# Help! - Wife has Facebook/Social Media Addiction



## caringhusband

Hi, my name is Brian. I am an engineer for a large manufacturing company. I work a standard 8hr day.
My wife stays at home with our 3 kids, ages 4, 8, & 9. She is a blogger and home schools our kids. Her blog is her fun thing to do during the day. It is a simple blog and not huge so I can understand some of what she does on the computer and her phone.
But these are some of the situations I am running into for the last year or so:
When I walk in the door in the evenings, she is almost always sitting at her computer. Usually multiple messes in the kitchen.
When home schooling, at times, she stays in her chair at her computer and tries to helps the kids from there instead of sitting with them one on one. (About 20% of the time.) When she does this, if they start to "bother" her too much she gets frustrated with them. Her computer is right next to the kitchen table where they do their work. About 50 percent of the time, she sits at the table with them and helps them while she is using her phone. The other 30 percent of the time she is actually fully engaged with them. On an average day, it take about 3 hrs for our two oldest to get done with their work.
If the kids make a mess, unless it is big, she doesn't always clean up after them, so I come home from work and there are at least a few messes in various places around the house and she likes for me to clean them up.
She says she does the simple housework like dusting, etc. but things usually remain dusty.
She frequently forgets to put things on our online calendar, after her being the one saying "We should use it for everything, all the time."
She is frequently late dropping the kids off to activities due to her unpreparedness of when it is time to leave. She sits in front of the computer until it is time....oh wait, I have to get this/that/kids no shoes, where did my keys go?, etc.
She rarely "comes to find me" for intimacy....I usually have to be the one to initiate. Then it is always: "I will be there in a few minutes." I sometimes thinks she likes her Facebook things more than me.
She rarely finds me and says let do do 'something'.
We usually watch TV in the evenings. If she doesn't like the show she will stay seated at her computer doing things. If she does like the show or partially likes it, she will sit on the couch with me and be looking at her phone ~75% of the time.
When she hears something big happening, she is slow to respond to go see what is happening. Likes kids jumping off their dresser onto their beds....knowing that for the bed to brake like it did, they had to be doing it multiple times over a few minutes.
When she uses the restroom at home she always has her phone with her and it frequently takes 20-30 minutes or an interruption from one of the kids for her to be done.
She rarely has a formal lunch time with the kids anymore. They are now basically snackers all day now. They rarely eat a full lunch and now for dinner they are never hungry or want snack type items instead.
She cooks but doesn't like too. When she does she seems to be in a hurry to get back to whatever she was doing in her digital realm.

She lets other things lax consistently, like:
- Making the kids clean their rooms and make their beds every day.
- Making them get dressed and wear normal clothes instead of pajamas around the house.
- Making them get up and start school at a consistent time.
- Making them following rules like keeping food in the kitchen, put toys away after use, etc.
- Having the kids clean up after themselves.
- Making the kids wear shoes when playing outside, helmets when riding bikes.
- Cleaning up after herself, leaves dirty clothes and her stuff sitting around in convenient at the time places.
- Making sure the kids don't get too many snack from the pantry.
- General un-attentiveness to what the kids are doing around her, even in the same room.

I have to give her kudos though for not using her phone when she is driving....at least she doesn't when I am with her.

When I have mentioned to her that she may have a Facebook/social media addiction, she gets defensive saying it is hard being at home with the kids, you should tell me when I do good things more often instead of complaining about the mess, etc. She says she cleans up messes all the time that I don't see. Trying to put the blame towards me.

So my question is: Am I living in a dream world and expecting too much from her with 3 kids in the house or does she have a problem? When we got married she always said she looked forward to having kids and doing the housework, homeschooling, giving them a structured environment, etc. Where is that? Should I be irritated or not? I have also been browsing the symptoms of adult ADD and starting to wonder if she has a slight addiction but some slight ADD as well which could be making it worse.

I am struggling with what to do next. What should I do? Comments?/Suggestions?/Questions?

Thanks!


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## browser

Put the kids in a real school and tell her to get off her A$$ and get a real job.

You can use some of the extra cash from her new job to hire a housekeeper.


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## Hope1964

This post, for some reason, reminded me of a Malcolm in the Middle episode where the parents decided to give up sex and suddenly had all this energy to clean up their yard, fix the house, clean, cook, and all the stuff they didn't do when they had lots of sex. Then they started having sex again, and everything went to pot.

