# Husbands Facebook Account makes me uneasy - should there be ground rules?



## wife911 (Sep 7, 2009)

I am married for 6 years and I have a young child. My husband started an account on facebook several months ago and I was not happy about it. Mainly because I didn;t really understand why he would want to publicise his identity (we are both in law enforcement) Anyhow, one day he showed me a picture of himself in grammar school that someone had sent him. I told him that I wanted to see his account and after some huffin and puffin on his side he showed it to me. I was alarmed to learn that he did not disclose his marital status but he did state that he was a police officer. At this time he only had a picture of a car as his profile pic and that was all. I felt like he should have listed that he was married and that he should delete his profession. He agreed and changed both. I was still very concerned that he didnt disclosed his marital status. I let it go and several months later I was curious about his account so I set up my own account and started checking out his friends. since I wasn't a friend of his I could only see pictures of his friends. As I was scrolling down his list of friends I ran into a pic of an exgirlfriend.(this made me crazy) I obsessed with comparing several names with that of his other friends accounts to see who was who. there were lots of women whom I have never heard of. Also, as I looked his other friends accounts i noticed how the married friends had a pic of their families or a pic of themselves with their wives. This made me incredibly jealous, I have to admit. Why didn't my husband include our family photo like everyone else? Or was he trying to pass himself off as a single man for some reason? It made me sick to my stomach everytime I would see someone elses acccount which had a family photo for their profile. Why had't my husband done the same? 

The next day I confronted him about it and he told me that he didn't think I wanted a pic of us on the web. That same day we both selected a photo and he posted it for his profile. this made me feel better. That day several people commented on his hair (he had long hair in HS and now is short) I don't think he shared it all with me but it obviously received attention. A couple of weeks later I created my account of FB and I wanted to request him as a friend since he had not initiated it and I wanted to have his as a friend since after all he is my husband. Well, to my surprise I could not locate him anywhere. Not even on the friends that we have in common. I figured he changed his security settings but why did he do that now? He has had his account for well over 8 months? I thought that he might have deleted our photo or something so I became very upset and distraught. I could not make sense of it. 

Also, when I would search his name of google I could find his profile with thumbnail pics of a few of his friends which one was his EX. Great for the whole world to see his EX but no signs of his wife. I was terribly hurt.

That morning I asked him if he had deleted my photo and he said no, then I said did you change your sec settings and he said no. I asked him to log into his account and I saw him enter an email address that I never knew he had (he also hoverered over the keyboard so that I could not see him enter his password) he showed me his account and I saw our picture. He then said that he was going to deactivate his account because he didn"t want to have any more arguments about FB. I asked him not to do that because it wasn't necessary. i just wanted to know why I couldn't find him and why he had this new email address. He didnt explain much but he deactivated and then deleted his account. I think he overeacted and I still believe that there was something he was hiding from me. 

This is making me crazy because I feel like he was trying to pass off as a single man, since at first he didnt have his marital status and then he didnt have a pic of us until I told him to post one up. Should I be upset with him on this? I feel really insecure about this whole thing. Especially when I see his exgirlfriend listed as a friend but his own wife cant locate him. This devastated me!

Has anyone else had a similiar situation? should ex girlfriends be part of his friends list?


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## Treadingcarefully (Sep 1, 2009)

wife911 said:


> Has anyone else had a similiar situation? should ex girlfriends be part of his friends list?


Overall, you MAY be over-reacting. Hard to say without knowing other stuff.
For example, on my Facebook account, I don't list my marital status or my age, but about 3/4 of the people I have as FB friends know me in person, so they know I have a wife, two kids.
The rest, are contacts for business or involved in some human rights campaign or another (mostly they are in an other country) so as far as I'm concerned, my marital status is irrelevant to that purpose. I never updated it. It doesn't say 'single' or 'looking for a relationship'... it's just blank. However, my status messages are often things like '... is tired because the baby hardly slept last night'... so it's not like I'm pretending to be single and available. 

It depends how he uses FB. I don't try to conduct my social life primarily online, and I don't try to make new friends that way, so it's not someplace I expect to meet the love of my life. My wife isn't on facebook, but if she was, she'd probably find my account boring!

