- My boyfriend and I broke up last year and unfollowed each other online.
- Though we got back together, we never refollowed each other.
- Having our own spaces on social media is important to us.
Last February, I blocked my boyfriend, Tom, on Facebook. Our relationship had become very unhealthy after my ex-husband’s sudden death. My children and I were reeling from the shock, and my mental health was in shambles. Navigating the death of a partner or ex is complicated. Navigating it with your new partner can make it weirder. There is a reason that there are countless emails to agony aunts about feeling awkward about a partner’s dead lover.
Three weeks before the anniversary of my ex’s death, Tom had to move out. It was sudden and dramatic, and that was how he ended up on my block list. But he didn’t stay there very long.
Breaking up is hard to do, but it wasn’t where we ended up. Instead, we took some time to focus on our individual healing. I was at a point where I needed to work on the grief: I had kept writing it off as something that I would eventually come to the other side of, like financial difficulties or a breakup, but there is no other side when someone dies. It’s permanent.
We got back together, but stayed disconnected online
When Tom and I got back together, we didn’t add each other back on social media. We had both realized that we enjoyed having our online spaces as our own corners to retreat to and enjoy our separate interests. Which makes sense, because our relationship is very much defined by our separate identities and independence — something that is very important to both of us.
I realized how important my own independence was when my previous marriage ended. I had become a stay-at-home mom and that was all that I was doing. I was happy, mostly, but there were pieces missing. I wanted to go back to school. I wanted a career. I wanted to model to my girls what I had learned from my mom and my grandmother, which was that motherhood can be a part of your identity, but it doesn’t have to be the whole story.
Around that time, I started writing personal essays and developing my craft as a writer. The essays eventually turned into reporting, which turned into a master’s degree in journalism studies. I now teach journalism and continue to write independently.
I crafted my own brand that is based on my own traits and accomplishments and when Tom and I fell into our relationship, that was important for me to maintain. I have a personal brand that he is not really a part of, and he enjoys his privacy, despite being the subject of much of my more personal writing. Not being connected on social media has solidified that, especially as I have begun to experiment with more content creation. He occasionally appears in a video or an essay, but for the most part, my work is only about me.
Having our own space is important to us
When I asked him why he enjoys that we are no longer connected on social media, he very much mirrored my sentiments about the sacredness of individual spaces. He says that we occupy the same physical space and that there is no need to share a virtual world.
We occasionally do look at each others’ pages. Sometimes he’ll yell something about a video I made from the next room and tease me about it. I’ve mostly stopped checking his — he reposts a lot of videos that don’t interest me and doesn’t do much else.
I occasionally think about how sometimes we might miss things because we’re not connected. I only post private pictures of my children, so obviously, he can’t see those. But he is here with us and experiencing life with us. He doesn’t need to see the pictures on a social media feed. And I think that our disconnection in the virtual world has helped us get closer in the real world.
