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Some marriage relationships today are facing new threats associated with cyberinfidelity. Consequences of extramarital interpersonal relationships developing between married men and married women with individuals of the opposite sex through social media tests the sacredness perceived as foundational to marriage relationships. This article analyzes and interprets a previous research finding that emotional and/or sexual communication through Facebook between married men and married women with individuals of the opposite sex often incurs a steady, unconscious emotional detachment by the instigating spouse from the victim spouse while unconsciously emotionally attaching to the extramarital partner. This pattern is analyzed using characteristics of The Online Disinhibition Effect (ODE)-solipsistic introjection, dissociative imagination, and dissociative anonymity. Findings support that when confronted about their emotional and/or sexual communication with the opposite sex on Facebook, married men and married women will deny the connection of their online behavior self with their day-to-day marriage self; that they unconsciously perceive that their mind has combined with the mind of the opposite sex they're communicating with, making them feel as though they are communicating privately with the self; and that they feel they can participate in this behavior on Facebook without experiencing any interpersonal and/or intrapersonal consequences. Implications for clinicians are provided.
During the last decade and a half, society around the world has beheld the massive rise of social media platforms. The speed, ease, and even reliance on such platforms for which humans communicate with others have quickly advanced. For example, the forerunner platform Facebook has grown from 1 million to 1.4 billion active users since 2004 (Associated Press, 2018). Through social media humans can now create, reasonably maintain, and even develop relational attachments with other users, all with a stroke of a key or swipe of a thumb. From a marriage perspective, a rapidly growing body of research suggests that some of these relationships, particularly those extramarital in nature, often lead to marital conflict, and even termination of the marriage relationship altogether (Abbasi & Alghamdi, 2017; Carter, 2016, 2018; Clayton, Nagurney, & Smith, 2013; Cravens, Leckie, & Whiting, 2013).
Carter (2016) examined married and previously married Christian men and women's perceptions of communication on Facebook with the opposite sex other than a spouse. Specifically, he examined that marital conflict was prompted following the...