Source: POPSUGAR Photography
Back
in the good old days when all we had were pagers — scratch that, let’s
go even further. Back in the good old days when all we had were
answering machines and a mailbox, breaking up was much easier to do. All
you had to do was stop sending mail and calling each other. Perhaps you
might bump into each other randomly at a grocery store, but other than
that, the person was — zap! — out of your life.
Nowadays, there’s this digital stream of interconnectedness that makes breaking up (or in my case, divorcing) a real pain in the Kim Kardashian.
Breaking contact is near impossible in the millennial age. And when you
have a child with someone, the relationship, while different, still
goes on forever.
Now
there are phone calls, texts, emails, and the omnipresent social-media
beings, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, blogs, etc. If you
can’t find someone these days via an online search, they’re either a
hit man, a toddler, or in his or her 80s. So you can imagine the fiasco
that can happen when you drop your married name off your Facebook
profile or change the relationship status from “ooh we’re in love and
married” to “it’s complicated” or worse, “it’s dunzo.” I tried to do the
slick thing and simply remove my relationship status on my profile, but
whenever you see the “ask” next to relationship status, we all know
it’s code for “it’s over, kids.”
Dropping the married name from my profile was a decision that induced considerable angst.
Will everyone message me frantically asking what’s going on? Will
people post condolences on my timeline? Will my ex’s family notice (of
course they will!), and when they do, will they still want to be my
Facebook friend, and more importantly, will they still like me now that
I’m just a distant part of their family, not related by marriage but
related by my child? The day I dropped the Hernandez from Lifshitz felt
monumental to me. To other folks, it was barely a blip in the news feed,
but for me, it opened the door to the world. Facebook, we are getting a
divorce.
But the biggest
choice after changing your profile name and perhaps deleting an ex (I
didn’t) is: do you keep your ex’s family as social media friends?
For many
people, deleting an ex’s family on social media may be a no-brainer. I
had a friend once ask me if I thought it would be OK to get rid of some
of her ex’s family on Facebook, and I said sure, as long as she didn’t
have close relationships with these people. The relationships weren’t
essential to her, and at some point, having privacy from the past as
you’re heading into the future can be key. Some family members may also
not be your best friends once you announce you’re getting the “D” word,
so imagining a bunch of people scowling at your statuses, tweets, and
photos may be enough for you to want to “unfriend.” But for me, the
choice isn’t so black and white. All of my ex’s family who are my
Facebook friends are lovely people. When I made the divorce
“social-media official,” I had the opposite conundrum: I worried that
they would delete me. That they would hate me.
For me, I chose to keep the
family on my social media accounts due to two factors. To start, my ex
is very quiet and is not into social media, so he doesn’t post a lot.
I’m the one, like many other moms, sharing photos, moments, and videos
of my daughter for all to see. We have a small family, and to cut off
that tie to these moments in our daughter’s life would be horrible for
them and also for my kid down the line. It’s not the same as seeing her,
but it still gives them some knowledge of her life and the ability to
connect/create a dialogue when they see her with my ex, or perhaps with
me. I also happen to like these people very, very much, which I know
doesn’t happen in all divorce situations. My ex’s cousins are some of my
favorite people. When we would visit them, we all got along very well.
Just their positivity, warmth, and company helped our moods. I am not
sure if I will see them again, and this upsets me greatly. How do you
have a consistent relationship with family members on your ex’s side
after divorce, or any relationship at all? What is the protocol? Do I
ask them to be my friend? Do I let the relationship happen organically?
And what would my ex prefer? Would he rather I didn’t see them ever?
When
it comes to all of this, I still haven’t figured out what is the most
appropriate or right thing to do. Divorce is like an obstacle course: as
you go along, some parts of the course are easily navigable, and other
parts, you find yourself struggling to get over. Eventually, you get to
the finish line as a more exhausted but hopefully stronger “you.”
My
current strategy is to keep up to date on social media with the family
members I know fairly well by posting comments and “likes,” along with
an occasional message. I do this so they know that I care about them
despite losing my Hernandez and so they know that being a part of my
child’s life still matters to me.
For
the lesser-known family members that are my friends (I have a few that
are states away), this at least gives them a chance to see photos of our kid and watch her grow.
As much as social media can cause harm, it’s also really helpful for
maintaining long-distance friendships and family relationships. Maybe
one day if I date someone it may be awkward. Would they want to see me
smiling next to another dude? And, sure, on bad days when my ex has made
me sad or hurt me, it makes choosing what to post on social media
difficult but crucial. Being mature in divorce, while hard at times, is
absolutely necessary.
The
moral of this Facebook story? For those of you with toxic ex family
members to deal with, delete those suckers today. You don’t want them
stalking your every date, move, and check-in. But for those of us with
some great ex family members, consider how deleting them removes them
from the kids — and from you. The next battle to deal with is whether
you keep your ex on social media or not, but that’s a whole ‘nother
story, kids!
Culled from yahoo
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