My wife was also suspicious when I went on facebook. I didn't tell her I had a facebook account, because, I dunno, it didn't even seem like an interesting event. The next week a friend commented on a petition I'd set up on FB, and my wife got very suspicious. 
Now, I would re-assure her, but I'm not going to give her my passwords and stuff. I don't ask her for her passwords to check on her e-mails. 
We had an argument one time that she went through my backpack. Of course, there's never anything unusual in there, but I thought it was an invasion of privacy. Not sure what she thought she'd find. ... well, we have trust issues, but I try not to feed her worries by being even more private in retaliation for her snoopiness, but at the same time, there has to be healthy boundaries and if she is worried about something, she should ask first. 

As for the ex-girlfriend... it depends again on how they see each other now, not how they were when they were together. 
If it was someone he cheated on you with, I wouldn't accept it.
But if it was a relationship he had before he met you, and it ended in the normal course of things, there's no reason they can't be friends, if they both accepted that it ended, and they've moved on. 
One of my ex girlfriends married a friend of mine. I have no unresolved feelings and I can look at her as a friend and nothing more. It doesn't bother my friend if she e-mails me about something (granted, the e-mails are 3/4 business, with a paragraph of updates on their kids and asking about ours).
We've never tried to revisit our relationship. It ran it's course when we were younger.

I once went on a skiing holiday with my wife, and we met up with a group of people, including one of her ex-boyfriends. We all got along fine. 

So, I guess what I'm saying is, don't automatically assume he's cheating unless they're some other evidence. 
Tell him you'd like him to send you a friend request, but don't crowd him. Men do resent it when it seems that they can have no corner of their life that you don't look into.

I'd say keep a watchful eye on it, but don't push too hard that it creates bitterness.


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## wife911 (Sep 7, 2009)

Thank you so much! I really don't think he is up to anything, I guess I felt like I wasn't special when he didn't list he was married or posted a pic of us. He wasnt updating his account much so I really dont know if he ever commented on his family life, but I do know that he used it to network with some of his older friends. As far as the ex is concerned he said that he had not been with her for over 14 years. He has never cheated on me but I can't help but to hate him having a facebook account. He did delete it but I never got to really look at it prior to that so I really don't know if there really was something he was trying to hide. I can't help but feel that way. Largely because of the strange new email address. This situation along with to other issues where I caught him lying to me have made me feel insecure. 

Another incident occured when he went out with his buddies drinking and I was home taking care of our child. He came home late that night (drunk) and I decided i was going to check his cell phone, only to discover a txt frm some girl and in it said something about meeting you and a sexy outfit she was wearing. I called her and she said her name to me. (this was about 6 months ago) He told me that she worked with him and she was just around the area and they told her to come out to hang out. Problem is I never knew he was hanging out with girls too. I was enraged because who the hell is this girl txt my husband about a sexy outfit she was wearing. He said that she is fat ugly you name it. By the way she was on his facebook account (no pic) that made me even more suspicious about his facebook account. I have never really gotten over this incident because it has distorted my image of what he really does when he hangs out with his friends at a bar. I now give him a really hard time when he goes out with his friends. I am so tempted to following him out one day to see what he does and who is hanging out with. I don't want to look like a jealous wife to his friends but i don't trust him. My husband is very friendly and knows alot of people. however, I think that as a married man he should not be in a bar past midnight. that night he got home at almost 2am. I didn't sleep until he got home. I never resolved this issue with him about this gril. I have never met her, he never brings her up and I don't even know how long he has known her. Should I pursue this some more and also should I confront this girl even thought this happend 6 months ago?


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## KeepLoveAlive (Sep 7, 2009)

I understand you feel suspicious but I think you are going about it all wrong. For example, with the Facebook incident all you had to do was set up your account, tell him you couldn't find him and wanted to friend him, give him your address so he could find you and invite you. Forcing him to show you everything might have been extreme.

Although you are both in law enforcemenet, so I would imagine you both are bit more suspicious than most.  Which is understandable.

But you ARE sounding like the jealous wife and you are putting him on the defensive so he may feel the need to avoid you or lie just to avoid an argument.

