How to Keep Social Media from Ruining Your Relationship

By Jeremy Raynolds

We live in the era of Internet, so there is no problem to find your soul mate on Facebook, book tickets from your bed to different places in the world or to find the best AustralianWritings paper writing service.

Having a relationship in modern times is actually much easier said than done; and out of all the risks putting our relationships in danger, social media could be the most unexpected yet relationship-ending one.

How many fights, arguments, and break-ups have we witnessed, or even been through, because one of us liked a picture on Facebook or Instagram only to have his/her significant other make a big fuss out of it? Probably countless.

The problem with Social Media, and pretty much the whole internet, is that many times they don’t tell us the whole story; after all, maybe that picture your significant other liked doesn’t actually indicate cheating as much as it indicates how much he/she admires someone’s style, photography, or even beauty.

If you believe the solution to such problems lie in cutting social media away from your life, then you’re probably wrong, because these problems don’t have much to do with social media itself as much as they have to do with you; in other words, social media is just exposing and amplifying the problems and not causing them, and most of the times the problems have something to do with you having trust issues.

Many years before the invention of the internet, relationships still failed and for reasons that are not that different from the ones facing our relationships today; for example, couples still fought over one of them talking to a friend over the phone that the other suspected might indicate cheating, however, the problem was never with the phone itself, it was either that someone was cheating, or that the other had trust issues.

Social media’s real negative effects actually lie in exposing and amplifying our real problems, it feeds that little voice in your head that wouldn’t stop telling you that your significant other is cheating on you; it shows you other people who seem to be happy all the time in their perfect relationships, even though we know quite well that no relationship is perfect, we still compare ourselves to them, only hurting ourselves and those we care about in the end in search of that perfect relationship.

If this whole mess has a solution, it’s convincing ourselves and raising future generations having trust in themselves and their partners, it’s teaching them how to cope with new technological trends, it’s knowing that no matter how a relationship might look perfect and problem-free, that perfect doesn’t and won’t exist; still, we should always be striving for perfection, and by that I mean finding someone whom we accept for who they are, with all their flaws, and vice-versa.

We need to admit that just five short years ago, Periscope, Snapchat, and Instagram didn’t exist. Social media has introduced a whole new layer to relationships, but here’s a few tips on how to avoid unnecessary friction.

1. Want to change your relationship status on Facebook? Talk than change.

No one wants to find out that the person they’ve been dating wants to be exclusive via a Facebook notification. I’m a big fan of not having a relationship status at all, but if that’s your thing, then at least have a conversation beforehand. Make sure you’re both down with doing it before it happens.

2. Just keep your private things between YOU and YOUR partner.

There are too many people in the world who want to share their private pictures and so on. Some of them genuinely are the kind of awful humans who do this because they need the internet masses to open up and go “aww” before they feel like they’re love is valid. Likes from Instagram will not make you coffee in the morning but loved person will. It can be very offensive for your soul mate to see such private pics or videos of yours in the web. Think about his\her feelings first, then about followers.

3. Comparisons is forbidden!

Remember to never compare your relationship to the curated timelines of others or get caught up in the mirage of options. It’s easy for someone else’s relationship to seem better than yours from afar, but social media is rarely the total reality.

In conclusion, just remember not to put your relationship between “What is really Important” and “Less Important than my Snapchat Story”. Always make a right choice.  Keep your love just for you, and share it organically with the people in your real life. You don’t need the rest of the world involved.

___________________ Jeremy Raynolds is a blogger https://medium.com/@jeremyraynolds/