I'm recently engaged. My fiancee is receiving texts, messages on twitter and Facebook from past lovers. She hasn't set the record straight with them and told them not to contact her. So I'm really considering postponing the wedding. Am I being unreasonable?

Past lovers should not be friends on FB or any other digital format.

That is a Huge mistake.

18W,

I could never communicate with past lovers because the sexual memories are so vivid, and the feelings I once had are just too easy to rekindle.

This is however a great opportunity for you to determine if she is marriage material, you need to snoop these communications as much as you can. It may save you a world of grief in the long term.

How many "past lovers" are we talking about? RED FLAG going up.

God Bless
Gamma

Don't postpone the wedding. Just tell her to shut down FaceBook. If she doesn't agree, re-assess your decision to marry her.

No, no, and hell no. N.F.W. Do NOT accept a marriage where one spouse thinks it's normal & ok to maintain a relationship & communication with exes.

I'm speaking to you as a man who got into an affair with a woman who happened to have previously gotten into an affair with an ex-BF of hers, with whom she'd "reconnected" & stayed in touch, despite being married. It surely played hell with her marriage, and probably made her more comfortable about getting into an affair with me later on. And these boards are full of such true-life stories.

Maintaining "friendships" with exes is fine for single people. But if you're married, it's like standing in a puddle of gasoline & lighting a cigarette -- maybe there's a chance that it won't blow up, but it's a foolish chance to take, no matter how you slice it.

If she resists breaking it off with them all, then she's not anyone you want to get financially, emotionally & legally committed to. You can have a loving conversation with her and lay it on the line, but if she doesn't "get" it, then if I were you, I wouldn't waste another day of your life waiting for her to smarten up.

Have you talked to her about it? Here's a crazy thing: there are people who think staying in touch with ex's is normal. They don't understand the slippery slope they're on.

I would suggest you have a sit-down with her. Explain to her that you are not comfortable with her contacts and you don't think it would be healthy or safe for you marriage for her to maintain them. See what she says. Maybe she'll immediately agree stop all contacts. If not, you've got a problem, and it's good to have it before the wedding as opposed to after.

Ideally, I think it is best to have no social networking. My H and I do not use FB - we shut our pages down. No twitter. No MySpace, etc. I'm on linkedin as part of my job, but I couldn't tell you the last time I was on there and H has my password. So it CAN be done.

Realistically, FB is the cultural norm now. H and I are oddballs because we don't have a page. So if she has to be on FB, make it a page for both of you, with both of you in the profile picture. Agree that you don't friend anyone unless she agrees, and vice versa.

Ask her if she will agree to this and see what she says. If she balks because she wants more 'privacy' tell her that privacy is what you have when you're using the restroom. It's 'secrecy' if she's sharing things with others that she doesn't want you to see. And that kind of secrecy is toxic to a marriage.

bewarei thought that was no big deal but when u both have problems theressomeone easy access to listen happened to me. ask yourself why can't they let go of the past?

agree strongly wish i would have before i do...

maritalbliss's advice is spot on. Continuing relationships with former lovers is a disaster for marriage in any medium, including Facebook and other social networking sites. So you want to find out now how she feels about this, because this is a valuable piece of information for you about what kind of marriage the two of you will have if you marry her.

No exes of any kind should ever be FB or any other kind of friends.

Here's a Facebook story for you.

A friend of mine is now going through a divorce. Her husband joined Facebook and caught up with an old girlfriend. They started an emotional affair, which went on to become physical. When the man and his old girlfriend met at a hotel halfway between here and there, he had a heart attack during sex. His kids will hardly speak to him. The other woman's husband was the pastor of a church and he lost his job. It's a complete and total mess.

I don't think FB alone is the problem, but using it to contact former exes is totally out. At a minimum, she needs to block all of those guys from her account.

I am going to thread jack for a second.

My husband does not have past lovers on his Facebook, but he does have a few women that he dated briefly (1-2 months) and smooched. They are friends of friends and they graduated high school together. He doesn't message with them and they are married. He barely every logs into FB, maybe once per month, and I have his password. He knows I check it, probably more often than he does.

