Has social media ruined your relationship?

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Why do we let social networks in?

Can Social Media Break Up A Marriage?

by JENNIFER LUDDEN

Courtesy of Mike Green

Mike Green texts now, but he didn't in 2005, when his now ex-wife began an affair with her colleague via text messaging. He hopes he can trust again; he gets suspicious whenever a girlfriend texts someone else.

November 2, 2010

Mike Green remembers back in 2005 when his then-wife asked him to add text messages to their cell phone plan. Green, of Mankato, Minn., had no interest, but his wife went ahead and signed up. After that, he says, she seemed to text all the time — when he'd come home from his evening shift for dinner, when they were cruising the shopping mall.

"Actually, one of my buddies asked me if it was a big deal she was texting all these people," he says. "I said 'No, I trust her, so why would I even worry?'"

Then Green saw a phone bill. He says there were hundreds of texts, a long list of numbers that meant nothing to him. Over time, there was one number more than any other. It was a colleague his wife had started an affair with and for whom she eventually left him.

"Because I was gone at nights, she used him as her support system," he says. "She would talk to him about things."

It turns out that text messages and social media sites like Facebook and MySpace — so beloved for bringing people together — can also drive a wedge between couples.

To be sure, she says, texting doesn't break up a marriage, people do. But opportunity is a key predictor of infidelity, and social media have increased opportunity exponentially. Does something remind you of an old flame? You can reconnect in the few seconds it takes to type the person's name into Facebook."We hear this so commonly in our offices that it began to feel like there was a CD player hitting repeat," says Tara Fritsch, a marriage therapist in Edmond, Okla.

"Twenty years ago," Fritsch says, "if you really thought a co-worker was interesting, and later on that evening you thought of them and wanted to say, 'Hey, how you doing?' Then you would have to ask yourself, 'Is it really appropriate to call them at home? What if their spouse answers? What am I thinking about?' "

Today, those stopgaps are gone. Texts and e-mails can be delivered privately. Sending a little message, at least at first, can feel so innocent.

In fact, as Lindsay James of Fort Worth, Texas, learned the hard way that a partner can easily carry on an affair in the same house, even the same room.

"That's what would upset me more than anything," James says. "It's like, 'Wow, he was sitting right next to me, we were watching a movie, and [he was] talking to someone else — and I had no idea.' "

Green says he was stunned at how quickly his wife's texting relationship turned into an affair. That's typical. Bob Rosenwein of Lehigh University has found that people communicating online often fall for each other in about a week. That's two or three times as fast — on average — as those courting face-to-face.The irony, James says, is that her boyfriend admitted he would never have had the nerve to approach other women in person.

"When you don't have nonverbal communication, the likelihood of being able to disclose at a deeper level is greater, because there's less inhibition," Rosenwein says. "So it's going to feel like a more intimate relationship."

Therapist Fritsch says this makes it easier for some with no intention of starting an affair to unwittingly cross a line. Often this leads to a physical affair but even without that, some marriages are damaged.

"The emotional loss — the lies that have hidden the emotional connection — is just as painful as if their spouse had actually gone out and met with someone," Fritsch says.

After his divorce, Green got his own social media accounts and also started texting. He soon learned how easy and addictive it is.

"It's a rush," Green says. "It's a good feeling to have this constant attention poured upon you by anyone that you get to text all the time. And I find myself still loving to get texts from females, and I text, text, text, back and forth."

Yet Green says he's wary about another intimate relationship. He wants to trust again. Every time a girlfriend texts someone else, he can't help but feel suspicious.

Article in The Irish Independent

How Facebook ruined my marriage

Monday Feb 28 2011

A year or so ago Caitriona* was going through a difficult separation. Her husband was causing problems by insisting he had no money -- but luckily Caitriona was able to prove this wasn't the case.

She logged on to his Facebook profile and on it found recent pictures of him thousands of miles from home standing in front of well-known landmarks smiling smugly at the camera. The shots of his costly holiday proved his claim of penury to be false and her husband's smug smile soon disappeared.

It's one of a growing number of instances where Facebook is having a major impact on marriages . . . and their demise.

