Going through a divorce is a painful, difficult, and embarrassing process for any person. Between spending endless hours in court, paying exorbitant lawyer fees, and fighting off personal attacks from an angry ex, divorcees often feel like their life is spinning out of control. Now imagine how much worse it is when a divorce is played out in the public pages of Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter.

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In an interesting article for Time.com, Belinda Luscombe shares the following story.

Not long after Patrick told his wife Tammie he wanted a divorce, she posted an angry, hurt note on “the wall,” or public-comments section, of his Facebook page. Embarrassed that his colleagues, clients, church friends and family could see evidence of his marital woes, he deleted it and blocked his wife from seeing his page. A couple of days later, the IT worker in Florida–who asked that his last name not be used in this story — found alarmed messages from two Facebook friends in his inbox. Tammie had used a mutual friend’s account to view Patrick’s wall and e-mailed several women he had had exchanges with. He says her e-mails were borderline defamatory. She says they merely noted that he was married with children, a fact he had left off his Facebook profile. Either way: Ouch.

As if getting humiliated in public weren’t enough, the article goes on to highlight a number of instances where divorce attorneys have used information on a social networking site to gain a legal advantage in the courtroom.

Did your husband’s new girlfriend Twitter about getting a piece of jewelry? The court might regard that as marital assets being disbursed to a third party. Did your wife tell the court she’s incapable of getting a job? Then your lawyer should ask why she’s pursuing job interviews through LinkedIn.

Worst of all, there’s little to no legal recourse for victims of Internet slander, unless they want to involve their children, making an already painful situation worse.

There’s little the besmirched can do legally, unless there are children involved. Family-law courts routinely issue restraining orders to prevent one parent from disparaging another to a child. “The question is, If it’s on the Internet, can that speech be blocked?” says Stephen Mindel, a managing partner at Feinberg, Mindel, Brandt & Klein in Los Angeles. “The First Amendment is going to come into conflict with the family-law courts.”

As we’ve written about before on the Reputation.com Blog, people don’t always think through their actions when they’re online, operating under a deluded sense of anonymity. Unfortunately, the pain of an Internet attack is very real and has lasting consequences. When coupled with the already vitriolic atmosphere of a divorce, social networking sites are the perfect platform for an angry individual to launch a permanently scarring smear campaign.

As a society, we are still adjusting to the realities of the digital world. An offhanded remark on a blog can keep you from getting a job. A seemingly innocuous photo could keep you from getting into the college of your choice. Opening up your life to public scrutiny online has tremendous advantages (professional networking, making new friends, etc.) but there are also drawbacks. Taking a pro-active stance in managing how people perceive you online is critical to living a successful digital life.