You need to find a way to trust him without driving him away.

Nina


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## wife911 (Sep 7, 2009)

Nina you are soo right. And I really needed to hear it. I think that I am driving myself and my husband crazy. I tried to explain to my husband why I felt the way I did but the conversation escalated to an argument. He told me that he didn't want to be asked the same question repeatedly. I am ruining our relationship with my insecurities. I guess I just want him to reassure me by answering my questions in order for me to fully understand what his thought process was at the time. I also fear that he withholds information from me because he does not want to upset me. He called me later and told me that had he known that night would bring him so many problems he would have never gone out that night. I also wish he hadn't. 

I work with all men and he told me that he is sometimes insecure when I travel with these guys. However, he is trying to equate me going out to dinner with my coworkers while we are working with the scenario I mentioned above. I really think he is trying to make it seem as though I am doing something wrong. He keeps saying that it is a double standard. He has never had a problem with it before but now it's like he is nitpicking at me. I guess I brought it on with my accusations. He did tell me that he is 150 devoted to our relationship and that he would never risk losing our family for another woman. I love him.

How can I fix this? What should I do or say to him so that we can continue to live our lives happily.


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## mrnice (Aug 11, 2009)

My wife wanted me to put DIVORCED on mine and she did on hers, just to spark a whole bunch of S**** up, but there was more to it then that. All hell broke loose not long after that.


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## Treadingcarefully (Sep 1, 2009)

mrnice said:


> My wife wanted me to put DIVORCED on mine and she did on hers, just to spark a whole bunch of S**** up, but there was more to it then that. All hell broke loose not long after that.


Ouch. That's harsh.


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## sisters359 (Apr 9, 2009)

I only use FB for old friends, so I don't need to indicate my marital status. Also, especially for someone in law enforcement, there might be security concerns. I am very careful about my security settings since I have pics of my kids on FB. I think you overreacted, at least somewhat. He was right to delete his account if it was making you crazy. Also, many people have lots of email accounts b/c you often need one to join something or do something on line, but don't want to give your "real" account which may be for important professional or personal stuff--so they are just "junk" accounts. I have so many I don't remember 'em, so I have to make more! I don't have anything sent from FB to my main one, however, b/c nothing on FB is that important. I use a secondary one I still remember


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## revitalizedhusband (Feb 9, 2009)

I think you are over-reacting.

1. You made it quite clear originally that you wanted nothing to do with FB and didn't think he should either, so he probably assumed saying or posting anything about you on there would cause an issue. After all, you didn't want him to "reveal his identity on the internet". So, this caused him to not put any information about you, either married status or a picture, both of which you got mad about later.

2. All 3 times you asked him to do anything he did it immediately without question, he changed his status, took off his occupation, add a picture of you, logged into the account right in front of you, etc. Unless he has given you reason to not trust him before (like cheated on you, etc) then I 100% believe you are over-reacting.


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## dobo (Jun 30, 2009)

I think what bothers me about this situation is that instead of talking to him about the dangers of facebook and the things that make you nervous about it, you're monitoring his behavior and getting paranoid. Wouldn't it be better/faster/more effective/direct/less damaging to simply have the discussion and let it be?

I know you don't want to tell him what to do but if I were him, I'd be getting tired of your micromanaging style on this issue.


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## mae (Aug 17, 2009)

Just to put in my 2 cents, my husband has a bunch of girls on his myspace that I don't know. This doesn't bother me but at one point he started talking too much to his ex-girlfriend (whom he almost asked to marry him) and this did bother me. I talked to him about it and so instead of not doing it anymore, he kept doing it but tried to hide it by deleting the messages and not opening his messages in front of me. I'm not stupid and noticed his behaviour so checked his account and sure enough, he was still talking to her. So having a discussion doesn't necessarily handle the problem if there is one, it could just make them more secretive about it.

If there is no reason not to trust him I would definitely back off, but if you do have valid reason to be worried like other signs that something is wrong (like he's spending too much time on his facebook and being very secretive about it, etc.), then I say snoop away and confront him on whatever you find. My husband could read all of my emails, myspace or facebook messages and I would have nothing to worry about so he should be the same.


