Should you Facebook Friend an Ex?
by Aja Dorsey Jackson
Yesterday Harriet wrote a great post about avoiding danger zones in marriage. Today I want to talk about the place that I see as one of the most potentially dangerous hot spots for couples right now. That place is Facebook.
Picture this. I get a friend request from someone I used to date that I haven’t thought about in years. I leave the request sitting in the friend request box because I always feel bad ignoring requests. At some point as I’m clearing out those people that are lingering in friend request purgatory, I hit accept. And that’s when I get sucked down the rabbit hole and land in Facebook hot lava.
Wondering what he is doing now I look at his information page and see that he is now married. Knowing that he is now married I wonder what his wife looks like (and if she’s cuter than me..don’t act like you don’t think about that ladies!). So I start to look at his photo albums. Before I know it I’m all in his house, on his family vacation, in the club for his birthday and finding out that he had Denny’s for breakfast without stepping foot from behind my computer.
The curiosity never went beyond that point but I had to think about my thought process. I had no intention to do wrong but having constant access to those exes, high school crushes, and old flames opens up the opportunity. If he had just crossed my mind I probably would have thought “I wonder what he’s doing now” and moved on. If I had seen him walking down the street, we may have caught up quickly and kept it moving. But by “friending” that person on Facebook I had the opportunity to interact with him daily and it just felt wrong. So I deleted him as a friend.
I don’t believe that most people go in to a marriage believing that they will ever cheat. However temptation is real and even things you never thought of can appear enticing if you are dealing with marital problems. As solid as I feel my marriage is, we don’t get along every minute of every day. I don’t need to get into an argument with my husband and have my ex be the one that pops up on Facebook chat.
One of the best ways to avoid failure is minimizing your opportunity to fail. Guarding yourself against infidelity is similar to protecting yourself from eating unhealthy foods. I never eat or even think about eating chocolate chip cookies unless they are in my house. Yet if they are in front of my face, while I can still avoid them, I have to battle mentally against the temptation and that is a battle that I don’t need.
If social networking sites like Facebook and others keep everyone connected, how do you set boundaries between who you should or should not be connected to? Is it ok to be friends with an ex? Is Facebook a relationship danger zone?
Aja Dorsey Jackson is a freelance writer and public relations consultant in Baltimore, Maryland. Find out more about her at www.ajadorseyjackson.com or follow her on twitter @ajajackson.
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