Facebook and Infidelity

Facebook is an American as apple pie and baseball. Everyone has a Facebook account don’t they? Actually I don’t and neither does my wife. We used to have them. It was one of the ways our marriage almost ended.

In 2011 the group Divorce Online researched 5000 divorce filings and found that 1/3 of them mentioned Facebook as a reason. In the Harboring Hope courses I have been involved with here at AR approximately 70 percent of affairs by the women were started by contact on Facebook or other social media sites. One of the ways my wife communicated with her affair partners was through Facebook/Myspace, In fact rarely a day went by without some sleaze ball trying to chat up my wife.

Facebook can be an incredibly useful and entertaining tool for some. For others, especially those struggling with their marriages, it can be the kiss of death. Old flames can reappear. There is always someone to talk to even when your spouse wont. The anonymity can make people bolder and more daring. You can feel safer and isolated from any bad complications. Innocent chats can easily progress to sex or relationship talk. Women can always find men to listen even when their husband won’t. Men can always find respect even when their wife doesn’t. It’s a slippery slope that can lead to incredible pain and sorrow.

If you are struggling in your marriage please be aware of the dangers of social media sites. As part of our recovery my wife and I chose to delete all social media sites. We chose this as a boundary for our marriage. We had seen the dangers first hand and our marriage was more important that friend requests or wall posts. It was one of the best choices we made.

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Social Media - the rest of the story

OMG! Was my husband ever pleased with himself when he told me he'd started text, sorry, txting! What he failed to tell me was with whom he was starting on this new & exciting path or the content of their clandestine communique's. I had no reason to think it was anything to worry about. When I came downstairs late at night (early morning, actually) & found him on MySpace "checking out" the availability of women in our community for "fun & friendship", I believed it was no more than curiosity. Fast forward to Craigslist and an ad for a third party to join him & "secret girlfriend".......I'll spare you the details but you get the idea, I continued to believe this was all just passing time, no ill-intent, no agenda, purpose or malice involved! Believe me, as educated, informed & reasonable smart as I am, I just didn't see it. My then husband was always a technology hound - I remember when he had a bag phone in his car & the very first lap-top computer he bought, on $1600 of my hard earned bucks, a prototype in 1996 - that never worked, he had to have the latest equipment & participate in all the latest "cool" stuff. Personally, I have little interest in technology beyond what I have to use to get by. Still, no excuse for letting these early warning signs get by me. Technology, social media, texting & the sub-culture & language that go with them can be used as a tremendous tool for good but the equal & opposite is that it can also be used for the worst degree of subterfuge, sneaky, underhanded, heinous deceit introduced into the sacred blessing of marriage, destroying all in it's path. It was a pocket dial on a cell phone that revealed to me a conversation on a secret second phone that struck the final nail into the coffin of my marriage. And they said technology would enhance & make easier our lives! LOL!!!

I will never have peace as long as there is technology

I will forever be wondering what my husband is doing online.  He still has facebook - but I'm not his "friend".  I don't see his posts or what he is doing online.  And it's so much bigger than facebook -- you can find anybody, and chat easily and cover your tracks so very well.

I remember when I first got suspicious, and someone mentioned the name of the person my husband had the affair with - I found her facebook page in the middle of the night and saw my husband there listed as one of her friends.  It got worse - I eventually found that he had friended both her children as well.  He had what I called another "family" on his facebook.  He used to accuse me of chatting onfacebook, searching out ex's...and he was the one doing it the whole time.  And I don't have every detail -- but I do remember when I first was suspicious I asked him to remove her -- being his ex-girlfriend- from his facebook.  He got mad, saying I can't tell him who to be friends with.  Later I discovered he had created another identity.  So even if you ever come to a point you can trust the spouse who betrayed you -- the temptation is always there as far as I know.  If I go to bed early, I'll always be wondering what he's doing.  Because it's so easy to be deceiptful on the internet and to hide and cover all traces of your indescretion.  And he's not giving me any reason to believe he is ever going to stay faithful.  Just being in the house, lacking emotion and lacking remorese doesn't cut it anymore.

 

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I would highly recommend giving this a try.
 
-D, Texas