RELATED LINKS

• Facebook dos and don'ts

Tabitha Wood, a Dublin-based barrister specialising in family and child care says: "The pictures in that case were a real two fingers up to the woman involved. From the point of view of someone representing a client in a case like that Facebook can be a really good resource to have, it really adds another string to your bow."

She adds: "My advice to anyone now going through a divorce or separation would be to be very careful about what you put on your profile because it will get looked at and could be used against you."

A new poll revealed that one in five UK solicitors and some 80% of lawyers across America now use the social network to firm up claims of a duplicitous or cheating spouse.

Photos that demonstrate false claims of penury are one thing, but increasingly people filing for separations and divorce are doing so after discovering their partner has been unfaithful via the medium of Facebook.

Dublin-based family law solicitor Roderick Tyrell says: "I've had clients coming in and telling me about logging on only to find their husband has listed himself as 'single' on his profile or that there have been booty shots up that they've known nothing about."

But as much as these findings may offend those involved, he warns that they won't necessarily affect a legal case.

"Clients take what they find very seriously, but there's not really that much legal weight given to it," he says.

"Judges don't tend to look into a couple's bedroom unless a person's behaviour is considered extreme. In the past there's been consideration given if a person is using more 'exotic' websites, but Facebook would still be seen to be fairly benign."

He adds: "And I think in most cases for the couples involved what they find on Facebook has confirmed their decision to go ahead with separating rather than instigate it."

But there are plenty who would disagree with that view or feel that the platform is 'benign'.

Just last week Wolverhampton Crown Court heard that wealthy American businessman Harold Landry (64) stabbed his 38-year-old British wife Lucy 23 times with a kitchen knife after learning she started an affair with an old school friend on Facebook.

And online there are thousands of stories on sites like Facebookcheating.com detailing the fallout from relationships destroyed when people have cheated via Facebook.

Sarah* (53) from Dublin says Facebook was a stepping stone in her husband's illicit online behaviour that ruined their marriage of five years.

She says: "My first tip-off was seeing that he'd listed himself as single on Facebook. That opened up a can of worms to a part of the internet I never knew existed.

"My marriage has been destroyed by my husband's addiction to internet porn. I honestly had no idea what was going on because he had all kinds of security tools fitted to our computer, it was a mess."

On Facebookcheating.com a man called Ray tells how his marriage was ended when he discovered his wife had started an online affair.

He writes: "One day when she was shopping, I turned on the laptop and guessed what the password was and there I saw it -- pictures of her kissing a guy, chats with him about how she missed him and how she thought the baby she was pregnant at the time was his.

"When she came home I showed her what I discovered, ended the marriage and kicked her out of the house. She's living with the guy now and we've sent DNA samples to the testing lab."

He adds: "I believe if she had not had the internet or Facebook her relationship with that guy would not have renewed, continued or whatever . . . but it was just too easy to maintain the contact."

Many maligned partners hold Facebook solely responsible for their relationships falling apart but Dublin-based psychologist Allison Keating from the bWell clinic thinks this attitude might be too much of a get-out- of-jail-free card.

"I don't know if Facebook can be held responsible for breaking down relationships but it's definitely adding complications to already complex relationships," she says. "Maybe it does make it easier to cheat but that doesn't make it right. There are sweetshops on every corner but that doesn't mean we have to eat in all of them.

'If someone is spending more time talking to someone online rather than to their partner who might be in the house with them then there are already problems in the relationship."

And whether you're the one that's suspicious that your partner is pursuing a secret life online or the one that's messaging an old high-school flame, it's important to realise that Facebook is not real.

"Everyone is always having a better life on Facebook, but that's because they get to decide what they do and do not reveal," says Allison, and relationship councillor Lisa O'Hara agrees.

She says: "You might be talking away to someone online and feel like you're getting on really well but it's not real. The barrier of the screen means people can be as honest or as dishonest as they want. It will never take the place of face-to-face communication and anyone who is spending an inordinate amount of time online is trying to avoid something in their real life."

