Greetings! I used to be a frequent reader of these forums and an occasional poster. I also have read Michele's books twice, and have learned a lot about marriage, divorce and midlife crisis. I firmly believe, as well as a counselor with whom I visited, that my ex-wife is in the midst of MLC. I now gravitate to this particular forum, but only rarely. I continue to GAL.
About a month ago a friend of mine sent me an email requesting me to look at his Facebook page. Well I did not realize that by looking at his page and filling in some information to do so, that I was then signing up for my own Facebook page. I certainly did not want this and have never put any photos on the page, but I did receive some emails requesting me to acknowledge some mutual friends of my original friend who asked me to look at his page. For those who do not know how it works, an email comes to your home address alerting you that someone would like to be your friend. You then have to log on to Facebook and either confirm that you know that person, or hit ignore. I simply hit confirm and have pretty much left it alone. I believe my friends got the hint that I was not really interested in spending much time on the site.
You can imagine my surprise the other day when I received an email alerting me that my ex wanted me to acknowledge her as a friend on Facebook. I almost fell out of my chair. I called a few friends and she evidently had requested them as well. This is the same woman who continues to live with one of the men with whom she cheated on me (my 26 year old daughter refers to him as chain-smoking white trash, but that is just one person's opinion).
I acknowledged her request, which then allows me to look at her page. I am now one of 11 friends, and I know most of the others. She has no 'friends' on this site that I uncovered after she dropped the bomb, including the OM with whom she is living (she drives his car and has not worked since Jan. 08, but evidently plans to go to the local community college and get a 2-yr nursing degree. She has a bachelors and claims she will then be an RN).
It appears she has invested a lot of time downloading photos, filling in her favorite activities, etc.. This is all very confusing to me, and I do not know how to interpret this change of events. Anyone else hear of something crazy like this? I realize this particular forum does not garner as much traffic as some of the others, but I figured I would post here as this is about the only forum I visit when I do look at this site.
Thanks for any thoughts!
Facebook is commonly a 'passing fancy' for many, adding a bunch of information and photos at once then maybe or maybe not continuing to do so.
My only caution to you is to note that "WALL" postings are public to your network of friends and is not a private message to an individual as many have believed.
Also, given the OM, you would not likely have been invited to be a friend with your x-W if OM had such an account.
Finally, it is an easy habit to frequently 'check' on people you have a hightened interest in to see what comments they've made, what friends they have, and what photos they've posted. Be careful not to create a negative habit in checking... it doesn't serve you well.
Hello,
Facebook? Additively fun. Great way to re-connect with people from your past. Easy way to stay in contact with people you care for. Easy to edit OUT what you don't want seen. Easy to remove people you don't want looking at your private Facebook profile.
Downside. It's VERY public. Be cautious of what you post, as it may adversely affect your own personal 'brand.' Be aware of whom you make your friend online, as their Facebook persona has the possibility to adversely affect others perception of you. If you are of the spying nature, WILL be harmful to you, causing you to mind read and make assumptions which are rarely positive pastimes.
Best wishes. Use it for YOUR positive group and as another tool for GAL.
Oooops, that last post should have said 'addictively'.
Facebook is commonly a 'passing fancy' for many, adding a bunch of information and photos at once then maybe or maybe not continuing to do so.
A friend of mine said the same thing. His wife was very active at first, but not so much after a while. Judging from my ex-w's site, she has been very active.
My only caution to you is to note that "WALL" postings are public to your network of friends and is not a private message to an individual as many have believed.
I found that out, and that is one reason I really do not like the site.
Also, given the OM, you would not likely have been invited to be a friend with your x-W if OM had such an account.
I know, this has me scratching my head. Why would she want me to have access to her site????
Finally, it is an easy habit to frequently 'check' on people you have a heightened interest in to see what comments they've made, what friends they have, and what photos they've posted. Be careful not to create a negative habit in checking... it doesn't serve you well.
I can see where that would be the case, and I agree with you that I can not get too caught up in this site.
Thanks for your insight.
Thanks for the comments. I really wish I had never signed up for this, as I do not like the public feature aspect. I agree that I should watch the addictive nature of this beast.
I wouldn't make anything of it. Your name was there, she clicked it, it comes as friend request. Personally, I'd remove her from your friends.
I got on Facebook just around the time STBXW hit me with the ILYBNILWY crap (almost 2 yrs back). We're still living together and hopefully will conclude a separation agreement in the next two months (Although I've been saying this for 9 months now). I've found facebook to be awesome for reconnecting with old friends, which is exactly what I've needed in the past 18 months to help go through this process. Many of my college friends and high-school friends are on it, as well as many former friends from work. I get news / updates from about 125 friends (they really are friends), and it's a nice mostly passive way of staying in touch, having their latest contact info, and seeing what's going on with them. Similarly, when I update my status my friends and family see what I'm up to -- about once a month I'll post a picture of myself or DD5, right from the mobile, and it's nice when folks chime in, etc.
