SeriousKarma

Ok friends, chime in. All advice welcome. If nothing else reading it will get me to calm down a bit. A SR form of meditation....

The problem is that I seem to be suffering from an odd sort of spasm. I can't go two minutes without uttering the phase "Skanky Wh*re B*tch" under my breath. It all started about an hour ago when I realized that my STBXAH had added his most recent soulmate to his "legitimate" Facebook account.

I had discovered the second Facebook about three years ago, and found it very concerning. It was at that point that I started to realize to what degree he had bifurcated his life. One Facebook is for his legitimate side. With me, his daughter, extended family, older friends, and work friends that he's trying to portray a more "upstanding citizen" face to. The other Facebook is purely social and light. Drinking buddies and woman. Over time Facebook II has been used more, and Facebook I less. In fact he only uses Facebook I when he wants to put something of interest to me, my daughter, or my family. The stuff he puts on Facebook II he would never put on Facebook I. It's odd.

I've been preaching for years that he should combine his Facebook accounts, but now that the Skanky Wh*re B*tch (whoops, I mean soulmate) has been added it's just too creepy. This is a good time for me to bail, so I unfriended him.

Here's my question....

I'm leaning towards calling him and letting him know that I've unfriended him and asking him to unfriend my family.

No. I will not use the term Skanky Wh*re B*tch in my conversation. In fact, I don't plan on using any of those words in any combination. I just want to say I think it's good if he's combining Facebook accounts, but I think it's best to leave my family off since he, and his friends often plays it "blue" in his other world.

Any thoughts, or similar experiences?

SparkleKitty

I am not sure what you hope to accomplish by calling him. And I think your family is able to decide for themselves if they want to unfriend him.

This kind of stuff is painful and I am sorry you're hurting. I am not sure that diving deep into this weird bifurcated FB drama is going to help, though.

MissFixit

real quick. don't do it right now. you are reactionary right now. i will type more later and yes, i can relate.

wanttobehealthy

I preached to my AH and then STBXAH and now XAH a lot about what was right and moral and decent to do... And it never once made a BIT of difference... All that it did was make ME feel crazy to be concerned about his actions... The more I paid attn to what he did the crazier it made me... Sounds like he is a classic A... Two sided life, different images to different people-- it is crazy making to witness-- I agree... But you have to try to not pay attn to him and his doings bc all that will come of it is it will make you be in this spasm filled state and unhappy and you dont deserve that!

Read that out loud to yourself and now ask yourself this: "self, does that make any sense? what is the likely outcome of that call?"

You will call, inform him of your decision and he wont care, maybe he will even mock you (not that I have personal experience with informing xAH of my doing similar things or anything) and you WILL feel 100x worse afterward... If you are unfriending him it is for YOUR sake... Notifying him of it hoping that he will care or be sad or wonder why (he wont- bc he is self absorbed and that is just what it is) will just make you feel worse.

If he chooses to keep your family as "friends" or they choose to keep him (maybe they just have him there without realizing like I do with many of my "friends") that is his deal... Don't call and suggest what he should do.

Your sentiments and reasons for thinking of calling him are very familiar, and are emotional and are common I bet for those of us who've been in r/s with A's... I have done this a dozen times or more... Called xAH over the years and "told him" something I was going to do or not do or what I thought he should or should not do...

EVERY.SINGLE.TIME I felt worse afterward.

Glad you posted... Whatever you do, come vent and share... No judgement...

Just sharing from the experience of someone who was once the mayor of crazy codie town, that calling him as you're thinking of doing, doesnt tend to work out well...

ashamed2day

It blows my mind how much control AH has. Please don't respond. You may have a few minutes of self rightousness but then will feel horrible afterwards.

Lovenjoy

oh SeriousKarma i have no advise, just sending good thoughts, but these 2 things made my night! the first because i knew what you meant right away but had to look up bifurcated anyways. i always said double life but i love this word! the things we learn in recovery huh?! and the second 'cause it is the kind of mantra i would seriously use to get it out! almost as good as hitting something or breaking glass! seems like a good release mechanism!

not making light of your feelings and i hope you make the best decision for your peace of mind. i just had to let you know you tickled my funny bone!

take care of you lady!

Eauchiche

I read an amusing story:
A woman had an alcoholic husband, who threatened to stay the weekend with his mistress. The wife drove him there, then went to the beach.
Halfway through the weekend, the mistress showed up with the husband, and begged his wife to take him back. She refused....