*Names have been changed

Irish Independent

The Industrial revolution destroyed my marriage!

The Social Graf

Facebook Ruined Your Marriage? No, You Did

by Erik Sass, Monday, February 7, 2011, 4:17 PM

Well, I guess it was inevitable. With millions of bored people whiling away the empty hours on Facebook, reconnecting with old friends and stalking their ex's, there was going to be some hanky panky -- and some relationships were going to be ruined, and some marriages were going to end in divorce. And then someone was going to start a Facebook page (or actually, a bunch of pages) about it. Variations on the theme include "Facebook Ruined My Marriage!!!!!" and "Facebook Ruined my relationship," but they all have two things in common: they all blame Facebook for wreaking emotional chaos in their lives, and as I have noted in previous columns, they are all wrong. I'm not trying to minimize or make light of the distress that results from a bad breakup; most of us have been there, and needless to say it really sucks. So it's not really surprising that individuals suffering from the ensuing emotional turmoil go looking for culprits -- and what better villain than the medium which made it all possible? It was Facebook, see, Facebook all along! Sorry, folks, but that dog don't hunt. I know it's hard to think rationally when you are drowning your sorrows in a bottle of merlot, but let's try to be logical here: first of all, what about the tens, nay, hundreds of millions of people who are simultaneously in relationships and on Facebook, without adverse effect? And what of the fact that infidelity is older than the human race (indeed, probably older than mammals), practiced by birds and even barnacles? No, the fact is that people ruin their marriages and relationships by cheating. While one might reasonably argue that Facebook increases the sources of temptation and makes it easier to be unfaithful, this is at most a sad comment on the character of the individuals involved: basically you're saying they were always open to the idea of cheating, but simply too lazy to act on their impulses before online social networks came along. This is just latent infidelity, waiting to be exposed. Anyway, by this reasoning ("technology made it easier") the victims should also be saying "The telephone, internal combustion engine, and contraception ruined my marriage!"

How Facebook refucked up my marriage (And the Follow up)

How Facebook refucked up my marriage

I reluctantly rejoined Facebook last month after enjoying being completely unconnected to ex-boyfriends, college roommates, and my babysitter.

But since everyone and their ex-boyfriends, college roommates, and babysitters are on Facebook, I had to get myself back into the loop.

This time, however, I made myself unsearchable, and really only use it to promote Cool Mom Picks and the Mominatrix stuff, hoping to maintain a fairly low profile, or at least one that doesn't scream "Hey, all my relatives with my husband's last name! Come find me and read what I write about you on my blog!" which is probably a good idea since it also just so happens that my mother-in-law is on Facebook too.

And as I recently learned, my husband.

Now, I'm not the boss of the internet around this house, but since I never use my husband's (and my children's) last name for anything, I was pretty annoyed to find out that he had since made the leap into Facebook, particularly when he told me that he had not.

But then I found messages he sent to some chick he knew before he was dating me who had sent him a few pretty raunchy emails. I'm not completely sure what category she would fall into on the whole "want to do her, did her, been there done that several times" continuum, but all I know is that there was really nothing significant enough going on for him to need to send her a message.

And I'm not talking about the actual words he wrote.

Aside from the fact that when I asked him if he was back on Facebook he said "Um no, not recently" (which was curious since the message was dated July 25), I found that he had also "friended" someone who had caused us major issues in our marriage back when Quinlan was a baby. A woman who he said was his "friend," but obviously wanted more and didn't care that he was married with a kid.

At one point during their "friendship," which involved being secret gym buddies and confidants - well, secret to me anyway -  I woke up at 3am after we had played a gig at a bar to find him still not home, only to learn that he had taken it upon himself to pick up her daughter from the babysitter and drive her home because this "friend" was too drunk to do it herself.

There I was with a screaming, nursing baby and a husband who was rarely home to help me with his own baby out driving someone else's kid around.

Follow that with an extremely questionable text message the next day and it was clear that the "friendship" needed to end.

So suffice it to say that when I saw that she was a friend on his Facebook page, I was pissed.

