If you’re asking yourself whether or not social media destroys relationships, then you’ve probably found yourself in a difficult situations thanks to Facebook or Instagram.
How Social Media Destroys Relationships
- Social media is used for stalking
- Social media creates more jealousy
- Ex lovers can easily find you and create problems
- There is no privacy and your sins can haunt you
- You can never leave the past behind
Before we get into how social media destroys relationships, let’s take a look at an email from a reader who is experiencing the harsh reality of social media himself. My response can be seen below in bold.
Note: all names and personal information have been changed for privacy reason.
Hello, Chris. Well, i have to say, for starters, that I brought all this mess upon myself…I cheated with another girl last year (before I was serious about my current relationship) and my fiancé found out about it. I met my fiancé Katy in 2016 and casually dated, until we seriously became exclusive around the end of that year.
When Katy and I became more serious, I began drifting away from Liz (the other woman), and began spending tons of time with Katy. Liz was a friend who i was occasionally messed around with. Katy and I fell in love, and we were building wonderful memories together. We were supposed to get married this year, in fact I am not sure if it’s going to still happen.
Anyway, before I felt serious with Katy, I had fun with Liz last year, the last time was toward the end of last May, at which point, I genuinely felt a great, huge, sense of remorse and guilt, and told Liz that I am done and that I can’t see her anymore.
Well, fast forward a year later and Liz finds out about Katy via Facebook. She must have done some snooping around and found pictures of me and Katy on Facebook.
Facebook is nightmare made real. Any form of privacy is instantly eroded the moment you use Facebook, and you won’t be able to get it back completely until you deactivate your social media account.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen relationships destroyed by Facebook or Instagram. My advice is to get off Facebook and social media—it creates more problems and gives little benefit in return.
Unless you’re running a business, social media is a net negative in the world as opposed to a net positive.
So, Liz calls me, extremely upset, saying that she found out about me being engaged. I was engaged to Liz back in 2015, we lasted four months until i broke it off with her… I was not in love with her), which i felt it wasn’t any of her business to know about Katy, we were not even a couple in a relationship). Again, it’s worth repeating. I only fooled around with Liz because I wasn’t in love with Katy yet. The moment I fell in love with Katy, I broke up with her.
I don’t judge. You have to follow your heart and it sounds as though that is what you did. It’s also none of Liz’s business you’re right, and it has nothing to do with her if you’re in a relationship with Katy. You didn’t make any commitments to Liz after you broke up with her. You didn’t get into a committed relationship with her.
By this time, I am feeling a lot of anxiety, panic, and fear, because i am sensing what Liz threatened me with is going to come to pass. Liz begins to drop subtle text reminders that she is doing her best to restrain the hounds-from-hell, from unceasing the truth… she is telling me that i better tell Katy the truth… I’m feeling extreme fear and pressure at this point
I’ve been in similar situations myself and seen thousands of other men placed in situations like this. It’s brutal. What starts out as an innocent bit of fun between to consenting adults, quickly spirals out of control and becomes a living nightmare.
Liz was fooling herself into thinking that she would eventually get together with you. When she realized that you weren’t emotionally invested in her and were more into Katy, she decides that if she can’t have you, she’ll burn you to the ground. Like a lot of scorned women, they’ll destroy themselves and destroy you in the process.
So, anyway, Liz calls me, asks the question why, how come, why didn’t you tell me you got engaged to Katy.
That is when I put my foot down and really backed off and blew Liz off. Now, I am really focusing on Katy, and going full steam ahead with our wedding plans, then, I begin to received text messages from Liz that it was not fair to Katy or her, that I kept Liz a secret, while messing around and two-timing Katy, and vice-versa.
Liz begins to tell me “man, i never saw this coming, i hope you do the honorable thing, the right thing, and tell Katy about me, because you can not have secrets in your marriage.
It’s not her marriage and it’s none of her business. Telling Katy is NOT the honorable thing to do, it is the cruel thing to do.
Women often have this stupid, immature belief that honesty is the best policy in all situations—it is not.
Honesty can be cruel and unnecessary, as it would be in this situation. Katy doesn’t need to know about your past (mistakes) with Liz because you are now 100% committed to Katy and you changed the way you feel about her.
But I know you will because you are a stand-up guy, and you will tell her. By the way, I have friends on Facebook who are very upset at the fact that you cheated on her with me, and they want to tell Katy everything, but since i care about you as my friend, I’m trying rrrrreallly hard to keep them back, i’m telling them that John will take care of it. So you better do it soon…). Liz would love nothing more than to see things disintegrate between me and Katy.
Ever seen that movie Fatal Attraction? This is what this is beginning to feel like. Liz is loading on the threats here. Just because she can’t see you anymore, she’s decided that she will destroy you if she can’t be with you.
Her friends couldn’t give a shit what you did, it’s all her. She’s not holding anyone back, she’s holding herself back.
Well, i am just hoping that she is blowing smoke and will not tell Katy anything, but it didn’t happen that way.
There is no way that she is blowing smoke, she can’t help herself and she will do something to try and destroy your happiness. Misery loves company.
On the day Katy and I were out looking at curtains for our new apartment, Katy receives a message on Facebook from a woman whom i do not know who it is, telling Katy about Liz and me, I felt that i could have died at that very moment.
The message is from Liz (using a fake account). Same thing happened to me. Same thing has happened to a lot of guys I’ve dealt with. She isn’t going to directly do it from her own account because she doesn’t want to be seen to be that cruel or nasty, but she is.
She is the only one with the motivation to do it. No one else is going to care enough or be that mean to send such a message and try to destroy your relationship.
