A
female
age
36-40,
person12345
writes:While generally facebook is considered a fun way to keep in touch with friends and share photos, it can be a huge source of turmoil in a relationship. If I had a dime for every time I read "I'm worried because I saw something on her/his facebook..." I'd be rich. So I thought I would write a guide to dealing with facebook while you're in a relationship. I came up with these largely from the experiences of my friends.1. If you seek you shall find.If you go frantically picking through every small detail on your partner's page, you're going to find what you're looking for. Say you're concerned about a friend of the opposite sex your partner seems friendly with and you go tearing through her/his photos and wall posts to find out what they're saying. You are not going to like what you find and there's going to be some phrase or something in there that will stick in your mind and cause serious insecurities. Short of a message like, "Let's meet up later and have lots of sex," or a photo of them kissing, you're almost definitely misreading the context and causing senseless worry over absolutely nothing. So don't go looking.2. The previous life.Facebook has been around long enough now that most people who have had exes were dating them while facebook was around. If you go back through enough pictures, you will probably find pictures of your partner and her/his ex dating and looking happy. Don't freak out! It's a reality that while we don't want to face it, we probably will: our partner had a life before us, and that included other people. Just remind yourself that your partner is with YOU now, no one else. And if the ex looks hot, she/he was probably posing and your partner finds you way more attractive (or she/he wouldn't be with you!).3. Don't make your partner jealous.There are also things you should do to help your partner cope with your own facebook. Don't secretly get in contact with exes or attractive friends of the opposite sex. Some day you're going to leave your inbox open and give your partner a small panic attack over it. So if you do get in touch with an ex or someone your partner has always been insecure about, do it publicly and/or give a full disclosure to your partner.4. Don't snoop.This goes back to part one of this. If you start snooping you're going to find something suspicious and it's going to scare you. You start snooping and it gives you a little adrenaline rush, and before you know it you're tearing through old messages sure you're going to find a confession of some illicit affair with some incredibly hot movie star. Just don't start. Unless you have LEGITIMATE reason to believe there's something there, log out. If your partner leaves their Facebook logged on (this goes for email too) it's normal to quickly skim without clicking anything, but then you have to resist the urge and just log out. Otherwise you'll be itching to read it, wondering if you've missed something. Just don't give yourself that option and log out if they forgot to.5. Don't let yourself get out of control.Especially if you're in a long distance relationship, it's very easy to get in the habit of refreshing your partner's page every 5 seconds, certain you'll find something new that will be an indication of an affair. Before you know it, all you can do is sit in front of your computer pressing refresh and tearing through all the old posts and photos and posts and photos of her/his friends. You've got to nip this in the bud before it starts. Just close facebook and find something else to do. Learn to cook, take up a new hobby, go for a walk. Soon checking facebook will seem unnecessary.Most of all, you need to remind yourself that you trust your partner and what trust means. Trust means that you believe that they won't hurt you or cheat on you, without needing constant proof. You should also remind yourself that even if something is going on, obsessing about it and scouring facebook won't change that fact.
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affair, facebook, insecure, jealous, kissing, long distance Reply to this Article
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male
reader, Mylifesnotadreamyet +, writes (18 October 2011):
"Short (sorts) of a message like, "Let's meet up later and have lots of sex," or a photo of them kissing, you're almost definitely misreading the context and causing senseless worry over absolutely nothing. So don't go looking."
I'm just wondering how do misread "let's meet up later and have lots of sex?? It's kind of self explainitory. Also with the whole ex thing finding pictures of you kissing a guy and it being a passed relationship thing. I'm sorry but Facebook causes drama and cause many relationship insecurity issues. Something like the finding of a picture of your GF/BF that would be the persons reaponsibilty to take the photograph off FB. If the relationship didn't work why would you want a picture to remind you. Having post relationship photographs that didn't work should be erased from Facebook period. Others person12345 good article even though I skimmed it.
-new guy
A
female
reader, Anonymous 123  +, writes (15 October 2011):
 The thing is, I'm sure there's something good about FB for it to have sustained for so long and still be as popular, but unfortunately I've not seen the good side yet.
I never even had an account to begin with; I created my account a couple of years ago when there was this conference that I had attended and all the people that I met there were on FB and then they formed like a group with all of us to interact. My Facebook account was solely for conference friends and to exchange pics. But what happened was, with time, "friends" from back home whom I don't even like, irritating cousins, even uncles and aunts appeared on my friend list! Ewww!!! That just defeated the entire purpose of fun!! Throw in a mix of "I'm so in love" pics of newly married couples and as Person said vacations, puppies and everything else, and you get a very depressing concoction!