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## outinthecold (Apr 30, 2009)

Is it just innocent fun you should not poke your nose into?

or is trust in the way?

Which is it?

a man needs a cave, maybe this is his cave?


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## mrnice (Aug 11, 2009)

outinthecold said:


> Is it just innocent fun you should not poke your nose into?
> 
> or is trust in the way?
> 
> ...


Yeh I'll go with the cave thingy but FB shouldn't be used as a cave it can get you into trouble.

I think this is the best ground rule to use when using FB.

You both should agree to have access to each others FB account. Should know each others username and password. 

It's as easy as that. 

If he says no, then YES he is hiding something for sure.
If I change my password I tell my wife. If she changes her's she is expected to tell me. 

I certainly don't think it is a private thing in marriage not to have access to each others FB account cause it would be deemed to be hiding something from each other and then TRUST will be an issue.


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## wife911 (Sep 7, 2009)

Thanks for everyone's comments. I have talked about this to a few friends and some of them tell me that they and their husbands have agreed not to have a facebook account because it is trouble. 

Some of my girlfriends have an account they use to share pics with family and friends (their husbands do not have accounts) Since my husband has already deleted his I don't think this will any longer be an issue. It really bothered me that he had this secret life of old friends who were getting in touch with him. He had the phone alerts so he was getting quite a bit of contact from it and I never really new from who. I am not a micromanager but this issue was very sensitive to me. 

Does any one out there have any ground rules for there facebook account with their spouse? Does anyone share one account with their spouse?


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## preso (May 1, 2009)

wife911...

I've noticed whenever someone gets a divorce, the first thing they do is open a facebook account.


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## sisters359 (Apr 9, 2009)

I would let any adult look at my FB account. If I want to hide something, that wouldn't be the place to do it! FB is for superficial connections--daily stuff, etc. I call or email with more personal stuff. Anyone posting highly personal stuff on FB is an idiot. Yes, folks could be using their private message options, but that's the same as email--and of course, if they are, then there is already a problem; FB does not CAUSE the problem!!


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## dobo (Jun 30, 2009)

Why are you worried about old friends? Old girlfriends, that's different. But old friends in general? 

His secrecy was wrong. But your reaction to him wasn't any better. He responded like a lot of men (unfortunately), by taking what he was doing underground. Very immature. He should have just stood up to you. If you don't watch it, knowing that he'll do this sort of thing when you'er overbearing, he will act out. You need him to bring things to the surface, not to burry them.

Anyway, my husband and I have individual facebook accounts, we are both friended and tagged as spouses. 

As you know, you can sign up for alerts when your friends have activity. That doesn't mean anyone was contacting him specifically. He was just monitoring what they posted. I suspect after a while he would have gotten tired of getting so many alerts and would have turned it off. I think kids enjoy that sort of thing more than adults. 

My husband and I don't have FB groundrules. We have relationship groundrules.


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## carmaenforcer (Mar 7, 2008)

*wife911*
You are not over reacting, there should be ground rules in all relationships and social situations but especially in "marriages".

In a perfect world, it would be nice to have your cake and eat it too, be able to keep all your nice, hot ex's as "friends" on a shelf there waiting for the opportunity to rekindle something, while having a faithful husband or wife at home when you need them but in the real world you are just adding to the long list of problems that can come up in a marriage and pretty much sabotaging it, the larger and more complicated your social network is.

A good friend of mines marriage is on the rocks right now over an EA (*e*motional *a*ffair),maybe more, that his wife had with an ex boy friend from high school that she has been in constant contact with through out their 13 year marriage. She is now *I*nstant *M*essaginging with dude, while supposedly putting their daughter to bed and instead keeping her up to the point that she complained to her Dad. Saying things like, I can't sleep because mommy's on the phone texting all night. 
Talk about disrespecting and a complete disregard to "boundaries". 

Unfortunately a person is innocent until proven guilty and only guilty after being caught red handed or until enough evidence can be collected to know for sure. No good will come of overly stressing about all the what if's and what can happens, does not mean you can't snoop.

Hang in there and good luck.


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