Challenge her to go without her devices for a day and see what she says. Tell her you'll take her out for a $200 dinner if she can do it.

She totally needs some kind of intervention from what you've posted.


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## prunus

browser said:


> Put the kids in a real school and tell her to get off her A$$ and get a real job.
> 
> You can use some of the extra cash from her new job to hire a housekeeper.


There is absolutely nothing wrong with homeschooling, if done properly.

OP, have your kids do tests at the state level and see where they stand. If they are doing good, I'd let some of it slide, but definitely not the social media/Facebook/computer/phone addiction. I would have ripped it out of her hands by now.


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## browser

prunus said:


> There is absolutely nothing wrong with homeschooling, if done properly.


Doesn't sound like it's being done properly to me. 

How can the kids learn when the teacher is only giving them 30% of her attention?


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## sokillme

prunus said:


> There is absolutely nothing wrong with homeschooling, if done properly.
> 
> OP, have your kids do tests at the state level and see where they stand. If they are doing good, I'd let some of it slide, but definitely not the social media/Facebook/computer/phone addiction. I would have ripped it out of her hands by now.


The point is she has too much free time I think.


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## prunus

browser said:


> Doesn't sound like it's being done properly to me.
> 
> How can the kids learn when the teacher is only giving them 30% of her attention?


That would really depend on the program being used by the teacher and how well the child can learn on their own. But, younger kids tend to need more attention and guidance. If she is self teaching than 30% isn't enough time spent with the kids in my opinion, but if she's using DVDs or online teaching that's a little different.

Also, OP, are you home with her all day, every day? How do you know it's 30%. I'm not saying it isn't. I'm just curious where you go the percentage from.


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## prunus

sokillme said:


> The point is she has too much free time I think.


Or, maybe she doesn't have enough free time, as in by herself or with friends so uses her devices to make up for it. 

Maybe she feels unappreciated and has stopped doing as much at home. I know I went through a period of time like that. Maybe she's just lazy.


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## caringhusband

The kids are doing well, but I don't want them to start slipping backwards. Also, I don't want them to become resentful and think they can parent like that as well when they become parents. My main point is that it seems she does have an addiction and i am kind of stuck on what to do next....I like the $200 idea from Hope1964. Any other ideas/suggestions/encouragement?


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## browser

Has your wife gained a significant amount of weight over the past few years?

I'm working a theory.


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## prunus

caringhusband said:


> The kids are doing well, but I don't want them to start slipping backwards. Also, I don't want them to become resentful and think they can parent like that as well when they become parents. My main point is that it seems she does have an addiction and i am kind of stuck on what to do next....I like the $200 idea from Hope1964. Any other ideas/suggestions/encouragement?


I'm glad the kids are doing well and I hope they continue to. 

But, yes, your wife has an addiction, that's for sure.


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## inging

As a single Dad..

Kids have the ability to make a mess as you are cleaning it up. To come home to a few bits of mess is not unreasonable.

That long list of failures you gave is interesting. You try it.. Seriously dude. You have no idea.

Homeschooling is a job that will take it out of her. 
Do you have somewhere in your budget that she gets paid for that?

I think that this is a very dangerous situation for your marriage. It is very easy to go from here to an EA for both of you.

She is bored senseless.

1. Value her work appropriately ( and yours)
2. Give her some time off because kids are hard work and boring..


I would stop the home schooling. She gets a job and has some money. You get a house cleaner or do it yourself.


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## prunus

inging said:


> As a single Dad..
> 
> Kids have the ability to make a mess as you are cleaning it up. To come home to a few bits of mess is not unreasonable.
> 
> That long list of failures you gave is interesting. You try it.. Seriously dude. You have no idea.
> 
> Homeschooling is a job that will take it out of her.
> Do you have somewhere in your budget that she gets paid for that?
> 
> I think that this is a very dangerous situation for your marriage. It is very easy to go from here to an EA for both of you.
> 
> She is bored senseless.
> 
> 1. Value her work appropriately ( and yours)
> 2. Give her some time off because kids are hard work and boring..
> 
> 
> I would stop the home schooling. She gets a job and has some money. You get a house cleaner or do it yourself.


If the kids are thriving, there is no need to stop homeschooling.


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## wopette

Maybe stop and look at the list of expectations you have of her? Seems like you're listing the symptoms, but not the cause. Sounds like she's simply wore out from the kids being with her 24/7. Usually kids are at school for a portion of the day, and THAT is the mom time to facebook, blog, whatnot.


