2016 advice dating dating chronicles relationships

Changing Your Facebook Status

Tikeetha TMby
28 Comments on Changing Your Facebook Status

My friends/family all sent me a text earlier this week saying that my ex-husband updated his relationship status to “In a Relationship”. I think they wondered had I heard. I asked the question “Did you congratulate him?” No was the consistent response. They were just sharing information.

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I understood. It was over three years ago that I was telling everyone that my marriage was over. That love no longer lived with us or as my ex-husband said “We are Irreparably Broken”. It was a horrific time. One that broke me.  The back and forth fighting and arguing left me broken and in tears. My life was in shambles.

Friends still remember. Many held me as I cried and offered wine and words of comfort. Even if it was to say “I’m here for you.” My friends were pretty great. I told them to not take sides. No matter what he was still my son’s father and I needed them to stay out of it. They agreed. They didn’t unfriend him or curse him out. They didn’t go off on him when it seemed like he was blasting me on social media.

They were friends and for that I’m truly thankful.

When my ex-husband and I were married I never said that I was married to him on Facebook. He sent many requests asking to confirm our relationship so that it could show on our timelines that we were married to each other. I always declined. I had to tell him why.

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I explained that I didn’t want that. I told him that the people who mattered knew we were married. I wanted to keep our relationship private. Off social media so to speak. Now, before you get it all twisted and think I was being dismissive of him, I wasn’t. I just wanted our relationship to not be played out on social media. Why? Because everybody on Facebook isn’t praying for the success of your relationship.

I changed my marital status to married though. I made it clear that I was off the market and unavailable for potential suitors. That’s it. There were a few pictures where friends tagged us in it or if he made a special tribute for our anniversary and tagged me in it. For the most part, I kept our relationship private.

When we separated he unfriended me. He didn’t want me to have any access to his page. I respected his decision. I was the one who wanted out. Why would he share his personal page with me anymore. But, he kept all my friends and family on his page.

I in turn hid my relationship status from that point on. I didn’t want my life played out on social media so if men hit on me, I politely declined and kept it moving. That’s how it has been for over 3 years. My relationship status isn’t shown.

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Mr. C and I talked about this the other night. I asked him if we ever got married would he tag me on Facebook. He said “No”. He believes that social media ruins relationships. He doesn’t want to engage in that back and forth or create issues in relationships. He explained that it wasn’t like he was ashamed of me but he didn’t like people in his business.

I respected that. I mean I had already told him that if I ever got married again I would just post a picture of my wedding rings with a tag that says “So, this happened”. That’s it and that’s all. No pictures of my husband or the details. I felt that the people who are supposed to know would know and be a part of it. But, part of me felt some kind of way.

I thought about how he could say something cute like “My life – My Wife” and show a silhouette of me in a dress next to him. No facial shots. No tags. Just us. Sort of black and white with an air of mystery. I mean what’s the big deal. I went to sleep thinking about it and actually feeling some kind of way.

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The next day I was talking to my aunt and she mentioned how she heard that my ex-husband had changed his relationship status. I said “I heard.” She asked me did I have someone. I said “Yeah, I’m in love with someone.” She said, “Really? Good”. That was it. I realized at that moment that I didn’t need a relationship status to define what I felt and I knew that I didn’t want my relationship to play out on social media. I wanted some level of privacy.

I know you’re probably thinking…you private? Yes, me. Mr. C knows that I blog about him. He’s cool with it. I share the good, bad and everything in between. My writing is how he figures out how I truly feel about a situation. He doesn’t mind. But, I will never share his photo on social media (unless I’m doing a photo shoot for a major publication, LOL). It’s not a big deal to me and I respect his opinion.

My relationship status is hidden as it’s been for more than 3 years. I’m happy. I’m in love and I’m in a good place. I’ve told you dear readers my joy, so in essence I guess the important people already know what’s going on.

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Questions…is it important to you to update your relationship status on Facebook? Can you please tell me why? 

28 comments

  1. I wouldn’t say that it is important. Though Facebook is a part of my daily life, for good or bad. So, there are pictures of my husband and my family on it. In the same way that you feel like the people in your “real life” should know that you are married, I feel like some of my “real life” friends I don’t get to see often enough so I share things on Facebook for them to see. My grandparents, my friends who live in different states. I look forward to seeing pictures of them with their husbands and their children, because I don’t get to see them in person as often as I would like. As for the “status” I see no reason for it to not be accurate. I am married and I am married to Paul, who has a Facebook page. So, why not put that out there?

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    1. Understandable. I have a lot of friends that do that. My friend list on FB is almost 1000 so I don’t believe all those people are my true friends who wish me well. Maybe about 225, but I was accepting a lot of friend requests when I first got on Facebook. Now, I’m more judicious with my acceptance. A friend of mine told me that a couple of years ago when she first got on Facebook. She said, “They are not my friends in real life so why would I allow them on my page?” Good point. In that case, if she wanted to update her status I could totally get that. But, it is up to a couple to decide what is best for them.

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  2. Well, no I don’t believe in that. As you said, that people who matter already know. My relationship has been just to us and few close people. It’s not necessary that everyone out on Facebook is your well wisher. Most of them just want gossip and relationship is between 2 people, not the world, so the less they know, better are chances of them not trying to get into it..!

