My Wife Is NOT My Friend (On Facebook)
by Eric Payne
On Facebook, my wife is NOT my friend. I un-friended her about two months ago. Not only did I not tell her what I did, but once she discovered we were no longer connected, I ignored her request to become my friend once more. Like her, I sure many of you are SMH, or rather shaking your heads, thinking, How trifling is he? My wife’s chief complaint was that she was my wife, how dare I not be her friend. Her being my wife is the very reason why I cut our virtual ties.
As the Internet landscape continues to be overrun with social networking platforms, Facebook, in this writer’s opinion, is unique in that it allows unrestricted access to your life. This can all be managed by adjusting your security settings and not going overboard with the comments, photos or anything else you choose to post, but for those people who are your friends, there are no areas of your virtual profile that are off limits.
I primarily use Facebook to promote my writing. But when I first signed up for the site I used it to communicate with people I currently interact with in my life as an alternative to making phone calls. Then somehow people from college found me, then high school, then grade school. Then I got caught up with SuperPoke, YoutTube videos and everything else that makes it one of the largest distractions in existence. My wife joined the network about six months after I did and at first it was cute. We’d trade sweet nothings, verbal love taps and harmless snaps (something we’re known for) in our statuses. All of this occurred under the same roof and sometimes at the same time — she on the desktop computer in our dining room and me on my laptop.
It quickly stopped being cute for me once people, a.k.a. “friends,” started adding their two cents via the comments. It let me know that my Internet pillow-talk with the wife wasn’t pillow talk at all. It was broadcast news coming straight out of our home. Making matters worse, my wife hacked into my account more than once to change my statuses to proclamations such as, “I’m going to be nicer to my wife,” or “I definitely need to start recognizing what a great woman I have.” Practical jokes, of course, which might have been funny had they only been between she and I and not people I once sat across from in second grade.
If these incidents weren’t enough, we actually had some very strong disagreements over the tone of each other’s statuses on days when we weren’t getting along. Things really got ugly when I questioned the motivation behind certain comments from men I didn’t know on her photos or on her. As a man and a husband I believed I was within my rights to be protective of my wife. As a man, my wife thought I was being overprotective and making mountains out of molehills over friends from grade school and high school.
If you’re not yet tired from reading this, this writer was definitely tired from living it. Finally, it came to me late one night that there is too much out there pulling at the hearts and minds of married couples, mine included, to allow to the unexpected nuances of Facebook interactions to be added to the pile. Right then and there, I knew what I had to do. I went to my wife’s profile and clicked, “Remove From Friends” without hesitation. My wife initially thought I was punishing her when in fact I was protecting us, in this instance, from me. Now my wife and I exist as friends in the world that truly matters: The real one.
Do you “Facebook” with the one you love? If so, has social networking affected your relationship positively or negatively?
Eric Payne lives with his wife and two children and tackles married life and fatherhood as it happens to him at MakesMeWannaHoller.com. He also writing can also be found at NYMetropolista.com and MochaManual.com. His short fiction has appeared in Spindle Magazine and DiddleDog Magazine.
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The exact same thing happened with my husband and I. He would question me about comments people who I went to grade school had made or why did I have so many friends, etc… Once I deleted him as a friend on Facebook, things have gotten much smoother for the both of us.
Wow!! That’s really deep!!
Wow! I can honestly say that this is something that I was actually pushing for. I’ve tried on several occasions to get my husband to open an FB account, so that we could be “friends”. But each time he would say, “That’s not for me babe.” Now that I read this, I’m thinking that it was his way of protecting “us”. And you are very right, there is “too much out there pulling at the hearts and minds of married couples”, so I guess this is a thank you from me to you. Once the cuteness wore off that would have been a hot mess! Thanks again.
~ L
P.S. I will also thank my husband.
I am behind you 100%. My significant other & I are not fb friends and won’t be fb friends. Fb has caused problems in relationships & furthermore, why do you need to be virtual friends with your CLOSEST friend? What’s funny is that other friends of ours ask HIM about it. (Yes, they noticed! We aren’t even going to start on that!) When he told me I laughed & said, ‘I facebook you in the face.’
For me, fb is to interact with people I dont see regularly, a way to keep in touch. Why do u need to fb the person u will text, email, talk to on the phone, see in a few minutes, or even better, sit next to as they use fb?
