, 2011). While

according to Moller &Vossler (2015) marital

infidelity can be anything that involves emotional or

sexual act which violates the commitment of the

primary relationship. According to Schneider, Weiss,

R., & Samenow (2012), there are three different types

of marital infidelity for instance:

a. Emotional infidelity: type of infidelity that

involves deep feeling and a deep bond for another

person. This could involve lustful thoughts of that

person. Example: sneaking around and lying to

your partner about spending quality time with

another partner

b. Sexual Infidelity: type of infidelity involves

physical and sexual involvement with another

person. Basically having sexual relations or

engaging in the act of sex with someone other than

their spouse.

c. Cyber Infidelity happened when someone is

physically and emotionally attracted to people

online. People who flirting with other people

online and even having an online affair.

Social Media and Marital Inﬁdelity

107

Although marriage infidelity is a prevalent

phenomenon and some research suggest that the

factors which could lead someone to this matter is

varied from person to person, but there is almost no

study which investigates the experience of marital

infidelity through the couple perspectives, makes this

study is significant and different from previous

research. Heirtlein & Percy (2006) from the previous

study stated that the couple who experience the same

events may have different ideas about whether such

actions would be considered as marital infidelity or

not.

2.2 Social Media

According to Kietzmann, J &Hermkens, K (2011)

social networking is a virtual community based on

computer-mediated technology which connects

people with the same preferences communicate, share

and discuss a variety of ideas. Similarly, Obar, J &

Steve, W (2015) defined social media as a platform

for social networking that brings people together

which has some common features such as user-

generated content and web 2.0 internet-based

application.

In addition to that, there are 13 types of social

media for instance: blogs, business networks, forums,

social gaming, etc. However, the social media

intended in this study is limited to the use of Mobile

Social Media. Mobile social media refer to the use of

social media on a mobile device such as smartphone

and tablet computers

3 RESEARCH METHOD

To execute this study, the author of this paper used a

qualitative approach. A qualitative approach is

conducted to obtain a description of the social

phenomenon in a more natural environment

(Hancock, 1998). Due to its specific terms then this

research using a purposive sampling method which

means the sample in this research is determined based

on certain specific criteria which are:

1. Divorced Couple

2. The divorces were caused directly or indirectly

by the use of mobile social media

3. Willing to fully participate in this research

The research sample was selected based on these

selection criteria that have been mentioned above.

The subjects were chosen based on the valid data

which was obtained from Religious Courts in Banda

Aceh.

There were three divorced couples who meet the

criteria and willing to be the participant of this

research. The data of these three participants can be

found on this following table:

Table 1: --

3.1 Methods of Data Collection

Data collection procedure in this study using the

method of observation and interview. With each

explanation as follows:

1. Observation Method: the observation method

was used in this research was direct observation.

Direct observation enables researchers to felt,

seen and lived within the subject. In this study,

researchers used a non – participant observation

i.e. researchers were the outsider and not

participate in subject activities.

2. In-depth Interviews Method: the process of

obtaining information for research purposes is

done by a face-to-face interview between the

interviewer and the interviewee using a tool

called the interview guide. In this study, the

approach chosen is unstructured interview

instructions. The reason for using this method is

to uncover the profuse and gather as much as

possible data by using the guidelines which have

been made before.

3.2 Data Analysis

Means giving the meaning to analysis, describes a

pattern or a category, look for the relationships

between the various concepts. Based on the

explanation above, then the data analysis techniques

used in this research are:

1. Reduction and Elimination: the raw data or

material which had been collected from the field

are summarized then selected. Furthermore, it is

later can be categorized based on the same

theme or the same issues.

2. Display and Data Clustering: the results of the

reduction necessary in particular-display in each

pattern, the category, the focus, the theme of

Initial RM RR RZ SV PT CU

Sex M F M F M F

Number of Children

Marriage for

MSM used Whatsapp, BBM, IG Whatsapp, dating app Whatsapp, IG

10 years

6 years

8 years

*MSM: Mobile Social Media

COUPLE A

COUPLE B

COUPLE C

ICPsy 2019 - International Conference on Psychology

108

which was about to be understood and to

understand the issue is sitting together. The data

display can help researchers to be able to see the

whole or certain parts of the research results.

3. Conclusion: the estuary from the conclusions of

the qualitative data analysis is located on how

the researcher represented the research result to

the reader so that it can be understood regardless

of an issue which is examined

4 RESULT

Before starting the research, the informed consent

sheet was given to the participants in order to express

their approval in participating in the research process.

Marital infidelity measurement began with general

questions such as “What is the definition of marital

infidelity in your opinion?”, and continue to become

more complicated as “To what form of unfaithful

behavior you did through social media?”. The

research finding showed some interesting facts which

will be delivered briefly in this paper through some

categories, namely:

4.1 Definition of Marital Infidelity

through Social Media According to

the Participant

This research has difficulty in defining marital

infidelity because according to the participants the

definition of it, is very subjective depends on

someone’s value. In addition to that, there is a

different way between male and female subjects on

defining marital infidelity through social media.