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## SunCMars

Is she a Moderator on TAM?

Oh my. I am dead meat. Yes I am!


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## inging

prunus said:


> If the kids are thriving, there is no need to stop homeschooling.


At what cost though? 
Homeschooling is a big commitment that requires enormous and ongoing effort and is simply not for some people. Myself included.

It sounds like there is alot of resentment in the OM's post and I suspect the other side too. 

In fact I am revising my advise.

Immediate marriage counseling (by a psych) for them to help resolve unspoken issues.


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## prunus

inging said:


> At what cost though?
> Homeschooling is a big commitment that requires enormous and ongoing effort and is simply not for some people. Myself included.
> 
> It sounds like there is alot of resentment in the OM's post and I suspect the other side too.
> 
> In fact I am revising my advise.
> 
> Immediate marriage counseling (by a psych) for them to help resolve unspoken issues.


We shall see.


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## chillymorn69

Not a big fan of home schooling...........and before someone who home schools tells me .....if done right it can be great. I say if done wrong it can be horrible.


My opinion kids learn social skills and how to deal with bullies,difficult teacher, and lots of other vauable life lessons with their peers.


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## Satya

I don't think that being glued to your phone is in the homeschool curriculum.

It's an addiction like any other, so you must treat it as such. 

I find that people get addicted to things to bring pleasure when life is otherwise dull for them. 

Not a really happy thought, I know. How often do you two do things without the kids? 15 hours a week?

I'd strongly suggest deleting all social media and doing more together.


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## anchorwatch

@caringhusband

Okay, Mr. Engineer, there's a lot of _she this_ and _she that_ in your post. Where's your timeline of faults in all of this lack of passion? What is it that you bring to this marriage to instill passion? Let us examine that since you're the one that's here. 

A Summary of Dr. Harley's Basic Concepts / His Needs, Her Needs

8 Tools That Will Change Your Life / Hold on to Your NUTs: The Relationship Manual for Men

Best


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## tropicalbeachiwish

She definitely has an addiction. 

One thing that I noticed you said a few times, that she never comes to find you (for sex, to do 'something'). Do you hide in the closet or something? 

I'd recommend doing something TOGETHER as a full family, as least here & there. For example-Have a board game night and EVERYONE has to drop their phones in a basket during the "event". Also-start having dinner together as a family, as much as possible. Again, put a basket in the middle of the table or just on the island/counter. Everyone talks about their day or something exciting that's coming up. Schedule Family nights. No electronics allowed. No phones, computers, take off the Iwatches, no kindles, no ipads, no TV, etc. Schedule a family meeting to announce this idea and to ask everyone to come up with ideas as well. The kids may have things that they want to do. Just set some ground rules (it must include the entire family, it must not involve electronics, etc). 

My other recommendation is to snoop on her phone/computer to see what's taking up so much of her time. I'd be suspicious.


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## NextTimeAround

What made you and / or your wife decide to homes school your children?


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## straightshooter

OK. 

I'm staying out of the homeschool debate.

OP, you can take one thing to the bank. If your wife is on social media, is ignoring you and the family, and interacting for hours and hours with strangers online, pretty soon if not already you are going to have more than a social media problem or homeschool problem.

You can bet your bottom dollar a good amount of her messaging is with members of the opposite sex whom you do not know. I suggest you google "signs your wife is cheating" and start checking off the boxes. This addiction of hers does not lead to a great outcome


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## Hope1964

I am a huge homeschooling advocate, so don't get me started. SO many wrong assumptions on this thread!! If anyone wants to debate the merits of homeschooling, I would love to do so, in another thread started for the purpose. Anyway, that is beside the point here. The kids are thriving, in the OP's words, so the homeschooling itself isn't an issue. 

The issue is this womans addiction to her phone etc. THAT is what needs to be addressed. Sticking her kids in school and her getting a job isn't going to do that. If anything, she'll just get fired for being on her phone all the time at work.

MC is an ok idea, although again, how is that addressing her problem? It could be very helpful, though, to the OP to understand exactly what she DOES do in a day. And to maybe open her eyes to the fact she has a problem??

Maybe start with asking her to write down everything she does in a typical day. You can do the same thing - write out everything you each do over the course of a whole day, from getting up to going to bed. Then share them. I bet both of you will be surprised.