I wasn't getting any of the hunky-dory, rosy fun in my life! Neither was I getting married (not that I want to, but still, you know!!), nor was I going on romantic vacations with my B/f nor was I getting a fat new puppy with him. I hadn't even updated that bloody status message in ages, because I had nothing to write about!! I mean I cant just write random stuff that people write, about where they're shopping or what they're eating or song they're listening to! That's just silly!
I'm much happier deactivating my account for many reasons now. I don't just snoop into others accounts, I don't look at random pictures of others, I don't have to worry about why someone is doing what they're doing. (Its human nature, you cant possibly be indifferent!) Plus a few days back, I had a VERRRRRRRY creepy guy from uni send me a friend request saying, how nice I look in my profile pic, although he would like to see me lose a bit of weight!! OMG, that was the lowest point ever!!! I wanted to throw up! Yuk!! That was when I realized that any idiot could look me up and it was such an uncomfortable feeling!
I had been meaning to disable it ever since and thanks to Person, I finally did!! I owe this to you! :)
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reader, anonymous, writes (14 October 2011): It is true that Facebook is not a positive thing in many cases!
Only about a year ago a woman lost her disability because there were pictures of her smiling at her birthday party, and she was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder. So it was determine if she could have fun, then she obviously wasn't depressed. This decision was not made my a medicle professional, and was obviously made by someone who does not know anything about depression.
I am fortunate in my life as my Facebook account only has family members and one female friend, who is a penpal overseas. I feel no need to look up the people of my past. High school is over! College is long gone. I could care less what my ex-boyfriends are doing right now. I had one friend from the past contact me asking to be friends again, but I told her no, because of the type of friend she had been in the past.
Also, no one can have hundreds and hundreds of actual friends. I have about 20 people on my Facebook. They are people I actually know and care about what they are doing. Once you start getting hundreds and hundreds of people in your friend list, I think you're opening yourself up for trouble, because that "nice girl" you met is suddenly posting pictures of herself in her bra and winking! Your girlfriend sees it and panics. But you really have no idea who she is.... It is just asking for problems.
As my good friend says, "Don't borrow trouble."
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female
reader, person12345 +, writes (14 October 2011):
person12345 is verified as being by the original poster of the question @anonymous_123, wow I'm glad I was able to help! It's so true about overestimating happiness though, psychologists are actually starting to see depression that stems from facebook overuse now, as in you see almost nothing but the happy from people and it causes you to overestimate how exciting and such other people's lives are. That makes a lot of people feel really bad about their own normal lives in comparison to the constant stream of vacations, new puppies, and new relationships.And yes it's definitely true that we should behave as we would behave in real life. Luckily neither my partner nor I use facebook much, it's mostly for sharing photos and interesting/funny articles.
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female
reader, javex06  +, writes (14 October 2011):
Facebook - no comparison to sites like stackoverflow and digg.com, the pits of the Internet.
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reader, anonymous, writes (13 October 2011): I think in these times it is so easy to lose our partners due to social networking. It becomes too easy to find things that we normally wouldn't. Exes, attractive new or old friends, flirting by "secret message."
It is very important to use the golden rule with these sites except in "Behave as you would want your partner to behave." If you don't want your partner flirting, then don't be flirting. If you don't want your partner seeking out their first love, then don't seek out yours! And on and on.
Facebook, twitter, texting, e-mail... all can bring a relationship down very, very quickly.
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female
reader, Anonymous 123 +, writes (13 October 2011):
Thanks Person, this article helped me!! I've been waiting for a wake up call (I'm just plain lazy!) and thanks to your article, i FINALLY deactivated my Facebook account.I've been meaning to do it for quite a while now, and this was the nudge that I needed.
Not only is Facebook a huge distraction, but I used to log in and loiter around when I had nothing else to do.There were times when I would see pictures of happily-married-but-extremely-annoying-people, and feel low. I don't even know why! Or see what someone idiot's doing and compare them to me and think, "Why am I not doing that?"
The thing is, you never even know how and why people are in the place they are in, all we see on the outside is the glossy cover page. And displaying affection on Facebook is tacky and in bad taste. Personal lives are called "personal" for a reason, a fact often lost on Facebook.
Don't even know why I was on Facebook for so long!!
Relationships with friends don't sustain because of facebook. I'v heard many people say, "Oh FB's a great way to stay in touch". The truth is, if someone is a close enough friend, one doesn't need Facebook to stay in touch.
I'm feeling much better since Iv quit FB. No more snooping into random friends' accounts, no more "OMG what is she wearing!!", no more of, as you so rightly said, "I'm worried because I saw something on her/his facebook..." I know what i want to do. I know what I want out of life. Comparing my life to others' is silly,stupid, puerile and very immature.
There are some people I cant STAND, but obsessing about them and thinking, "I cant BELIEVE that bit*h is so happy" wont change anything!! I'm going to stick to the blissful life before Facebook. I love this distraction free existence!! Ignorance, after all, really is bliss!
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