Although I like keeping things simple, when they’re too simple, something gets lost. It would be nice if relationship issues were simple. It would make recovering from an affair easy. Sadly, relationship aren’t so simple.
One of the benefits of social media is that it’s bringing the importance of relationships to people’s attention. It shows the importance along with the confusion and occasional ugliness of those relationships.
A term that has recently shown up in my research is ‘social media infidelity’ along with its’ cousin ‘social media marketing infidelity’. Although I understand these phenomena, the terms lead to some confusion.
With the social media infidelity, your spouse continues liking and commenting on the social media posts of their exes or former lovers. Although they haven’t crossed the infidelity line and slept with them, their continued connection with them is concerning.
They are looking to their social media connections for emotional support. They are developing an emotional connection with them.
The continued connection keeps their emotional attachments alive. It amounts to them never having ended their previous relationships. They never brought closure to the relationships. These connections send the message that the affair really hasn’t ended.
On the marketing side of social media, they are using the applications for connection. They are marketing themselves on social media. Like a fisherman with his pole in the water, they are waving bait, looking for something to bite.
Their marketing may be in the form of hidden profiles on tinder, which is obvious trolling. There may be subtle trolling on facebook or even Linkedin. The problem with Linkedin is that they’re using business contacts for pick-ups.
Having been involved in social media marketing for decades, I’ve seen the benefits of it along with becoming aware of the potential dangers. Although most marketers are looking for legitimate business, there are a fringe few using connections for cheating. Those using connections for hook-ups are ruining their own reputations.
Not everyone on Linkedin are looking for hook-ups, yet a cheater finds ways of sexualizing contacts and making passes. This practice puts a whole new spin on networking events.
Whether your spouse has been misusing connections or staying too connected with exes, in both cases, they’re engaging in forms of infidelity. They’re not fully connected with you.
In those cases, they need to unplug or disconnect from exes. They also need to seriously address the need for severing those connections. In the video “Help for the Cheater: Starting the Road to Recovery” I address those issues.
When they don’t put those old ways behind them, it opens the door to emotional attachments and fantasizing about other people. Instead of being focused on others, they need their heart and head focused on you and their relationship with you.
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Keeping It Real,
Jeff