While the male subjects on this research tend to think

that marital infidelity only happened if there’s

emotional involvement, female subjects think the

otherwise. Women consider an intense

communication between his husband and a person

outside the relationship as a sign of disloyalty even

the man is just fooling around. According to the male

subjects, they were committing cyber infidelity

without a hard feeling. As stated by the Subject RZ

below:

“I don’t know why I love to have a constant

conversation with another women through the app, I

just can’t help. I didn’t even consider it as a mistake

until I got caught and my wife was enraged”

They just simply believed that they’re just

chatting and have no intention to cheat or leave their

partner. However, some conclusions can be drawn

regarding the definition of marital infidelity

according to the research subjects as follows:

a. Marital Infidelity through social media means if

you have emotional feelings or attachments to

other people who are outside your legitimate

partner and those feelings are also countered by

that person, There is also an intense

communication between the two by using the

social media.

b. Marital Infidelity through social media also

means if you have a relationship with someone

else then you are willing to leave your legitimate

partner for that person

In addition, this research has also found that the

types of marital infidelity which were happened to

these three couples are the type of cyber infidelity,

means being physically and emotionally attracted to

people online, with no activity for sexual involvement

nor real-life meeting (Schneider, Weiss, R., &

Samenow, 2012).

4.2 What Causes Marital Infidelity

through Social Media in the First

Place?

The reason why these couples did marital infidelity

through social media is varied and complex. Some

literatures said that people tend to seek the

extramarital affair because of several factors for

instance lack of communication, financial pressure,

low compatibility, emotional or physical disconnect,

and the lack of respect. However, this study found

that the most common reason about what drives

people to become unfaithful to their partner in the

very first place is because there’s a feeling of

dissatisfaction and conflict in their marriage life.

To be more specific, for the A couple, there was a

dissatisfaction with their sex life, thus the husband

seeking sexual intimacy through social media with

the third party. While for the B and C couple, the main

problem was more about the great need for

excitement, sympathetic, affection, and respectful

from other company which they could not obtain

from their legitimate partner. To conclude the finding,

the subjects perceived that being unfaithful through

social media is safer than doing it in the real life.

Another interesting finding, this study able to portrait

the 8 stages of marital infidelity through social media

that experienced by the participants, which can see

through the figure below:

Social Media and Marital Inﬁdelity

109

Figure 1:--

4.3 Kind of Disloyalty Behavior

Generated through Social Media

a. Sending emoticons with the purpose of flirting.

Emoticons are viewed by the research subjects as

a way to flirt on the opposite sex without having

difficulty in choosing the right words. The

availability of emoticons in social media app

helps and provides an opportunity to approach

other parties

b. Deleting conversations on social media sites.

According to the female subjects in this study,

deleting the conversations with the opposite sex,

with the aim of hiding the conversation from a

legitimate partner is one form of unfaithful

behavior, while for the male subjects to erase the

message is intended to not to hurt their partner's

feelings simply because these messages seems

normal for them. According to still male subjects,

deleting messages cannot be called unfaithful

behavior because it is done to prevent couples

from being jealous.

c. A great demand for privacy. When someone

begins unfaithful to their spouse, they are starting

to demand greater privacy. For example: locked

the smartphones, change the password, and veil

their online activity in secrecy.

5 DISCUSSIONS AND

CONCLUSIONS

In this research, the existence of social media can lead

someone into marital-infidelity because it is

perceived less harmed than an action in the real life.

The first finding on this research was about the

difference meaning of marital infidelity through

social media perceived by the participants. While

men tend to judge marital infidelity happened if only

emotional attached, women in the other hand think

the otherwise. Female subjects in this research argue

that all forms of behavior that is intentionally hidden

from their partners, whether involving feelings or not

can be called dishonesty in marriage. For instance, if

a man secretly sent a friend invitation to the opposite

sex, it can be said that he has been disloyal to his

partner. Because according to the female subjects,

there should be nothing to hide between the marriage

couple. However, this research has not been able to

answer what lies behind the difference definition of

disloyalty marriage between men and women. Hence,

this can be a subject to a further research study.

The second finding on this research is about the 8

stages of marital infidelity through social media

which are (1) there is a conflict or dissatisfaction in

marriage life which lead into a certain behavior like

seeking someone else who could be a good listener ,

(2) has a chance to do extramarital affair through

social media (3) intense communication with the third

party (4) hide seek with the legal partner, (5) the legal

partner found out and do a confrontation (6)

dangerous emotion (ex: want to get revenge), (7)

healing, in this stage the subject is ready with all the

consequence of the decision they have made (either

they decide to get divorce or forgive their partner and

start over). According to the third finding of the

research, it can be said that there are three kind of

disloyalty behavior which could be generated through

social media, for instance sending emoticons with the

purpose of flirting, deleting conversations on social

media sites, and a great demand for privacy.

To conclude, certain suggestions can be made

based on the result from this study, which are

specifying conflict or dissatisfaction in the marriage

life are significant to be specified in order to avoiding

damage in trust between the couples. In addition to

that, certain focused group discussion or conference

can be held by a professional to help couples develop

correct habits in using social media.

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