Talking about social media being the cause of a broken home, marriage or relationship, or social media  as the mistress or third party or the strange bedfellow in marriages this is one of such cases which has been become more frequent than it ought to be.  While we are all happy that we are techy  the damage being done to some relationships in the jet age is quite deep and may need another genius to fix the social media problem with a permanent solution. We all want to flaunt our new dresses, hairstyles and personal activities, parties, travels.  etc

This is the story of a  Saudi Arabian groom who had a prenuptial agreement with his wife not to use social media applications such as instagram, twitter and  snapchat  to post or send her pictures of the wedding ceremony. The wife had signed an agreement to refrain from the use of social media during the wedding.

Unfortunately, she broke the terms of the agreement which was binding as it was included in the marriage contract.

The Groom filed to separate from his wife 120minutes after the ceremony because she shared pictures of the wedding on snapchat. The Bride’s brother told a local newspaper that:

“There was a prenuptial agreement between my sister and her fiancé that she would not use social media applications such as Snapchat, Instagram or Twitter to post or send her pictures. It was included in the marriage contract and became binding. Regretfully, my sister did not honour the pledge and used Snapchat to share pictures from the wedding ceremony with her female friends, resulting in the shocking decision by the groom to cancel their marriage and call for divorce.”

According to media reports, the groom’s family support his decision while the bride’s relatives believe the pre-nuptial agreement was unfair to begin with.

This isn’t the first Saudi marriage to be broken apart by social media either. Earlier this year a man demanded a divorce on his wedding day after his new wife kept chatting with friends on her phone.

“He was shocked when she ignored him, not responding to his words or action. When he asked her about the reasons, she answered she was busy responding to her friends who were congratulating her on her marriage,” a relative told Saudi newspaper Al Watan, saying that the argument took place in a hotel room following the wedding.

“The groom asked her to delay answering the messages, but she refused and became angry. When he asked her if her friends were more important than he was, the bride answered that they were.”

According to a Gulf News report, Saudi Arabia has one of the highest rates of divorce in the world, with around 50 per cent of newlyweds choosing to separate.

The country’s Justice Ministry also revealed in 2015 that there were more than 30,000 divorces in the Kingdom every year – which tallies up to 82 splits a day.

Fadhil Al-Omani, a Saudi researcher, identified 10 main reasons for the increasing number of divorce cases in the country including the misuse of Internet and social media that triggers distrust, especially among new couples.
Other reasons include a lack of understanding among the couple, cultural and educational differences, extramarital affairs and negligence of wives and husbands in carrying out their duties in addition to financial and family problems.

Dr. Musfir Al-Malees, a family consultant, said social networking sites have contributed to at least 25 percent of divorce cases in the Kingdom. 

However, Saudi Arabia is not the only Arab country where short marriages takes place and divorce are rampant  on account of funny or unfair reasons. In 2012, a Dubai man divorced his wife within seconds of marrying her as he ducked into the next courtroom immediately after the marriage for a divorce. His reason was the bride’s father made a condition for the marriage that his daughter must keep her job after the marriage to which the groom accepted because he was too embarrassed to disagree with his Father in law and he thought the problem was sorted out with his bride. But she insisted on keeping her job which made him seek divorce seconds after the marriage.