We are also cool with letting each other have our own space to express ourselves freely. I don’t need to read into or misinterpret a wall post, photo, or comment. relationships are complex enough!
wow this so true im single and i had to delete a friend or 2 because we are close and facebook was becomming a probleme becuase we both couldnt be ourselves because we knew the other person was possibly reading every status u update. so it kinda took the fun outta facebook so i had to delete them , oh yeah i heard it tho..lol but” a pimp gotta do what a pimp gotta do”. so even us bachelors got navigate carefully on facebook…lol
Thankfully this is not an issue in our household - my husband has little to no interest in FB. Every so often he’ll see me on there and ask what I’m doing, and I show him - he seems fine with that, so we’re good.
I think you made a wise move and that home will be happier for it. Now that I think about it, I don’t think that most of my friends are FB friends with their SO.
Oooh! I so agree. At first, I thought about making my husband my friend, but then I thought about it more carefully. There are some things spouses do not need to share if they want to stay married. I am not saying that anyone is or will be cheating on the other, but I feel that there needs to be some individual privacy and relationship awareness in a marriage.
Married 10 years strong!
what u all saying is true , i am single mom try to learn from all of you !! I would not add my husband on fb ,
I am my husband’s friend on Facebook - and he is mine. We do trade sweet nothings, gifts on the various games we play, and we flirt via FB. His rotating shift schedule means that sometimes we don’t get enough “face” time together, so we take it online. It could be a problem if we allow it to be. He’s had issues with online activity before - what I felt were overly flirty messages on a specific message board - but he has ceased that activity, and I feel much better about it. We are both careful about what we say to others, and if someone crosses the line (either our line or one our spouse has set) we first gently correct, then strongly correct, then un-friend people if necessary. So far, it’s worked just fine.
Hubby and I are “friends” on FB, but we don’t talk to each other or really interact online…as a matter of fact I often forget that he is even on there and he knows better than to question my “friendships” with others as chances are I would unfriend him faster than he could blink. At the same time…I don’t pay mind to the ex girlfriends who have found him and friended him, nor to the “Wow, I’ve been thinking about you over the years” comments he gets from them.. I get it, he’s pretty unforgettable for sure : )
But yeah, every couple is different and how they go about their relationship is different. We can do this because we set different boundaries for each other and can live with them, but it really depends on your relationship and so forth.
Great post E. I love reading your perspective!
Hmmm, I think I am going to have to disagree with this one. In my opinion, all of these issues mentioned have nothing to do with a friend list on FB, but more deeper issues. My husband and I are on facebook together, without any issues related to being friends or not being friends. We don’t send each other sweet messages, as we keep those private as texts or calls. We don’t go through each other’s friend lists to see who we have added as friends or what comments they are posting. I trust that he will make sure I am always respected, and he feels the same. Taking your spouse off as a friend only to me shows insecurity in the relationship. If we allow ourselves to focus and portray situations as distractions…then they will be.
Do you “Facebook” with the one you love?
No.
If so, has social networking affected your relationship positively or negatively?
Negatively.
Honestly, I’m surprised by the response to this piece. Clearly it’s an issue on people’s minds. I do think as a tool for communication it’s effective. Especially if you and hubby or wifey operate on swing shifts. And I agree with Carol, there should be boundaries.
And Blake, I totally agree with you too. In my case I acknowledged this — my own weakness/shortcoming/insecurity at the end of the article. And sometimes rather than add more to the pot it’s best to streamline things, keep things simple and clear away the noise/distractions. So does one stay tough for the sake of staying tough and not wanting to admit an insecurity? Or does someone acknowledge it and act accordingly? There’s nothing insecure about that, it’s actually quite open and honest and takes more courage than bottling it up for fear of seeming weak. I think a bigger issue would be to insist that your partner not be on Facebook at all, which is ridiculous and truly insecure. But to remove yourself from a situation that you see isn’t doing you any good isn’t so bad. I know plenty of married folk who thrive on FB. It’s not for everyone. But I’m happy that it works for you.
LOL, my husband joined facebook several months after I joined and he quickly added me as a friend and then linked me as his wife. We got in a bitter argument over something unrelated to facebook and I was being mean and decided to delete him as my facebook friend. And while I viewed his page a few times and noticed some comments, I wasn’t too bothered. I brushed it off as people attempted to throw shade on our happiness, which exists beyond facebook.
