Facebook Didn’t Destroy Your Marriage

No because I am not on FB. But I am aware of the truth that other things can. I think you hit it. The marriage was in trouble and FB may have magnified the issues.

Selfishness has destroyed every part of my life…even now, after God has shown me my selfishness and the destruction it has caused, it is a daily battle for me.

My daughter and I just had a talk last night about every time she does something "wrong" or makes a "bad decision" she blames it on something or someone else…it is never her. I/WE are SO much like that…so no, FB, would not be the root of the problem in my opinion.

There are definite paramaters that need to be set for a husband/wife as they use FB, but FB in itself is just an excuse in missing the heart issues.

Home run, man. Grand slam home run.

We live in a society where you're practically conditioned to blame someone else or something else for your failures instead of taking personal responsibility for things. Facebook is just the latest in a long line of things like alcoholism or porn that take your focus off the things that we're called to do in our lives like show complete love and devotion to our wives (even if they don't return the favor.)

love it, can't argue with it in the least. I used to be jealous of Twitter, Blogging, Email and all the social media friends my wife had. Then we fixed our marriage, now we enjoy that world together instead of one us escaping there.

Keep up the great work!

Fantastic post and very well said!

Facebook provides yet another venue to look at life through the "grass is greener on the other side" lens. When marriages are on shaky ground and lack intimacy, we can use most anything as an escape…Facebook, work, pornography, games, TV, etc., etc.

Facebook provides the opportunity to reconnect with folks from our past and play the "what-if" game, if we allow ourselves to do that. Let's face it…no one is going to put up bad pictures of themselves on Facebook. So what ends up happening is that when we are looking at our spouse negatively we are magnifying all of his/her negative traits and comparing those negative traits to the positive traits of the other person on Facebook. It is a totally unfair comparison!

No one is posting pictures of laundry that needs to be picked up, photos of themselves when they are throwing up or otherwise sick, photos with bedhead and on and on we can go. If we find ourselves comparing our current spouse to people we are reconnecting with on Facebook, we must realize that that is a slippery slope and completely unfair. Intimacy in a marriage takes work and frankly, most of us don't want to put in the effort. Many people got married with the expectation that it was their spouse's responsibility to make them happy and to meet their needs. We all are broken individuals in one way or another and marriage provides a searching spotlight that exposes our sin unlike any other relationship. Rather than try to blame shift and compare, we must try hard to out repent our spouse and be quick to say I'm sorry.

Thank you for pointing out that Facebook can be a symptom to a deeper problem and is not the problem itself.

God bless!
Traylor

Wow. Powerful message. Well said.

Exceptional post… so right on for many!

This post will be shared with everyone I know and can lend itself to so many other "online" addictive issues where that behavior has been blamed for the cause of the fallout – when, in turn, it is the individual deflecting the blame to avoid confronting their own issues.

Well written!

Excellent Post. Working in Celebrate Recovery ministry at our church, I see this all the time…and did the same thing in my life. I blamed my husband's addicition to alcohol for my unhappiness, when all the while, I never looked inside myself to see my part in this family disease. Through God and my sponsor I have been able to work through those defects and move on to a deeper relationship with God.

Facebook can't destroy your marriage, but it can and is used as an escape from reality.

Bingo! If you were a gymnast you’d get a 10 for sticking your landing.

Lack of personal responsibility. Selfishness. Two sides of the same coin. We live in a consumer society that is all about me and everything is dispoable – even people.

How much better would relationships be – marriage, family, friends, church, work – be if even just one party would stop obsessing over the other party’s faults and instead obsessed over – and acted upon – how best to model Christ-like behavior in all they do?

And if both parties did that…well, there’s a definition of nirvana, in my book.

Thank you for having the courage to say the things that need to be said.

So, as your single girl..I was wondering if I can have a FB profile that impresses some guy in Fargo, North Dakota? Wait, never mind…I don't think people even live in Fargo.

