Poll: Facebooking husband = problems....?

[Chibaby]

OK, call me silly, jealous, whatever, what do you think? Last week my husband joined faceboook.

 

Background to story: we've been together 8 years. 9 years ago before i met him, he was on an exchange program in taiwan. There were 2 or 3 girls there he befriended who "had the hots" for him. So, since we've been together 8 years, he basically hasn't spoken to them since before we met. They exchange program was ONLY 2 months anyway, not long enough to form solid lifelong friendships IMO....since he hasn't seen/spoken to them for nearly 10 years.

 

Today: Last week, when he joined facebook I jokingly but somewhat UPSET said, "oh great, all the taiwain girls are going to come out of the woodworks to hunt you down." Come to find out, I see them show up on his page today. When he got home from work, I asked him, "so they found you eh?" He said yeah, they hunted me down. Come to find out, he was LYING! He hunted THEM down, and then lied to me about it.

 

This REALLY hurts me that he did this, knowing I was uneasy about it. And then LYING about it made it worse. ALSO, I wouldn't love him hunting them down, but the lying part really bugs me, and really....9 years ago, girls he knew for 2 months.... did he have to do that?

 

Am I just being oversensitive? I know that is the purpose of facebook, to catch up with old friends....but my issues:

1: He knew I wasn't excited about these girls and deliberatly looked them up

2: He LIED about it

3: It was 9 years ago, can you really hang on to just "friendship" that long when it was a 2 month period, and you haven't seen em since?

 

I have had more recent college courses that have been longer, and yet I dont' look up guys from then! It's not like the were long lost friends from college, or even grade school. Should I be upset or am I being crazy and overreacting? Like I said, I know the purpose of this program is to keep up with old friends, but really? Help me out with some advice please!

[Stung]

Look, I don't sanction lying in general or lying to one's spouse, and I would be put off by a similar lie, but hopefully I would also see where I created a situation that made it difficult for him to be honest. He does something as relatively harmless as join a ubiquitous social network site and your very first reaction puts him on the defensive.

 

Every couple has different boundaries when it comes to the opposite sex, but the bottom line is, there must be trust. Is there something in your relationship with your husband that makes your very first reaction to him joining facebook fear of old girlfriends?

 

I don't know what to advise you here. Certainly facebook can be used as a tool to rekindle old flames, if somebody wants to use it that way. It can also be a completely harmless way to reconnect with old friends. Frankly, to many people it's pretty damn boring after the initial rush of curiosity about people's lives. It sounds like at this time you are overreacting, to me. If he starts spending ridiculous amounts of time conversing with these women, then it tips over into something inappropriate and I would see you as having legitimate, addressable concerns, but in your current situation...well, I'm afraid that you don't get to control who your husband might be curious about from his past, that's pretty iron-fisted thought-police type stuff. And although it's not really your place to judge who he finds of value to talk to from his past, we are talking an exciting, horizon-broadening time in a foreign culture where people tend to be thrown together more and bond faster, not a course at the local junior college (and for the record, I do keep in touch with someone I met about six years ago in a junior college course).

 

My partner has some ex-girlfriends as his facebook friends, and I have some exes as well. We've both got some old high-school and college crush/friends on there, as well. I mean, we are adults...we both have pasts, which can occasionally be a little annoying, but hey: we are the present.

 

For my partner and I, it's interesting to see how people have grown up, it drives home how much we have all changed over the years, evolved (or not evolved) with our lives. Now, my partner and I are pretty transparent to each other, so I have a pretty good idea what he gets up to with his facebook account, and vice versa. Half the time we're curled up in bed together looking over each other's shoulders on our respective laptops, laughing at pictures or videos together, telling each other stories about our pasts that come up from seeing these people years later. In that respect, it's actually enriching, and maybe what makes all the difference. If he were curled secretively over his laptop ogling pictures of women who I knew were old flames and refusing to let me in on what was going on, I admit I would have a much more negative reaction. Is that how it's going down for you? Because it sounds like you're jealous that he thought of these girls at all, not that he's obsessing over them.

[whichwayisup]

He said yeah, they hunted me down. Come to find out, he was LYING! He hunted THEM down, and then lied to me about it.

 

How did you find out that he was lying to you? Did you check his email and see a facebook notification saying "XXX has accepted your friendship request"?

[Stung]

Wanted to add: wanting to address the lie he told is understandable, and probably a good idea. After all, it's good to know if his method of avoiding conflict with you is to fudge the truth. The thing to understand is, that's a very common human response, and while it's a bad coping mechanism, it doesn't mean he's a bad person or your marriage is doomed. Try to keep your cool and don't wade into that conversation with both your barrels already loaded...it doesn't sound like you are making this a safe conversation for him at all. Remember that you put him on the defensive right from the very beginning, he reacted more like a child than anything else.