My husband and I are friends on Facebook, although he was on Facebook long before I was. It’s not an issue at all because he mostly posts work related status updates while I use it to keep in touch with friends. When I wasn’t on Facebook I didn’t try to see who his friends were, but now that I am, we wouldn’t have it any other way, but to be friends with each other. There have been comments written by friends on both ends that have caused us to go “umm…what did they mean by that?” and we have both graciously taken those comments off. But 99.9% of the time it’s all fun. We have several mutual friends together from college, so that can be fun. And my husband travels quite a bit, so it’s nice for him to see photos of the kids that I post when he’s not around. Finally, my teenaged son is on Facebook and we are BOTH his friends.
This is reason #3 why I’m not on FB. My husband has over 1,000 friends…..
ABSOLULTELY N-O-T!!! And I have no intentions of adding my husband as my friend either. It wouldn’t be a good thing…
As the old adage goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it!!!” This is a classic example, but in real life.
Nope, and I’m gladaboutit…
Interesting one. I think every household is different. I’m lucky to have a wife who is very understanding and open to me. She has the password to my fb account and I have hers. Every now and then we cross check whats up with each others friends and keep each other updated… you can say our little home gossips on what others are up to.
we are both not addicted to fb so it makes it much easier, we could even forget to check out our account for abt 3 or more days and ask each other to let us know any latest gossip.
This works out very well besides we have nothing to hide. Lest I forget and MY WIFE AND I ARE FRIENDS ON FB
Hi, i have read stories like this, i have seen couples fighting, arguing and not speaking to each other because of facebook, that is why i chose not to open an account with them because is too stressfull, my husband has an account with them but he started out as a way to get is business on and selling his products but he got caught up the same way as in the story, with that said is better to be protected and protect your relationship with your love one.
i think you can be friends on FB. My husband and I are on each others fb and myspace and we occasionally make posts about our love for each other. if anything, it inspires others to proclaim their love for their significant other. if you have a strong marriage, things like posts (good or bad) on fb would not even shake your foundation. I enjoy reading poems he has written to me and i love the fact that everyone else can see that he is not afraid to tell me those things. if your spouse is posting bad things about you when they are angry, that may be the only way they can get that point across to you. it should never get to the point though.
There was an article in GQ a few months ago about this same topic.
I (reluctantly) opened a Facebook account a few years back yet rarely logon. Entirely too invasive and I just got tired of explaining even the smallest of things to people about who this person was, why this person said this on my wall, what does this comment mean, etc…
However, I’m not married yet I couldn’t see staying on Facebook while acting as if my wife doesn’t exist simply because of what others are saying.
This can be combatted by just adding people who you really consider a “friend” and who know you and your spouse and respect the boundaries of your relationship as opposed to somebody you went to elementary with and haven’t spoken to in 20 years.
Great Topic! “It was broadcast news coming straight out of our home.”
My wife & I are friends on FB. But we have made a very conscious decision to be careful about what we share or post on FB.
I mean how much sense does it make to post things that you would not want others to comment on or know about your life to the INTERNET, then be upset about what you choose to share.
I just recently brought up a video that my daughter made 3yrs ago in college. A ‘friend’ of hers posted it to the Internet (YouTube). Today-09′. She is very embarrassed to see it. It will be there on the net for ANYONE to see. Any future Employer, Fiance’ or colleague can see it.
Great point made by SpenserAvery about posting things on the Internet - there is a website called the Wayback Machine that keeps archived copies of websites, and you can go back in time, so to speak, and see what a particular site looked like.
I warn my daughter (who is also on FB and is my friend there) about posting things that she wouldn’t broadcast to the entire world - hopefully the message has gotten through. With employers “googling” candidates for jobs, and colleges as well (I believe), it is even MORE important to make sure you WANT what’s posted to be out there for all time.
Great discussion - love reading the contributions from everyone!
My husband does not have a facebook page and I wouldn’t care if he did but he does have all access to my page and it seems to bother him when a guy I went to school with becomes my friend. We had myspace and we went back and forth on there. It caused a lot of drama but now I don’t care.
You have to look at where your relationship is and if it is strong enough to deal with the comments and friend request. If you’re not sure, don’t do it.
This youtube video says it all!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTwwuIn9inE&feature=player_embedded
My husband and I are friends on FB. We don’t really correspond through that medium, though. He’s pushing music, and I’m pushing my writing. Beyond that, we get a good laugh at some of the videos that are posted, or a great discussion about someone’s status that made us think about our situation in a different light.