Great job (as always) JD, good thoughts and great writting! Kuddos! You are doing awesome!!!!

♥Brooker

So, as your single girl..I was wondering if I can have a FB profile that impresses some guy in Fargo, North Dakota? Wait, never mind…I don't think people even live in Fargo.

Great job (as always) JD, good thoughts and great writting! Kuddos! You are doing awesome!!!!

♥Brooker

Great post JD.

Here's a couple of safeguards my wife and I have:
1) We have both agreed not to "friend" anyone we've previously had a relationship with.
2) We each know the other person's facebook login and password info
3) We treat FB chat just as if it were happening in real life. I do not have any chat conversations my wife doesn't know about with women, and vice versa.
4) We take advantage of the security and group features on FB to prevent any weirdness. (ie: There is a very small number of people that actually can "see" me online and offer to chat.)

Hope maybe these suggestions might help someone out there.

Justin,

Thank you for being willing to speak with such authority over something that is such a huge wound in your life. God really has taken your Mess and made it your Message. Thank you for speaking truth bro. You guys are amazing.

Sincerely,

Blake

Well said, Justin.

I totally agree. And my husband and I have similar safeguards on FB like other people have mentioned above. and I love what Traylor said.

I think one of the reasons that it's difficult for many of us to admit our own sinfulness and accept responsibility for our actions is that we are conditioned by pop-culture, the mainstream media, and especially Madison ave to think that there is always something (like Facebook) or someone (like my spouse) to blame for our mistakes. We have become the "It's not my fault" generation … There are millions of adult users of Facebook. If you simply go by the statistics on divorce in the US, Canada, and Western Europe you could legitimately say that well over half of those adults are either divorced or are in their 2nd (or 3+) marriage. It seems that like Israel we've forgotten God's Word and fallen into a state of rebellion. God's plan has always been for marriage to be a permanent monogamous bond between a man and woman.

I pray that If someone believes that using Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or any other social networking site has led to the ultimate death of his/her marriage they will seek Christain couple counseling and try to get to the "real" reasons that the so-called grass appears greener.

As a guy married now 41 years and a pastor for 40, I'll risk weighing in here on what destroys marriages. Latest research out of Univestity of Denver by notables such as Scott Stanley says NOT LISTENING is the biggest destroyer of marriages in this country. Epidemic, and yes, I am a carrier (Tom, I just don't think you're listening). Daily. I think there's enough evidence to show that tabasco sauce, rope swings and overindulgence in church activities has killed a lot of marriages. Gotta go…Betty is trying to catch my attention.

JUSTIN , CAN YOU DEFINE SEXUAL PURITY FOR ME ? I AGREE ITS NEVER SOMETHING OR SOMEONE ELSE THAT DESTROYS IT ALWAYS ME. IF I DON'T OWN IT . I CAN'T GROW OR LEARN FROM IT.

wow…i'm talk with my wife about FB all the time…it can rear it's ugliness…

I think that's such a great question! While I'm not married, I have seen others have a marriage torn apart for various reasons. I have also lived through my own parents rebuilding a broken marriage because they each became focused on other things than their relationship.

I think you're right on track when you say something else destroyed the marriage, Facebook (and the internet in general) is merely a nasty symptom of something bigger. Last night I watched a NightLine episode exploring the need to cheat, and if it is something in our DNA or something we can control. They had an interview with a man who has a website for married people to find someone to cheat with. Many people argued that the site is causing people to go out and cheat on their spouses. Others stated that it is a means to find something a wandering eye was already seeking. Justin, do you think a website like that is the cause or the effect of marital problems? While it's more extreme than Facebook, these sites all have adverse effects on many relationships, even if it is simply spending time online rather than with a spouse.

Justin –

This is a terrific post…something that I have been thinking about as well – and I am going to link here because you have said it so well…and also Traylor's comments. Wow. Thanks for taking the time to point out the symptom of a much bigger disease!!!