I get that we all, at one point or another, Google our exes, or flings, or whoever else we had face time with. But when you click that "Add a friend" button, you're sending a message - an invitation to let someone back in.

Most of the time, it's completely harmless. I've friended ex-boyfriends from college and our few conversations are about our kids. But then again, none of those guys ever interfered with my current relationship. Because if they did, I'd really think long and hard about making them my "friend."

I appreciate all that the internet and social media has done at bringing people together. Hell, it has connected me to many other fabulous people that I would never have otherwise met.

But I think at some level, it allows us to stay way too connected, when in reality, it's much better for some people to fade away.

Or better, just fucking disappear.

Facebook friending frenzy follow-up

After much discussion, we have since resolved the Facebook friending frenzy of 2009. It's quite clear that my husband is just a little bit clueless when it comes to social media, particularly when drunk.

I suppose I should be thankful for this fact because that means all his brain power and energy are going into safely flying planes and keeping his ass alive while he's in the desert next month.

Now to be clear, I don't completely blame Fat Tire's long awaited arrival to Georgia for his faux pas.

It's a combination of just being a doofus and his own what I've come to call "mean mommy issues," where instead of just telling the truth, he's dishonest for fear of his mom's wrath.

Or in this case, my wrath. Oh the irony, Mr. Freud.

Sadly, until he gets over the fact that it has more to do with his own mother and less to do with me, I don't necessarily see him completely getting it.

And right now, I'm okay with that.

Thankfully, he does come around rather quickly these days, and he managed to drag the kids to the mall and buy me some fancy lingerie. With pockets, even!

And considering he had to deal with both kids tossing underwear and using the plastic drawers as bongos at Victoria's Secret, I find the nightie and thong a little extra endearing.

Okay, so he doesn't completely get the make-up gift giving thing either, but hey, baby steps. At least this time he bought the right size and not four sizes too big with padded cups.

But let's just say the real lesson here is that I should have known better than to assume that the sender of nasty emails was a 20-something sex kitten with a porn star name.

Apparently, sort of larger set 40-something women can have sexy names and write graphic emails.

So, never assume that your husband actually knows what he's doing on Facebook and never judge a woman by her name.

JUST A COUPLE OF STORIES

Story number 1

Facebook ruined my marriage!

Story number 2

(Interestingly this one is about perceived potential indiscretion.)

Question:
Please help me, i am sitting here with my heart broken and i dont know what to do. My husband has told me Its Over - as he was always playing on his playstation,i decided to set up a profile on facebook - i did and got into contact with old school freinds and it kept me going, guys who i went to school with messaged me - only as freinds but i said hi and what i was up to but thats about it, it was the girly chats i enjoyed. Anyway,my husband's friend told him about my profile and that i had guys on there and he has flipped,we had a massive argument and he says he doesnt want me anymore - i took my ring off in temper and he took it away saying i cant have it back!! I love him but hate how are marriage has turned into something sour, we have money worries coming out of our ears and he is always stressed from working hard - we dont go out and his release is the playstation but he is ALWAYS on it.. i really dont think i was doing anything wrong, i was just so bored otherwise. I have no interest in any other guys, my husband hasnt made me happy in a long while but i know we would be fine without all these money worries.. sometimes i hate him but i am now terrified that this is it - he says he is sleeping in the spare room and he does, he says he has had enough. I want everything to go back to how it was when we first met, hes now acting cold and distant, i cant go on like this i really am at breaking point - please help me!! The thing is i wouldnt like it if he had women on his facebook either but i can honestly say this was all innocent!!

Social Networking / Antisocial Marriage

In the next couple of days I will be posting a story of a marriage destroyed by the inability to moderate total connection to everyone provided by social networking.

I urge you to send me your stories of meaningful relationships destroyed by the technology of social networking combined with the flawed human instincts that guide libido and all such hormone driven interactions.

This site is designed to give you a voice about your very personal experience while compiling and studying all the many stories people have. The objective is to find out what, if anything, can be done to help us process this new power we have to socialize at a global level in an effort to integrate it into our home lives in a less destructive way.

Happy posting...

Please send stories to jimmyolsen411@yahoo.com