 

I speak from experience, my own partner and I have struggled with this dynamic. I have a propensity for "attack-mode" and "pre-emptive strikes" when I'm feeling righteous or threatened and he just tries to avoid it until it blows over, which sometimes makes it worse because it can be soooo annoying. We have been learning better ways to communicate without putting each other on the defensive but it's not always easy in the heat of the moment or without an outside, objective viewpoint. If, on deeper reflection, this kind of dynamic is common in your relationship, you might want to work on your communication too.

[Chibaby]

How did you find out that he was lying to you? Did you check his email and see a facebook notification saying "XXX has accepted your friendship request"?

 

I found out he was lying, because I thought it odd that after being on facebook for two days, that two girls he met 9 years ago suddenly found him. I mean, were they searching for him on a daily basis like some kind of stalker? So when I mentioned that to him, I asked, "are you lying" after some ambugious back peddling, he admited he was lying.

[Chibaby]

Wanted to add: wanting to address the lie he told is understandable, and probably a good idea. After all, it's good to know if his method of avoiding conflict with you is to fudge the truth. The thing to understand is, that's a very common human response, and while it's a bad coping mechanism, it doesn't mean he's a bad person or your marriage is doomed. Try to keep your cool and don't wade into that conversation with both your barrels already loaded...it doesn't sound like you are making this a safe conversation for him at all. Remember that you put him on the defensive right from the very beginning, he reacted more like a child than anything else.

 

Thanks for the advice. It just bugs me that I was the one to bring these girls up, and then he goes out looking for them the next day. I agree, I don't make the situation easy already having my guard up, however I don't see that as any kind of justification for lying. For example, infidelity is a topic that isn't easy to approach, but I don't think one should lie about it when faced with that situation.

 

Anyhow, my biggest issue is he has this history of lying in uncomfortable situations, for the past 8 years, and frankly, I wish he could just suck it up and be honest, whether I approve or not. I'm not going to like everything he does, but he needs to accept that, and be honest, and tell me his reasoning. Everytime I ask him what his motivation was for something, he always says "I don't know"...I'd rather him just mention he was curious, or whatnot.

 

Lastly, he has a history of lying to me about women. For instance, once he and a buddy went on a road trip with a coworker that I cannot stand.

 

*(She basically flirted with him, talked to him about sex, and was altogether inappropriate. He once spent the night at her house because he was "too drunk" to drive home. I about went through the roof! And he lied about it then too, even though it was 'harmless'). *

 

So anyway, back to this road trip, she ends up asking if she can stay in his hotel room cause she had nowhere to stay. I didn't even know she was going on this trip! He likes to omit those kind of facts. I found out about it, and asked him, and yup, he lied again. So these are the reasons I am extra sensitive. I admit I am a jealous person, but in my opinion, it isn't without a cause. Some of the things he does, he sees as completely innocent, like he's buddies with a girl, but he's not in high school, we are 30 years old and married, and I wish he'd act like it sometimes.

 

Ugh...we haven't been able to talk the whole weekend, because it just gets into a yelling match. He says the reason he always lies is because I'm too jealous. It's a vicious cycle that we can't get out of.

[Stung]

Now we are getting to the heart of the matter...and there ARE real issues here, which obviously go way deeper than facebook.

 

You already know he has a habit of lying to blow you off and avoid conflict, and your trust in him is (of course) wounded by this. And it sounds like he lies about bigger things than simple facebook contacts...spending the night drunk over at the house of a woman who has flirted inappropriately with him in the past, whom you do not like, and not being upfront about it with you...THAT is a huge red flag!! Like I said, every couple's boundaries are different, but I have to say, that would definitely cross mine.

 

You actually have a slew of problems here, OP. He doesn't respect your boundaries, which ain't great. He doesn't have a problem with lying to your face to stay out of trouble when he crosses your boundaries, also a big uh-oh. And then he minimizes your reactions and invalidates your feelings, SO infuriating.

 

Okay, maybe there is a vicious cycle going on that you play a part in. I don't know where your boundaries were when he started violating them...facebook friend thought-police or drunken sleepovers with flirtatious women? If your boundaries were totally reasonable and he crapped all over them repeatedly, it's normal and understandable that you would start getting more and more upset and 'overreacting'. However, if your boundaries were overly sensitive and confining and you were totally rigid and jealous, maybe he started feeling rebellious. Either way, it's not being dealt with well or maturely, and at this point it sounds like he is just feeding the beast and being kind of a jackhole about it.

 

Can you try to back things down a little bit, talk to him about exactly what he feels are reasonable limits to his 'harmless' interactions with other women? If you address things with cooler heads, is he mature enough to back off the teenage rebellion and recognize that hurting his wife's feelings and damaging her trust in him is a real issue?

 

I suggest marriage counseling.

[Ariadne]

The guy went to a different country and it must have been a life changing experience for him.

 

It is natural that by joining FB he is curios to know what happened to all those people.

 

(And if they were hot for him then, is even cute, he felt beautiful)

 

I think you are being unreasonably "jealous" for something that happened ten years ago, those women maybe have children by now.