Should these women be deleted? He'd be upset if I asked him to delete them.

Some people need to be told how many times, so I'll say it again NO past girl/boy friends on FB. NC is 100% and for life.

Again I'll repeat this phrase: slippery slope, eventually every one falls down it.

Okay, so you say he rarely gets on FB and never messages these women. I don't see why he would be upset to remove them if it helps you feel secure.

FWIW - I totally deleted my FB account months ago. I had a lot of friends. When I mention to them that I shut down my account, they said they hadn't even noticed my absence on their friends list! (I rarely posted.) Unless your H is in contact with these women, more than likely they won't even notice if he deletes them from his friends.

Very simple, basic Extraordinary Precaution for Affair-proofing your marriage;

NO OPPOSITE SEX FRIENDS, PERIOD.

Ummmm....NO. My husband had a ONS with an exgirlfiend. They had not spoken for 13 years, started chatting on FB, got together for drinks, ended up in a hotel. This was his 2nd affair and happened at the same time as his 1st. The power of past lovers is extremely dangerous. My EA began on FB, continued on Twitter and text. Needless to say, neither of us has a Twitter or FB anymore and NO opposite sex texting. We had a wonderful marriage for 10 years and spiraled out of control due to our poor boundaries and the easy access to digital media. My EA was long distance, no physical contact, but extremely addictive! Please establish proper boundaries before the wedding!

I think you can blame facebook or the partners access to facebook/twitter. I think your spouses wayward ways would of occured in some other venue. It could of been at work, the bar or on a street corner.

Facebook itself provided an easy "out" and "release" for someone who had issues/problems to begin with. There was soemthing wrong in the relationship that facilitated this action and facebook was only any easy escape into that world.

Don't let facebook be the scapegoat. It was bound to happen. If it wasn't facebook/twitter it would have been something else.

My question is, this does not seem to be something she just picked up the moment he sprang the big question. Did you know her? What was the record before you asked her to marry you?

I really think her attitude, feelings and personality have a lot to do with things before you get married. What was she like? Were there similar patterns?

After deep thinking about your question, plus drawing upon my experiences personally and as a lawyer, the answer is NO. Any questions?

If that durn bank didn't keep all that money in their vault, they wouldn't get robbed!

Now, I had an ex contact me on Facebook shortly after D-day - however, I KNEW by my emotional reaction it was playing with fire... hell, I still did. I de-friended, and conveniently forgot to block. Space of... hmmm... 3 days?

Then I blocked that shizzle. FWW and my pages became merged, I poured through OM and OMGF's pages, and blocked all their friends, and them.

FB now only exists only with CLOSE friends of the marriage and family, all privacy has been set to the highest settings, and I have systematically "unliked" every thing I had previously "liked" as further defense and privacy.

Everything on it can be viewed from either my phone or FWW's phone.


I have exciting friends like my 73-year-old Aunt. It's fantastic.

That's like saying that there is nothing wrong with playing chicken, but that the problem lies with the chicken player. If he were just a better chicken player he shouldn't get hit!


The problem with facebook is that it reunites folks with old lovers. And when that happens old feelings are IGNITED. That is when the risk comes in. This is why Dr Harley is adamant that contact with old lovers and opposite sex friendships end once you are married. We have affairs that show up over on Surviving an Affair every week that started on facebook.

And you are right that there is usually something wrong in the relationship when one seeks an affair on facebook. It is usually that people have poor boundaries and maintain opposite sex friendships. All the more reason to AVOID facebook.

He's such a playah!

I have younger friends! Like my 62-year-old aunt who posts pics of my beautiful 100-year-old grandmother.

My Facebook life is SCANDALOUS!

Good and informative conversation folks. Thank you. As someone said earlier, FB is not the problem in and of itself. The temptation to stray is strong, especially if a couple is having either marital problems or if the marriage is just in a temporary rut.

I wholeheartedly agree there should be no private messsaging going on between people of the opposite sex if they are married or in a relationship. How would you feel if everyday while you're at work a male friend came to visit your wife(or female came to visit your husband)? That's a recipe for disaster and incredibly innapropriate. Private messaging is no different. Anything to be said should be said in a public forum.