Much of the site can be locked down. I keep my stuff only visible to friends, and I don't friend any'ol person that asks. Also, I keep a different set of permissions for my work associates.
Here are a couple of separation related things that have happened:
1) STBXW has been on it, and a friend on the service about as long as me. However, about 18 months back she set her relationship field to blank. At the same time mine said married. Most folks wouldn't notice this (she didn't say single and she prevented the fact that she updated from being broadcasted). However, in recent months I think it was informative to our few common friends who are also in the know about our situation. Most of the folks in our community still do not know that we're on a separation path.
2) About 9 months ago she locked me out of getting updates for her profile and actions. We're still friends on the site, but I can't see anyone she's added or removed since then, nor can I see any activity that she does. I've left it so she can see my feed just fine. I have nothing to hide, and it has a nice side-effect in a GAL context. I'm just sharing the fun stuff I do with my friends...
3) We had an outing together and I uploaded some fun fotos of DD5 and STBXW. I also 'tagged' them with her name, which is a very common practice. Two days later she asked me to remove the tag. What happens is that once tagged, even though it's my foto, the picture of STBXW and DD5 then also gets associated with her profile. A message also goes out to her friends saying 'STBXW was tagged in this foto' and they see a clickable thumbnail of the foto. So this was not intentional on my part, but apparantly it was a problem ;-) So bringing in DD5 into her new circle of friends was an issue... I had to laugh.
4) I recently had a birthday, and as a small act of claiming my independence, I changed my marital status to blank as well.
At anyrate, I stand by my ealier comments about the service being very helpful, to me, as a way of staying in touch with the rest of the world. This is a very trying time for me socially, and facebook has helped.
We had an outing together and I uploaded some fun fotos of DD5 and STBXW. I also 'tagged' them with her name, which is a very common practice. Two days later she asked me to remove the tag. What happens is that once tagged, even though it's my foto, the picture of STBXW and DD5 then also gets associated with her profile. A message also goes out to her friends saying 'STBXW was tagged in this foto' and they see a clickable thumbnail of the foto. So this was not intentional on my part, but apparantly it was a problem ;-) So bringing in DD5 into her new circle of friends was an issue... I had to laugh.
It seems so harmless. I am amazed that she would have a problem with that. Actually, I guess I should never be amazed any more.
She was out on the prowl, and looking for OMs, pretending to be an un-attached single. Having a picture of her with a DD5 doesn't help.
One of the major upsets in our R after the bomb was when my WAW removed me as a Friend and set her marital status to blank. Ouch!
She lost her ring a year or two ago so this was the only real public display of marital status.
Sign of the times. You know you're out when your wife unfriends you on Facebook.
Quote:
We had an outing together and I uploaded some fun fotos of DD5 and STBXW. I also 'tagged' them with her name, which is a very common practice. Two days later she asked me to remove the tag. What happens is that once tagged, even though it's my foto, the picture of STBXW and DD5 then also gets associated with her profile. A message also goes out to her friends saying 'STBXW was tagged in this foto' and they see a clickable thumbnail of the foto. So this was not intentional on my part, but apparantly it was a problem ;-) So bringing in DD5 into her new circle of friends was an issue... I had to laugh.
It seems so harmless. I am amazed that she would have a problem with that. Actually, I guess I should never be amazed any more.
It's not harmless if there is a guy you are seeing (or wanting to date) and he wonders why you are having happy little get togethers with your STBXH.
I found out through a mutual friend last year that W had joined Facebook but I did not ask the friend what she was doing on there. W has a notebook computer (password protected) and a couple of private e-mail accounts that I know about but never snooped on.
The friend (and a few other friends) suggested I get on there as well - which I did a couple of months ago. The first thing I did was to block W so that I would not see anything she posted to mutual friends. I am not on that much anyway but W has never asked me about - which is OK.
It's not harmless if there is a guy you are seeing (or wanting to date) and he wonders why you are having happy little get togethers with your STBXH.
Makes sense, but only adds confusion as to why my ex, who is living with the OM she cheated with, would not only seek out me as a friend, but our mutual friends whom she has not spoken with in two years. They are very confused as well. I'm not worrying about it, and just refer to it as another indication that she continues to be in a place I never thought she would be.
Enjoy this very well done, 60's style video about the "rules" of facebook relationships.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iROYzrm5SBM
Thanks for sharing. That is classic.