The other night, former NFL player Deion Sanders had estranged wife Pilar arrested after she allegedly attacked him in front of their children. As Prime Time filed a police report he tweeted about the incident along with an accompanying pic of the couples’ two boys filing a police report against their mom for the attack.
The two have been very vocal via social media about every aspect of their tumultuous breakup, and they aren’t alone. Pilar and Deion are just the celebrity example of what happens on the small scale via social media every day. Social media provides a platform for jilted lovers to enact revenge by bashing them in the largest forum possible which can be a lot more appealing than doing the same thing over drinks at the bar.
But as momentarily warm and fuzzy as calling your baby’s daddy out of Facebook may feel, the internet is NOT the place to let those feelings out. Here are five reasons why you should stop bashing your ex on Facebook and Twitter:
Because you have kids. And your kids had no say in the circumstances that caused your relationship to fall apart. Stop using the excuse that my baby is only 5 months, or 5 years old and he/she doesn’t know. Because someday he’ll be 15. And even outside of the fact that the stuff you post online is there for eternity, if you’re in the habit of bashing the other parent of your children in public, you aren’t about to stop when the little ones are old enough to understand.
Because you used to love that that triflin’ &*%$. Yep. It might not feel like it right now, but it’s helpful to remember that you are where you are now because at some point in the past you were doing exactly what you wanted to do. No matter what the relationship turned into later, the choice to be in the relationship was yours. Tweeting about how he was a “one-minute man” only means that at some point, you really enjoyed the fun you had in that minute.
Because what you say in the heat of the moment will get you in trouble every time. Just because you’re super angry right now doesn’t mean you’re going to be as angry 5 days from now. That angry thing you thought or even said over the phone is a lot easier to apologize for than the post that’s hanging out on your timeline or the angry tweet that’s been re-tweeted 57 times.
Because you’re really only making yourself look bad. Your angry posts are a lot less likely to make your ex look like a loser than they are to make you look like a bitter man/woman who can’t move past the person they lost. Plus do you really want your friends, family, and prospective employers to see you as the immature person who has to put someone on blast online rather than deal with them face-to-face like an adult?
And finally”...
Because everybody does not need to know your business! Deciding to have a fight online is akin to starting an argument at home and then saying “Wait let me invite the neighbors over to see the rest of this. Better yet, let’s go to the food court at the mall to have this screaming match.” You wouldn’t (hopefully) do that, so why would you do it 10,000 times over by posting it to everyone that you know, and don’t know, online?
What do you think? Should bad-mouthing your ex online be off limits?
Read more Top Five Tips at Making Love in the Microwave!