Do you feel that he or she is spending excessive time on the Internet? Does he or she have the habit of making mysterious phone calls even at midnight or very early hours of the morning? Do social networking sites such as Facebook cause marriage problems?
Why Do People Sign Up On Social Networking Sites?
There are various reasons. Some are probably due to boredom, loneliness, and attention-seeking, trying to get over holiday blues or to play online games. Most people sign up to catch up with long lost-contact friends, old school buddies and to keep in touch with existing friends.
After Mr. Barack Obama had successfully harnessed the power of social networking to win the Presidential Election in 2008, a lot of politicians and political parties have started to maintain a Facebook account to keep in touch with their supporters. Some politicians even 'friend' their opponents in order to 'spy on' what they are talking to see if they have chances to pounce on their weaknesses. Of greater significance is the power of social networking as an effective medium to mobilize people to make changes as what had happened during the Arab Spring 2011.
Of course, there are also people (like me) who maintain accounts on social networking sites for purely business reasons to keep in touch with existing and potential customers, to update customers on latest products and services and to gather feedbacks or opinions on their products and services. The most noticeable success is Lady Gaga who is able to use Facebook's online games to promote her latest albums.
When Do Social Networking Sites Become A Problem?
Social networking sites start creating problems when people abuse them. It is either their ex-flames resurface and want to 'friend' them or out of curiosity search to find their old flames and hoping to reconnect them. Probably out of boredom with their relationships, some search on networking sites to find 'preys' for some short-term flings.
Can Social Networking Sites Hurt Marriages?
I would like to say yes or no. If the intent to 'friend' your old flames is pure innocent curiosity to see how their lives have evolved, you do not have any 'hidden agenda' to rekindle passion, you do not share intimate details with your correspondence and you are happily married, social networking sites should not do any harm to your marriage.
However, if the marriage is in trouble, social networking sites can act as a catalyst to worsen marriage problems. A bad marriage leaves a person vulnerable to seek happiness elsewhere. Social networking sites can and will sometimes strengthen the temptations and make people more available. Fantasies of old flames can reignite lost passion and a desire for emotional closeness.
It can be a very easy solution to ask your spouse to delete his/her account or ask to get access to his/her password. But this brings up a whole different underlying issue. If your spouse can be swayed from your marriage, this will be the case of with or without the Internet. The problem does not lie with social networking sites. It is the marriage itself that has serious underlying problems.
No one wants to be the victim of a spouse who cheats. But you cannot spend your life living in constant fear and distrust. This is not the way to live and will ultimately take a toll on you and your marriage. If you are in the situation when you have to constantly check on his/her Facebook and cell phone to see who he/she had been talking to, you really have to look at the marriage itself and dig up the sources of the problems and why you need to 'spy' on your spouse. Being overly suspicious and picking at his/her faults is often a precursor to things falling apart, and if the other person is not doing anything wrong it can be even more destructive. Instead try focusing on the positives in the marriage.
Regardless of whether or not you believe social networking sites such as Facebook are harmful to marriages, the most important question is how much you trust your partner. A healthy marriage is nearly impossible without mutual trust. Having said that it is therefore wise to spend more time and effort to communicate, connect and understand so as to establish a strong foundation of trust in your relationship rather than trying to control or monitor what your spouse does with his/her personal time, on or off the Internet.
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