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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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
I don’t know how to handle this. I know my wife’s old boyfriend has been talking to her on facebook. now she goes to all of her schools functions with her friends. She tells me that no spouces come to these functions. Should I be worried?
RG: Yes, I would be worried.
Terrible. I’ve seen it happen to friends, as well as myself. I have one word that I use to cover a variety of thoughts about a particular topic, blog, photo, etc., etc. That word is ‘interesting’. It’s not good, or bad. To me, it just means there is something there that caught my attention and I might not have felt like making a detailed comment about it at that time. But the wifey takes it to mean I don’t like something, even though I have explained to her, a thousand times why I said it.
The other day she emails me some photos of her and the kids and says put these on your FB. She didn’t ASK me if I wanted to do it. I asked her wouldn’t it better to put them on HER FB page, rather than mine, so HER friends could see them, since they are the ones always asking to see photos of her? I have pix of her and the kids on my FB, but they are a couple of years old. After my question, is when the “argument” started…”oh, you don’t want to put out pix on your page, cause they’re not good enuff huh?”, “i c u making comments about other people’s pix, but all i get is interesting?” Can’t win for losing. LOL.
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