Hiring a housekeeper is definitely something to consider also, but NOT unless and until the question of her 'addiction' is answered. I know if I was homeschooling little kids, I could sure use a housekeeper a couple days a week!! Or a mothers helper.


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## Jessica38

Hope1964 said:


> I am a huge homeschooling advocate, so don't get me started. SO many wrong assumptions on this thread!! If anyone wants to debate the merits of homeschooling, I would love to do so, in another thread started for the purpose. Anyway, that is beside the point here. The kids are thriving, in the OP's words, so the homeschooling itself isn't an issue.
> 
> The issue is this womans addiction to her phone etc. THAT is what needs to be addressed. Sticking her kids in school and her getting a job isn't going to do that. If anything, she'll just get fired for being on her phone all the time at work.
> 
> MC is an ok idea, although again, how is that addressing her problem? It could be very helpful, though, to the OP to understand exactly what she DOES do in a day. And to maybe open her eyes to the fact she has a problem??
> 
> Maybe start with asking her to write down everything she does in a typical day. You can do the same thing - write out everything you each do over the course of a whole day, from getting up to going to bed. Then share them. I bet both of you will be surprised.
> 
> Hiring a housekeeper is definitely something to consider also, but NOT unless and until the question of her 'addiction' is answered. I know if I was homeschooling little kids, I could sure use a housekeeper a couple days a week!! Or a mothers helper.


This is great advice. I homeschool my kids and know that when I was feeling stressed out about something going on in my marriage, I spent more time searching online for help and answers (including lots of time on TAM). I too do not wish to debate the research on the benefits of homeschooling here so I'll leave that for another thread.

OP, I think it's great that you are aware and interested in what your wife and children are doing together during the day. It sounds to me like your wife is getting needs met online instead of with you. As for her blog, I believe that it is important for homeschooling parents to have their own hobbies/interests/activities, as focusing solely on the children and family can lead to helicopter parenting/depression in the parent, etc. So I'm glad that you recognize that her blog/social activities online could be of benefit to her but it may be that she needs help/support with time management.

I'd be thrilled if my husband wanted to sit down with me and discuss how we spend our time during the day and together during family time. I'm a fan of Marriage Builders and Dr. Harley talks a lot about how in a marriage, both partners should agree to how the other spends their time. I'd let her know that you are coming from a place of care, concern, and love, and you're worried that her time online may be impacting the family and your marriage, and you are willing to look at your schedule as well to see how you both can make improvements to ensure each other's needs are being met.

I know that when my husband watches TV (mainly sports) I absolutely use that time to read, either online or my kindle. And I'd much prefer he spend that time engaging with me instead.

*also wanted to add that we have a biweekly housecleaning service that helps keep our home to both my husband's and my standards. To keep our home (3400 sq ft) as clean as we like it, it takes 1 person 6 hours a week to clean. There is no way I have 6 hours during the weekdays on top of homeschooling, laundry, running errands, cooking, and managing rides to sports' practices, etc. to do that. It would have to occur on the weekends, which means everyone pitches in, and my husband and I agreed we do not want to spend the 3 hours together on Sat to do this. However, with the deep cleaning done for us, we do clean up every mess after we make it, so my husband does not come home to messes or little bombs and our children know that in order to do the next thing (go to sports practice, play outside, play video games, etc.), their rooms need to be clean, laundry put away, and dishes done. This is a parenting system though that both my husband and I participate in facilitating with our kids- it is not solely up to me to be on my children constantly throughout the day.


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## aine

caringhusband said:


> Hi, my name is Brian. I am an engineer for a large manufacturing company. I work a standard 8hr day.
> My wife stays at home with our 3 kids, ages 4, 8, & 9. She is a blogger and home schools our kids. Her blog is her fun thing to do during the day. It is a simple blog and not huge so I can understand some of what she does on the computer and her phone.
> But these are some of the situations I am running into for the last year or so:
> When I walk in the door in the evenings, she is almost always sitting at her computer. Usually multiple messes in the kitchen.
> When home schooling, at times, she stays in her chair at her computer and tries to helps the kids from there instead of sitting with them one on one. (About 20% of the time.) When she does this, if they start to "bother" her too much she gets frustrated with them. Her computer is right next to the kitchen table where they do their work. About 50 percent of the time, she sits at the table with them and helps them while she is using her phone. The other 30 percent of the time she is actually fully engaged with them. On an average day, it take about 3 hrs for our two oldest to get done with their work.
> If the kids make a mess, unless it is big, she doesn't always clean up after them, so I come home from work and there are at least a few messes in various places around the house and she likes for me to clean them up.
> She says she does the simple housework like dusting, etc. but things usually remain dusty.
> She frequently forgets to put things on our online calendar, after her being the one saying "We should use it for everything, all the time."
> She is frequently late dropping the kids off to activities due to her unpreparedness of when it is time to leave. She sits in front of the computer until it is time....oh wait, I have to get this/that/kids no shoes, where did my keys go?, etc.
> She rarely "comes to find me" for intimacy....I usually have to be the one to initiate. Then it is always: "I will be there in a few minutes." I sometimes thinks she likes her Facebook things more than me.
> She rarely finds me and says let do do 'something'.
> We usually watch TV in the evenings. If she doesn't like the show she will stay seated at her computer doing things. If she does like the show or partially likes it, she will sit on the couch with me and be looking at her phone ~75% of the time.
> When she hears something big happening, she is slow to respond to go see what is happening. Likes kids jumping off their dresser onto their beds....knowing that for the bed to brake like it did, they had to be doing it multiple times over a few minutes.
> When she uses the restroom at home she always has her phone with her and it frequently takes 20-30 minutes or an interruption from one of the kids for her to be done.
> She rarely has a formal lunch time with the kids anymore. They are now basically snackers all day now. They rarely eat a full lunch and now for dinner they are never hungry or want snack type items instead.
> She cooks but doesn't like too. When she does she seems to be in a hurry to get back to whatever she was doing in her digital realm.
> 
> She lets other things lax consistently, like:
> - Making the kids clean their rooms and make their beds every day.
> - Making them get dressed and wear normal clothes instead of pajamas around the house.
> - Making them get up and start school at a consistent time.
> - Making them following rules like keeping food in the kitchen, put toys away after use, etc.
> - Having the kids clean up after themselves.
> - Making the kids wear shoes when playing outside, helmets when riding bikes.
> - Cleaning up after herself, leaves dirty clothes and her stuff sitting around in convenient at the time places.
> - Making sure the kids don't get too many snack from the pantry.
> - General un-attentiveness to what the kids are doing around her, even in the same room.
> 
> I have to give her kudos though for not using her phone when she is driving....at least she doesn't when I am with her.
> 
> When I have mentioned to her that she may have a Facebook/social media addiction, she gets defensive saying it is hard being at home with the kids, you should tell me when I do good things more often instead of complaining about the mess, etc. She says she cleans up messes all the time that I don't see. Trying to put the blame towards me.
> 
> So my question is: Am I living in a dream world and expecting too much from her with 3 kids in the house or does she have a problem? When we got married she always said she looked forward to having kids and doing the housework, homeschooling, giving them a structured environment, etc. Where is that? Should I be irritated or not? I have also been browsing the symptoms of adult ADD and starting to wonder if she has a slight addiction but some slight ADD as well which could be making it worse.
> 
> I am struggling with what to do next. What should I do? Comments?/Suggestions?/Questions?
> 
> Thanks!


She should get a job but before that I would suggest surreptitiously disconnecting the internet from its main source and pretend it is down or just don't pay the bill for a month or two. See how she copes. 
None of us like having no wifi but should be able to last a day or two without it.

I used to do that to my kids when I thought they were spending time way too much time on the computer. When they were younger I would take the laptops off them at a specific time every day and only return it the next day.


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## She'sStillGotIt

The OP is long gone and not coming back.

His wife is a huge lazy ass whose more concerned with her damned phone and computer - to the point of taking her phone to the bathroom - than she is with her household or her children's education. Way to parent.

I'm not a fan at *all *of homeschooling. I would never want my kid growing up in a bubble or me being his only company on a daily basis or worse yet - his only source of knowledge day in and day out. No thanks. For those who tell me I'm wrong, the truth is, public school is what a kid *makes* of it. If they want to act like an untamed animal and get into trouble constantly and do _nothing_ academically, don't blame the schools. Blame the parents because they're NOT doing their job. But if your kid works his tail to the bone and is consistently in HIGH HONORS classes, tests mathematically in the top 1% of the nation and eventually gets his Masters degree from MIT - which my son did - then all the arguments in the world about homeschooling being better go right out the window. Sorry.


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