Relationships are only as complicated as people make them.
However, when it comes to a digital world where it is so easy to keep
connections long past their prime, I got to wondering:
Should you keep your exes on your Facebook?
For me, the answer is simple. It’s a hearty and resounding
HELL NO.
Why?
Because even if the breakup was amicable or fraught with fights
and ugliness, I think it’s more difficult than we care to admit to ourselves to
watch someone we once cared about, or even were in love with at one point, move
on, be happy; find someone new.
In fact, I think it’s more damaging to us than what we would
like to admit.
Allow me to elaborate.
I have seen women go and look at profiles of old boyfriends
who are now married with children almost instantly become fraught with
insecurity and feelings of “not being good enough because he didn’t choose them”
that it drove them to deactivate their account for several days.
Essentially you are forcing yourself to relive that
loss over and over and over again…and, even worse, forcing yourself to feel
like you aren’t “good enough” because one person didn’t choose you.
But...Why?
That’s just plain stupid.
It’s like leaving a door open that the Universe has shut for
a reason. It’s giving people ways to wiggle back into a space where they no
longer belong. It’s allowing you unspoken permission to reach out in a weak
moment to communicate with said ex, putting you in a situation where your heart
could once again be damaged and broken. It puts your future relationships in jeopardy
as jealous exes might just resurface once they see you are now happy and
content without them. It causes unnecessary drama.
Because, if we are being honest, some people just can’t deal
with that. Because some people have toddler toy syndrome, “I don’t want that
toy anymore, but I sure as hell don’t want anyone else playing with that toy,
either. So I am going to throw a massive tantrum....just because.”
All in all, keeping exes on your social media is always bad
news in my book.
Granted, it’s not as if my dating resume is lengthy. I dated
about four guys before I got married when I was 17 and two after my divorce in
2012…and kept the last one. I never slept around, I have only ever been
intimate with people who I was either dating or on the verge of dating. I can
count all of my “lovers” on a single hand. So maybe my experience is over
simplifying a complex scenario. Or, maybe simple is exactly what this scenario
needs to be.
Think of it this way, prior to the dawn of social media,
once an ex was an ex, you had to make a far larger effort to reconnect with
them. Now? You can scroll in your newsfeed and feel that pang, that twinge that….whatever
each time they post a photo or change their relationship status. A feeling you
probably shouldn’t allow yourself to feel anymore.
Forcing and insisting on keeping open connections that
should have long since been shut is akin to living in the past, reliving things
long gone and holding you prisoner to what ifs, could have beens and maybes.
And, frankly, that isn’t a very happy place to live.
Why put your future at risk because of someone from your
past?
So, my question to you is this: Should your exes live on
your Facebook or should they be plunged into the pixelated darkness from whence
they came once it’s “over”?
Leave a comment below, and let me know what YOU think.
