Is Facebook One of the Deadly Killers of Marriage?

Is Facebook one of the deadly killers of marriage? Some of you may be like hold on a minute what are you getting at with this? What I am trying to get at is Facebook is one of the biggest social media platforms we have. I remember in the days of Myspace? Anyone else remember that? Well better social media took off and Facebook has become huge. Congrats Zuckerburg on your great idea. But was the idea of connecting with old friends and family a bad idea? Not at all. Facebook has the ability for us to connect with old friends and family members that we don't see often. We can talk with them through messenger or comment on their posts. See their status updates on trips or rants they have. But let’s not focus to much on the family parts of the Facebook platform.

     Is connecting to people inherently bad? No. But what happens when your spouse becomes Facebook friends with an old flame in high school or someone in their college days. This person is married and has children and you and your spouse are married and have children so no harm right. Well hopefully. But how can we keep a safeguard in our marriage because when we add old boyfriends and girlfriends we had a connection that is much different than hey that was my buddy in college. I mean this person kissed your spouse and had an intimate relationship of sorts and there were feelings there in the past. Those same feelings can still come up. The thing that gets in the way is not setting limits before we have issues. I mean the person you married you made a commitment to in your marriage. Isn't your partner the most important person in your life? Isn't the love you have special? If you answered yes to those then why not have a safeguard in your marriage? Wouldn't it be better to let your marriage be safeguarded and have several walls up so that the marriage isn't harmed? Talk about the limits in your marriage. 

     So, what limits could you set in your marriage so that you can have a good marital relationship without the harm of outside influence. Maybe some rules are not having someone of the opposite sex with you alone in your car or home or even going to lunch. Not talking about our marital problems with other people but with our spouse. Talking to your best friend isn't going to fix your problem that your husband leaves the toilet seat up and soon your friend will say why don't you tell him to put the darn thing down? Facebook, we can only friend family and friends. No past boyfriends and girlfriends. Allow your spouse access to your Facebook and messenger so that they see what you are doing. My friends I have on my Facebook my wife is aware of and yes, I have friends on their that are girls. Sometimes I leave a comment on a post but nothing more.  I am not sending a message to them about my marriage or its problems. If I have issues I talk with my wife. Some people choose to have a joint Facebook account which can totally be a safeguard in marriage.

     Are there some signs we can watch for to not just make sure we are being overprotective or the crazy spouse? Some things to look at is are they spending a lot of time on Facebook or laughing at their phone and hiding it from you. Do they hide their screen or tell you not to worry? If they are doing a few of these things they may just be shopping for a gift for you but will they let you look at their Facebook and see what is going on? if they are being too guarded it may be time to consider talking some boundaries because who knows what is going on. The truth is people do cheat and it isn't that they were terrible people. They just let someone in the marriage and built a relationship that wasn't appropriate and this has made this spouse the terrible individual we call a cheater. We should be cautious as we use social media and internet because what we consider to be good can be bad too. 

If you have any thoughts on the matter feel free to leave comments.

Helping Others

     How can we help others? One of the great questions you may have is helping other people. How can we accomplish this? Our friends may come to us and want our help and the great thing is you can actually help them by simply listening. How? We listen to them and hear what they say. When we listen to them after we are done we can reflect back how they are feeling. An example is say a friend says they are mad at a roommate because they never clean up after themselves and we then say that is frustrating. We help them by seeing how they feel. We can reflect back content of the story and we can even help by asking questions when necessary.

     This helping is in no way a replacement to therapy or having a counselor but in many situations, we can help them by simply listening to them. Listening and having empathy for those we are helping can be difficult but It can be had easier with good friends. There may be times we simply can't and shouldn't help. One experience that comes to mind is marital conflicts friends may be going through. Your friend really needs to go to their spouse and discuss the conflict they are having. We don't want to be biased in our advice to them and also, we don't need to see their spouse as negative or terrible because they are going through a rough time. Marriage can be tough and all couples disagree in some way or another but if you see that they are going on about it then suggest they talk with their spouse and if that doesn't work then suggest they go see an expert or a therapist to help them. These experts have skills and licensing that we as a helper may not have at the moment.

     Even if we don't have every skill to help them the best help we can give is listening to them and empathizing with them. This may come easy or may be hard for you. Regardless know that you can help your friends. Try not to give too much advice but in the role of a friend you may give suggestions. See if listening and helping them see the story help them come to conclusions. You may be surprised with what you find.

Hopefully while helping your friends you can be great active listeners. That is sometimes all we need is a friend to listen.