I don’t have a problem with him asking about someone I’m corresponding with or challenging the choices I’ve made with regard to my friends because I’m confident that his concern is not rooted in insecurity.
FB is not a problem for us, but I can definitely see how it could be for other couples. Each marriage has its own heartbeat, and you do what’s best for your own relationship. I’m not the type to make a judgement call about insecurities/problems in another’s relationship. My own marriage is far from perfect. I just thank God FB is not a bone of contention. :o)
GREAT stuff, E. Payne!
My husband and I are friends on facebook and it hasn’t ever been a problem. I’m not sure if trust or lack thereof is a reason for some of the problems couples face in regards to social networking. But that being said, I wouldn’t ever flirt with other guys via the web and hopefully neither would he (with girls). If some strange brotha sent a questionable comment then I would check that brotha myself without needing my night in shining armor to do it for me. As for the cute posts between my husband and I….we save that for face to face interaction. It annoys me to read other couples luvin’ it up on facebook. Get a room! I will however wish him happy anniversary or happy birthday, etc. I think I would be even more leery if my husband refused to be my friend. It would make me feel like he was hiding something from me.
I guess this is a typical “to each his own” type of ordeal!
Right Click Copy Pasting this article all over the world. LOVED THIS!!!
Ok…. I actually am on facebook and my husband is not. He too has said this is something he is not interested in doing. But cant we say some where in this that it lacks a sense of trust and communication if the spouse is upset about comments posted on your page? What it makes me feel is that there is something deep inside that needs to feel some type of affection from others(like someone else thinks I am attractive besides my husband) that leave comments on pictures, am I wrong?
Alot of the issues is not feeling secure within your relationship(maybe). Or does it mean that we have left alot of those skeletons in the closet and want them to stay there?
It took some time to respect my husbands decision to not be on facebook it made me feel a certain way, but to sum it I know he loves me and I really don’t need old friends from grade school to high school to confirm it.
I am “friends” on Facebook with my husband but I don’t write on his wall or exchange messages. We strictly do it because he is one of those funny men that likes to “claim” his old lady. We are both on Facebook for networking so I do not write stupid things on his wall. He is however allowed to do so on my wall. Let’s just day we have a special agreement
My husband and I are not FB friends. It never even occurred to me, actually. He has his friends and I have mine, and we don’t really have a lot in common Facebook wise. And I hate all the stupid little lovey FB stuff, so that holds no appeal. I *know* I am not flirting with anyone on FB, and he *knows* he better not be. (I mean, I totally trust that he wouldn’t ever even dream of it.)
Seriously, we both have bigger things to worry about than Facebook.
My husband and I are friends on Facebook. We don’t have any issues like you mentioned….but our problem is that we have a lot of shared friends and he’ll always say “Did you see what so and so said?” Or he’ll update me on someone’s status before I’ve had the chance to see it myself. Not a big issue…I don’t think. Interesting read.
Lamar and I are friends on facebook and we don’t have any issues with it. However, we don’t interact with each other on facebook often. I think the decision to be on facebook will be different for every couple. But if you talk and lay down the ground rules ahead of time, then I think facebook can be fun.
Anyway..shouldn’t the same relationship rules apply for facebook? For us, we are not extreme with the P.D.A. Perhaps we hold hands in public or cuddle…but no extreme kissing or things like that. The same holds true for facebook. Perhaps a poke..or how ya doing… or happy birthday…I love you… but never any extreme comments like “I can’t wait to get you home and …..” Also, we don’t fight in public..so we would not put angry comments about each other on facebook either.
WoW. Wonderful post! Believe it or not my group of friends and I are having similar issues,not only between husband and wives, but within our church. There are a number of us who are members of FB and we use the social network to comment on sermons, share scripture and words of encouragement, etc. It sounded like a good idea at first…but like you say, you are not talking to just a select few people…all of your friends see what you say….sometimes a minimum of 200 people. And you guessed it…sometimes things are taken out of context, scripture is misquoted, and people get angry. What’s the solution? I’m not sure. But my solutions is that I do not post any new statuses…I comment on others from time to time, but mostly I just read. It’s entertainment which shouldn’t be taken so serious. When I have something of great importance to say to someone–I use the conventional methods. I phone, email, or simply walk up to the person and talk. Who would’ve thought of that? ( smile ) You made a great decision, my brother. Stick to it. Your real life relationship with your wife is more important than an internet realtionship on FB. I hope she sees it that way as well.