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  4. When you get on facebook, they ask you to fill a lot of info, and it makes you feel important to fill all the boxes. The truth is that you don’t need to 🙂
    As for me, fb played a big role in my life when I broke up with my ex: I went from “it’s complicated” (the ex wasnt on fb) to “single”. I must say that this move was directed to another man I fancied very much, I wanted him to know I was back on the market.
    Looking back now I find it quite silly, but still.
    For my current relationship, it took us a while to make it “official on fb” that we were together. Same for our wedding, I think it took us something like 6 months to get from “in a relationship” to “married”. For the same reasons as yours, i was reluctant. It is my life and the people who know us and need to know what’s happening in our life don’t need facebook to be informed. We talk or write to them directly.
    My husband is a super connected guy while I am more reserved with technology. We have an agreement about our daughter: she’s an offline kid, so no photos of her. Mostly because I want her to be able to chose what to do with her own image ‘if she wants to expose her whole life to the world, fine, but let it be HER decision), but also because I hate people posting only about their kids – I find it lame!
    So for those interested in updates on our daughter’s life,we send emails and dropbox links, and everybody is very happy 🙂
    I recently changed my profile photo for one with my daughter, but she’s showing her back to the camera, so you can’t see her face 🙂

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  5. I don’t think it is important. I uploaded pictures of R and myself after the wedding. But I did not change or update my relationship status after the wedding. I have never updated my relationship status – single or otherwise. R doesn’t care for social media. His updates are only about sports. I have been asked if it bothers me that he does not post anything about me or the relationship publicly. I think it is better that way. I prefer getting a private text rather than a public status.

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  6. I don’t have a Facebook account for some of these reasons! It became like mental and visual junk mail due to oversharing. I totally get how it, along with other social media sites/apps, can connect and reconnect people, but some folks just don’t have the best etiquette.

    I just feel that not much is sacred anymore; everyone is out to prove something to strangers instead of living lives for themselves and loved ones. I am in total agreement of keeping certain precious people + moments private.

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    1. Yes sis! I’m like not everyone on my friend list is really a friend and does it matter if I don’t say I’m engaged or I’m married? The people I want to know will know. Thanks for commenting.

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  7. I wouldn’t say it’s important to me. I rarely ever think about it to be honest. Lol. My husband and I really didn’t even update out Facebook statuses until we got engaged, and we had been together for about 4 years at that point. I mainly post pics of my husband and daughter for the sake of my family that cannot see her all the time. I also have the privacy on my page set to where only my friends can see a lot of things, and most of my friends are family or members of my sorority and my husbands fraternity and good friends from our college life. Basically, mainly people i have known for a while and positively support my life and relationship and family. If the “relationship status” wasn’t even an option for the profile, it wouldn’t bother me too much lol.

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  8. Sis:
    This was a great post. As always, I really appreciate your openness. I know that it helps so many people.
    Anyway, I don’t have a FB page! Never have and never will. I think that it is the DEVIL.
    I say that half-jokingly 😉
    Frankly, I don’t think that everybody you know needs to know who all you know and what’s going on with them.
    From what I understand, FB now sends little notifications that say, “You may know this person.” WTF?
    So what’s wrong with that you ask?
    Well my adult son does FB and an old male acquaintance of mine sent him a friend request. That dude never met my son so you can imagine my surprise when my baby asked, “Mama do you know Dwight—?”
    I was like, “Where did that come from?”
    and you can fill in the blanks from there.
    I also had a former co-worker try to get to me through my son. It’s just crazy. If I had wanted to keep in touch with her I would have done so already via other means!
    Girl, anyway, I’m sorry for the rant but you hit a nerve.

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  10. Me and my boyfriend have had our ups and downs in the three years we’ve been together. We included we were in a relationship and engaged in the past. I don’t want to include anything about it anymore. We broke up twice before. The first time was for a few months and the second time about a week. I used to tag him more when we would go out.

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    1. I understand. I don’t want to keep updating my personal issues on FB. We all go through things and if we decide to break up then everyone knows our business and sometimes I just want to deal with it on my own.

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  12. Maybe I’m old school but it’s never once occurred to me to even HAVE a Facebook status. Are there options? Like “hungry” or “PMSing” or “insomniac”? ‘Cause if it’s just the boring stuff like single, dating, or married then meh. 😉

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  14. This!

    I always had this thought and accompanying question at the back of my mind but never really played it out. I can say i have been passive about it for the most part of my life.

    While there is some mushy feeling to having your partner say something nice about you on social media and maybe add a picture or two, or say share pictures of you both hanging out… maybe to appreciate you and let you know he is proud to have you by his side– I think there is more danger in it, than whatever joy might be derivable.

    Like you said, not everyone will be happy to know about a friends relationship status or the who and when of such relationship, plus these things are not always guaranteed… so it just looks like too much drama saying “we are together” on social media today and tomorrow turning up to say “we are no more”…

    So yes! It is cute and mushy, but I am learning to keep my relationship life as private as possible. I do pictures once in a while, write poems for him and stuff on my blog, but that’s that. Only those that matter really know who the muse is. Others? They can keep a-guessing!

    Lovely post ma’am. ♡

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    1. Thanks sis! Yep, my man reads everything I write and I’m thankful for it. We are also FB friends but he has no pictures up and never posts anything. So, people have no idea who he is if they’ve never met him. Now, the problem is that my sorority is having a party this weekend and he’ll be there but we don’t do social media pictures so I won’t allow tags of him in any posts. He probably wouldn’t care, but again not everyone on my FB timeline is praying for my happiness. I’m very protective and guarded of this blessing in my life so I just try to allow the anonymity to be there.

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