The look on Katy’s face was so painful and devastated, she turned to me and asked if this was true, that if she was gonna stand up for us, she needed to truth.
Let me say, I knew of two things from the beginning of us courting, that we deal breakers for Katy, and one of them was cheating. I had to tell her the truth….and she said “you son of a bitch, i gave you everything” and left me.
Now, we did talk the morning after, and this only lead into us talking about our mess, or my mess. Chris, she is devastated, crushed, i had everything a guy could ever want in a woman, she was great, is great. She gave 150% of her time, resources, family, friends, everything, she looked up to me and was so proud of us. She blasted pictures of us and our vacations all over Facebook, Chris, i absolutely am crushed!
Again, Facebook is evil. This would never have happened in the age before social media. Liz would never have known about Katy and she would never have gotten her contact details.
I really feel for you man. This is a difficult situation to deal with. Liz truly f#@ked you over. What’s worse is that she knew her actions could destroy your relationship and that’s why she did it. She didn’t want you to be happy. She wanted to ruin your relationship to make herself happy.
The best way to approach this is to let her know that, yes, it happened. It was a huge mistake. The reason why Liz got mad was because she realized that you were 100% committed to Katy and that you didn’t want to see her again.
Also, tell Katy that Liz just wants to destroy your relationship because you wouldn’t see Liz again and you had no feelings for her.
Tell her that, yes, you cheated. It was just sex, no love, no emotion from you. Also, you must tell her that you weren’t 100% committed to her before this happened, but the moment you fell truly, madly deeply in love, you cut Liz off.
Chris, i am terrified that she will only ask the questions, so that she can walk away. She even told me that she wanted to know why, so that she can have closure.
She wants closure on this issue, not you. She loves you and she will try to save the relationship if she can. But it’s going to be a tough one to get through, I can’t deny that.
For now, don’t call her, give her space and let her come to you when she’s ready to talk. Even though it’s going to be tough you have to make sure that she is the one who is reaching out to you to talk about this issue. She will definitely continue to reach out to you.
And now, she wants to ask more questions, but i am so scared to face those questions.
Conceal the hard truths. You don’t need to tell her everything. Keep it low-key. Omit all the details that she doesn’t need to know. Breast fondling, kissing, whatever it is, don’t go into the sordid details.
I have already tried a couple of times to beg her to believe me and plead with her to meet me so that we can calmly talk about all this, and work on saving us. What do you think, Chris?
Stop begging her. Even if you cheated on her, you mustn’t keep apologizing for your mistakes. If you do, she will get turned off by you and pull away.
Fixing Social Media Damage
You must have an attitude of indifference and be strong here. Tell her that yes, you cheated, you never wanted to hurt her. But to you it was nothing, meaningless.
You have no feelings for this other woman. Tell her that the moment you fell in love with her and knew it, you were 100% committed to her.
All she needs to know is that you love her, not the other woman. No more begging. No more apologizing. No more trying to plead to win her back.
Tell her that you understand she needs space and it’s also a shock for you because you thought you left this other woman behind and had moved on.
Tell her you respect her and will give her the space she needs to heal and if she can find forgiveness, you will be there for her.
If you do this, she will come back and she will forgive you. But she will never forget what you did and she will keep talking about it for as long as you’re together. There is, unfortunately, no way to avoid this.
If you cheated on a girl once, she will remember forever and she will throw it back in your face whenever she is upset with you or you make a mistake.
It doesn’t mean the relationship is over, it just means that you’re going to have to listen to this issue being dredged up as long as you stay in a relationship with her.
Even if you marry her and you’re with her until death do you part, you will hear about it 30 years from now when she’s upset with you.
That can’t be avoided, it just comes down to the way that women process memories and emotions.
Any time she feels a negative emotion about you, it will trigger a negative memory from the past.
You’ll be wondering why she keeps brining it up, but don’t let it affect you. Once the issue is past, move on and don’t let it rattle you anymore.
The only thing that will destroy you and the relationship here is your anxiety and fear of losing her.
That’s why I say, if you’re going to cheat, only do it when you’re not scared to lose the girl, then you will have nothing to worry about.
I can tell you that I’ve been in this situation a couple of times and I’ve got the girl back every time. The reason is because I didn’t apologize to excess and I owned my actions and behavior.
Social Media Kills Love
Also, get off social media because these platforms really do cause more problems than you can imagine.
I’ve seen so many relationships derailed and destroyed by jealous partners, scorned women, and bitter ex girlfriends—all thanks to social media destroying relationships.
It’s now my belief that social media is toxic. Social media is a breeding ground for jealousy, narcissim, revenge and toxic behavior.
There are some benefits to social media, especially if you’re running a business.
Other than that, social media will do nothing to improve your life and it can put you under tremendous threat and stress if you make a mistake.
My advice is to shut down Facebook above Instagram. Facebook is more intrusive and potentially hazardous.
Instagram can still cause problems if you’re not careful and you haven’t screened every single one of your followers.
If you live a clean life, social media will still intrude into your privacy as it continues to collect data on you. So, it’s good to be aware of this and be careful.
If you are flirting with danger, like the reader in the email above, then I advise you to shut down the majority of your social media accounts and upgrade your privacy settings.
It will make you more mysterious and a challenge if you are only on one platform, posting less frequently.
*Prevention is the best cure. The reader in this story could have avoided trouble if his security settings had been locked down on his account.
If you have any “troublemakers” in your life who could potentially sniff around and cause you damage, remove and block them from social media.
Social media is becoming an increasing problem in society.
There is no hard data to support the effects that social media has on relationships, but I can tell you, from the amount of situations I deal with on a daily basis—the majority of problems these days stem from social media.
You have been warned. Social media does destroy relationships.