Facebook's Effect on Marriage and Relationships

Here is a blog post by Rhett Smith, pastor to youth and families on the possible effects of Facebook on marriage and relationships.  Here's a quote from a section of the article.  Do read the rest of it for Rhett's suggestions on setting your boundaries regarding your Facebook usage!

Recently, a couple of friends and I were lamenting about two of our friends’ marriages that had ended in divorce. One partner in each of the marriages fostered online connections on Facebook, which eventually led to full-blown affairs. One affair began when a partner reconnected with an old high school friend; the other affair began when one spouse initiated an online connection after meeting a person earlier that week at an event. What had begun as a simple hello on Facebook left in its wake two shattered marriages—devastated spouses and angry children. If you think this is out of the ordinary, just Google the words “Facebook” and “affairs” to find the growing amount of literature on this topic (for instance: here). Maybe this shouldn’t come as a surprise since most of the Facebook rumors tout that it was created to make it easier for college students to “hook up.” I buy into the theory that technology in our lives is not neutral (as my good friend and technologist John Dyer has helped me better understand). Rather, when we use technology, it will affect us in some way. And as married couples, we have to ask ourselves how the current social media is influencing us.

Marrying the "right" person

Posted by Terry McNichols

I decided to write a post about marriage, since I am out of town at this time attending an important family wedding. I hope to post the details of that wedding next week, as it is an extraordinary event. And we had another family wedding earlier in May. I was reminded of how often a person coming into counseling would suggest that possibly he or she had married the wrong person. Following is a very profound quote by Zig Ziglar:

I have no way of knowing whether or not you married the wrong person, but I do know that many people have a lot of wrong ideas about marriage and what it takes to make that marriage happy and successful. I'll be the first to admit that it's possible that you did marry the wrong person. However, if you treat the wrong person like the right person, you could well end up having married the right person after all. On the other hand, if you marry the right person, and treat that person wrong, you certainly will have ended up marrying the wrong person. I also knot that it is far more important to be the right kind of person than it is to marry the right person. In short, whether you married the right or wrong person is primarily up to you.

(Photo by Quo Vadis, shared via Flickr)

Found in Oprah's Magazine

Posted by Terry McNichols

Note to self: older is happier
“Though we as a society extol the years of early adulthood, research studies have demonstrated that younger adults are not as happy as adults in their older years. In the years of later, relatively healthy adulthood (ages 50-75), the horizon of time has shifted and the outlines of a person’s story have become much clearer. The future tense is greatly diminished in importance, and it is the present tense – the possibilities for pleasure, connectedness, and a sense of emotional embeddedness – that emerges into prominence…. Developmentally speaking, older adults tend to live in the moment, and this appears to increase their satisfaction and well-being.”
Maggie Scarf in September Songs: The Bonus Years of Marriage (Riverhead)

THIS is good news. And it does make sense. The key here, I am afraid, is the phrase "relatively healthy adulthood." Things get tougher when you aren't "relatively healthy," but still we need to take this to heart, and learn how to live in the moment!

(Photo by dictybloke, Flickr)