My husband and I are FB friends, but he rarely logs on anymore becuase he’s so busy with work. We rarely have problems with random comments from random people because I gaurd my facebook page the same way I gaurd my real life. If I haven’t had an actual converstaion with you in 20 years, why would I give you daily status updates on my life? I wouldn’t, therefore I will not be friending you. There are no crushes from 4th grade, no long lost loves from Junior High, not even people I dated and remained friends with in college. FB not just being “social” it is a snapshot of your life and every person I may have ever known at some point is my life is not entitled to view that picture.
I am on facebook, my husband isn’t so this hasn’t been a problem for us. I agree with Ronnie though that if you respect the same relationship rules online that you observe in real life, it shouldn’t be a problem.
I think that because its a website, people tend to blur the lines of what is considered innappropriate or responsible. To me, if you know the person on facebook isn’t someone that you should be talking on the phone to in real life, i.e. ex-boyfriends, random men/women that you don’t know at all etc., then they probably shouldn’t be your friend on facebook. I also think that explicit sexual comments or arguments between one another are completely innapropriate. Most people wouldn’t feel comfortable yelling “I can’t wait to have sex later” or “You make me sick” in a mall full of people, but will have no problem posting those things on facebook which is essentially the same thing.
If you set boundaries and can respect them with one another then I don’t think it should be a problem. Not saying that you have to be facebook friends, but if those boundaries aren’t set or being respected, then does not being one anothers friend make it any better just because you can’t see what he/she is doing?
My husband is not on facebook and if he was i would not friend him. a single word can be made into a huge argument. Nope not for me.
My husband and I are FB friends. We really don’t interact on there though but are listed as married to eachother. He doesn’t go on as much as I do so we haven’t had any problems. Plus we don’t post angry messages and things like that online to be misinterpreted.
Wow, I guess I am going to be the minority here. Me and my wife are facebook friends. I was on facebook first, and then she came on after about a month or so. We haven’t had any problems and this has been for a couple of years. But there are a few things we don’t do, and it’s nothing that we ever discussed it just is kind of understood.
• We don’t discuss anything personal that happens with or between us
• We don’t post our individual struggles (In other words we don’t bare our souls on line, although there sure are a lot of people who do that)
• We have some mutual friends (mostly from all the churches we have been in), but we for the most part don’t communicate with each other’s friends.
• We don’t have each other’s passwords, but there is no need because there is trust
• I am always mindful of what I post on women’s pages, but this is no different than being mindful of what I say to women in person any way. I never write anything on someone’s page that I would want anyone else to hear, because it IS a Public conversation.
• If we post anything to each other its always very supportive and loving, and no one has any doubt that we are married to each other.
• Both of our profile photos are of us with our entire family and not just pictures of us as individuals
• We limit chatting with others, especially when on or another is around. This may seem deceitful, but I think its just common sense. I really don’t care if she is chatting with someone, but I know that human nature is to look and see who it is. So we just don’t really utilize chat.
I have not had any problems with my wife being on facebook. Its just another thing that we both do. We can still be together and still function as individual in that environment.
My daughter’s father and I are friends on Facebook but it has only stayed that way because we BOTH agreed that we wouldn’t take certain things “personal” that we saw AND if something “appeared” out of line, we BOTH had the right to address it. So far, no problems but we BOTH agreed, the minute either one of us gets out of line, we have the right to delete the other person. We have private pages so if one gets deleted, we’ll see NOTHING at that point LOL. I kept emphasizing the word “both” because each person involved must agree to be fair in/on social networks, otherwise, it’ll NEVER work and there will ALWAYS be drama.
I agree with Dee, hubby and I are facebook friends, but we know what the limits are. We rarely post on each others walls, we dont air out our personal marital stuff and we keep the PDA to a minimum and what not. However, when we first got on facebook, we did do the “Married to such and such” in our profile, but then about a couple weeks after that hubby took my name down and now it just reads “Married”. I got hurt about that and thought he was tryna hide me or something, but it turns out he was trying to protect me because some unscrupulous folks on his LOOONG friends list were trying to add me as their friend and he wasnt feeling that (he has since cleaned up his friends list too lol). So, for that sake, he feels its best to just leave it as “Married” call it a day so as to not ensue unnecessary drama.
