New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/04/2011 -- Facebook is the main issue in nearly one in five petitions for divorce in the UK, British lawyers say. This social site that connects old friends and allows users to make new friends online is responsible to the growing number of marital separation.

This phenomenon is present in the U.S. and around the world with more negative consequences every day. Specialized divorce lawyers say that the explosion in popularity of websites like Facebook or Bebo are tempting people to deceive their partners.

Suspicious wives also use web sites to find evidence of flirting and even of love affairs that lead to divorce. A form of law who specializes in divorce says almost one in five applications that were represented in court said that the cheater used Facebook to meet another lover.

Mark Keenan, manager of Divorce-Online says: "I heard from my employees that there are plenty of people who claim to have discovered details about their partners on Facebook and I decided to see how widespread is the phenomenon and I was surprised to see that 20% of all applications for divorce contained references to Facebook. The most common reason seem to be that people are having inappropriate sexual talks with other people that they should not. "

Flirting by email and messages found in Facebook's pages are cited increasingly more as evidence of cheating.

IT companies already take advantage of the situation and develop software and programs that allow spouses to spy on suspicious electronic online activities.

A woman of 35 years discovered via Facebook that her husband divorced her. Conference organizer Emma Brady was surprised to read that her marriage was over when she read the status her husband posted on Facebook saying: "Neil Brady has ended his marriage with Emma Brady." Last year, a woman aged 28 years ended her marriage after discovering that her husband had an affair with someone in virtual cyberspace that he even didn’t meet in the real life. Amy Taylor divorced David Pollard after discovering that he was having an affair with an escort in the game Second Life, a virtual world where users are reinventing themselves.

Around 14 million British people are believed to regularly use social networks to communicate with old friends or make new ones and also meeting their love partners.

Friends Reunited website popularity a few years ago was also blamed for the wave of divorces that appeared because married people used it to contact their former love.

Divorce rate in the UK has declined in recent years but 2 of 5 marriages still fail according to the latest statistics that also say the overall divorce rate will increase exponentially in 2011 and 2012 due to recession.

As a Phd and marriage and family counselor of 30 years in Maryland Dr. Frank Gunzburg have seen and heard almost every major marital problem.

As a seasoned counselor, he has helped several thousands of couples and the only way for surviving an affair is to quickly identify what the problem is and then provide a realistic solution to it.