Other than that, its cool. I think every couple will have to make that decision for themselves, because every couple is different.
I just posted a blog entry on this topic on my blog, looking at whether people should change their relationship status on facebook at all:
http://fabulousfemininity.blogspot.com/2009/10/in-relationship-its-none-of-facebooks.html
Please check it out!
Well this is so true. I am not my husbands FB friend and don’t care to be. My husband emotional and mentally attached his self to his cellphone, not FB. I instantly knew something was wrong. He started talking more on his phone than talking and spending time with his family. He stop calling me from his cell. He was allowing himself to find energy for all the woman in his phone. He has lost his family because he allowed the temptation to get the best of him. He didn’t fight for his family of 3 boys or his marriage. I have great respect for any man to hold there family together. Alot of black men just allow themselves to fall short. He has hurt me and his kids. He doesn’t see anything with his family being separated. I have to explain so much to our 5 year old. This is so not fair. He didn’t want to seek counseling or anything. He became someone I didn’t even know. God has showed me so much. I am moving forward. I loved being married. I hope to marry again someday.
daaaaam! I didn’t quite wanna follow that but let’s just say FB friending’s not a good idea if there are communication issues.
Do you think I could unfriend my mother it would solve a lot of similar problems about updates…??? although I don’t think I could handle the wrath of my mother as well as you did your wife…
Rhonda said:
Well this is so true. I am not my husbands FB friend and don’t care to be. My husband emotional and mentally attached his self to his cellphone, not FB.
~~~~~~~
I never completed my fb account but I know hubby would not be my friend. LOL. If he wants to socially connect he pics up his cell phone and lets his fingers do the walking. My kids have a fb and one of them forgot to log off. I got on and looked at her pics, I saw baby pics and pics through out their younger school years and edited what she typed. Some pics I typed “what a handsome young boy, or what a beautiful little girl”. The pics my daughter had of her friends with comments underneath I corrected the “texting/ebonics lingo. LOL. She had so many pics of friends and family that I did eventually get tired and bored with editing her comments. The lesson she learned from mommy “make sure you log completely off the computer and don’t save your password”. I know that there is a text/computer lingo and I learned to text a few months ago and my sis gets mad because most of what I text is the whole word, and you all know how long my comments are on here. LOL. My sis said dam* Anna, I had to get a snack to finish your text. Ok that last sentence I made up, but It made me laugh.
My husband and I are friends on FB. We have shared a sweet nothing or two on special occasions- e.g. our one month wedding anniversary and some other time once in a blue, but for the most part we stay off each others pages. We choose not to live out our personal relationship on FB. I believe it only becomes a problem if you let it and since we are not playing out every second of our marriage in slow motion for all our friends and associates we’re fine.
Facebook was actually one of the causes of my divorce. The root cause was trust (quite naturally) but Facebook sealed that deal.
Good article in deed… should I remarry (and I hope I will) I’ll know what NOT to do.
You ABSOLUTELY did the right thing!!! I’ve been married for 16 years and i knew better from the outset to become FB friends with my wife!! I declined her invitation to become friends immediately and when asked why i told her “probably not a good idea”. She didn’t press me on it so i guess she realizes its for the best. My advice to married couples? DON’T BE FB FRIENDS…it will lead to trouble!!!!
grow up my dude you should think more of your wife people on fb can be nuts you en y0ur wife are one third party sould not matter married for 17 years
im not married but i and my fiance are friends on facebook
before we normalli have series of quarell on line but we decided to stay off each oda’s wall cos he is so far away he sends me message in my inbox and laughs wen some pervert write openli dere feelings on my wall im enjoyinin cos we both are realli mature about it face book is to small to cos a break up d annoying ting is people put all dere hope on facebook but d irony is facebook can not be replaced with family or a loved one ……..but yes im a facebook addict
Not to sound naive - I think it could work as long as we are open and honest with each other. I have encouraged my husband to join FB but as of this moment he is not interested. In my mind, I think it would be great fun!! He could catch up with old friends and also use it for networking. However, I can imagine as I have heard from others that it can create touchy/uncomfortable moments/spats in the relationship.
This is ridiculous. When a couple is married this is no “mine” or “yours.” There is just “ours.” You don’t have your own set of friends…secret bank accounts..litlte things on the side that you keep away from him or her. The object of a marriage is to form a UNION. This is not saying that relationships are not going to have their issues. But people get divorced because they are trying to hold on to something. Its an act of pride and self indulgence. The REASONS described that she is not a friend on facebook…regardless of the relevance or truths behind it does not trump the wedding vows made. Nothing should be placed before your spouse other than God…not even self. But the problem is most people don’t have this attitude. You usually have one person fully committed and the other person 80% or less committed. The point is you are choosing FACEBOOK over your wife. I don’t care the details. FACEBOOK OVER YOUR WIFE..seriously??? Has there been that much of a separation in the marriage? I am VERY sure that during the courting stages if you were to tell her that you would do this..you would not be married. But during that stage I am sure that thought would have never crossed your mind. Where is your priority? This is where “irreconcilable differences” come into a divorce contract. Basically what that means is “We really don’t want to discuss the pettiness of our divorce.” “Facebook, crumbs on the counter, he won’t pick up laundry, she doesn’t cook enough.”
Lots of great comments. I’ve been talking about this offline with Lamar(BMWK) and the interesting dynamic that has risen out of this article is that there is the notion (that wasn’t mentioned in the article at all) about having something to hide. My personal motivation for doing what I did was had nothing to do with hiding or keeping anything from my wife or vice versa. There was a time when I found the site to be a distraction in the midst of a bigger external problem we were facing. I personally needed to focus on that, not Facebook. So I didn’t cut my virtual ties with her to hold on to Facebook. How silly is that? I actually stopped using Facebook for business, pleasure etc. for a while along with a few other distractions and put ALL my focus on my wife. Facebook on it’s own held no power over either of us which is why we both moved on easily once we got back to the basics and have had our own great dialog about the stir this article has caused. She actually has it linked to her profile and has gotten into a positive dialog with coworkers and family about it.
If people are using Facebook to maintain separate lives then that is something else entirely and definitely not productive for a marriage, but if a couple or a mate does the social networking thing together then decides they’d prefer to interact in person rather than online they should be able to do so without it being some sort of indication that their relationship is on the brink of collapse. If FB works for you, it works. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
still not understanding why you chose to de-friend your spouse instead of just closing your account. if people are being disrespectful of your marriage, then are they really your friends? that’s who you should de-friend.
if you were revealing too much about your life via facebook then the resolution to that is quite simple.
how could facebook cause so much of a problem that you can’t be linked to your wife (since she has an account)… yet facebook is so important that you feel you must keep your account open…
i understand not reading a journal, that is private. i don’t understand cordoning off your wife from something you share openly with others. and let’s not forget, nothing you put on facebook is private. facebook owns it.
Hi,
When the president of the United States of America gave a ‘Back to School’ speech this year, he warned the children to be careful when using Facebook, the world’s biggest social networking website.
I agree w/ that 100% My husband and i r not fb friends,@ first i wanted 2 be and he didn’t i felt he must have something 2 hide,Hs’s been on it 4 yrs. and i just joined.I’m glad were not friends cuz it gives us our own space.And i’m on it 4 fun,And he’s the more serious type.It’s nothing wrong w/not been friends on fb,But there is if ur not friends @ home. ENJOY
My wife and I were reunited on facebook so we’ve been friends before becoming married, and have no plans to change. We look at each others pages to keep up with interesting articles or updates but that’s about it. She knows that almost everyone I’ve kissed, dated or slept with is friends with me but doesn’t care. Nor should she as I wouldn’t do anything to disrespect her, especially online. The home page loads up with my user name and password so she could check my page if she wanted to, but has no desire to.
No PDA’s for the most part either, we use text messages for that!
Truth be told, the majority of people I know who are wary of being friends with their significant other on facebook are cheaters anyway.
I’ve thought about joining Facebook, but my husband and I agreed not to for the very reasons stated in this blog.
My husband and I both have FB accounts (since January 2009). We have no problems whatsoever. On the flipside, I don’t really use it too much, and even when I do decide to sign in more often, we don’t really talk on fb. I guess because we have nothing to say on FB because we talk on the phone all day and see each other periodically through the day.
I recently cut ties with my wife & mother via FB. I talk to them enough & I dont like to think that I’m being monitored when communicating online. I’m totally OK with it.
Tafari
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