Sounds like the wife had detached pretty good by then!

My mate unfriended me from Facebook too. I had posted, verbatim, his crazy sayings on my page about reaching the twilight of life,etc.... Real "goodbye cruel world" stuff.
My sisters thought it was for real, and that afternoon the local police dept. sent a couple of officers over to see if I was about to do myself in.
Then my mate unfriended me because he said I was mocking him.

I know you are upset right now, and I don't mean to minimize your situation in any way, but I predict that you will be able to chuckle at this nonsense eventually.

SeriousKarma

Thanks guys. I have taken your sage advice and have decide to put off any phone calls for at least until tomorrow, when I plan on reading through your responses a few dozen more times.

Buuuuuuuuuut........ You haven't quite convinced me yet. Let me address a few issues:

Sparklekitty, I think this is important. There's really no point if I'm not going to accomplish anything. What I want to accomplish is this: Keeping his weird, creepy, perverted life away from my elderly parents, and younger nieces and nephews. This new girlfriend of his has no filter. She's proud that she has no filter. Subjects like oral sex are par for the course, as are racist comments.

Wanttobehealthy, The likely outcome is that he will do what I ask. My STBXAH and I get along oddly well. He's not aggressive. I think he wants things to be peaceful so he can go about his business. As long as I calm my self down before I talk to him, and make sure I do it in a respectful way, a way that doesn't insult either him or her, I don't think there will be a problem.

Either way, Whatever I do, I'm happy to say the spasms have stopped, and I no longer feel the need to call his girlfriend a SWB.

I love you guys.

wanttobehealthy

Just a thought... If things are peaceful and he's content going about his business and you yours it really shouldn't be your job or worry about asking him to unfriend your family.

Your family are adults right? If so, they can choose whether to unfriend him themselves.

What is your reason for wanting him to unfriend them for you?

SeriousKarma

One stop shopping.

He could unfriend them all in one step. If I contact them it would be making way too big a deal of it, and draw to much attention to a situation that I want to minimize.

If he were to refuse then that would be that. I'd probably just let it go, and perhaps address the issue when I speak to people individually. But like I said before, he probably wouldn't refuse.

I guess this is a divorce/recovery question for the modern age. If my family are on his Facebook, does that fall within my hula hoop or his? I think I see this as him crossing a boundary. At least that's very much how it feels.

I see the divorce mediator next month. Maybe I'll let him decide.

Santa

My advice is to get off Facebook.

It's a huge waste of mental and emotional energy and time. I can't stand Facebook.

SparkleKitty

Your family is in their hula hoops, he is in his and you are in yours.

It feels like you are trying to control the situation. Your boundary is yours to protect, and your family's boundaries are theirs to protect.

AnvilheadII

karma.....stop. anyone is entitled to have as many facebook accounts as FB will allow....and they are entitled to post whatever they want ON their FB account. unless it crosses the FB rules. you are not in charge of that. nor who he "friends" or who your family "friends". and it has NO bearing on the divorce proceedings........

you've known about this second page and have been monitoring it for THREE years. but you only got upset when the SWB was added. THEN suddenly you are the DEFENDER. THAT is what you are upset about.....her.

breathe. stay off FB. accelerate the divorce and be done.

Florence

Mmmmm... Okay first, it's just Facebook. It's a public space online where people regularly show their asses and aren't even wise enough to know to be ashamed.

Second, what he puts on Facebook is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. You're divorcing him. Whether or not your family wants to be Facebook friends -- which is different from real friends -- is not your business either.

Third, there are very legitimate legal, social, and personal reasons to separate your work and family stuff online from the horsing around idiot stuff you do online. I do this. Hell, I'm posting anonymously on a public forum this very instant. I have a "real" Facebook page and a very anonymous Twitter page. I don't find this weird or unethical at all, UNLESS the purpose is to divide your life in such a way to manipulate information to keep group A away from group B so you can do shady things and not get caught...

Fourth, my NPD ex did this, the weirdo. He had his public face, with wife and kids, then he had a singles Facebook page where he trolled for women. I found it by accident one day when FB asked me to friend his "hey ladies" page, looked at it, loled with all the lulz, and then blocked it. Later, it came out he was cheating on his wife, and when he realized how much it was going to be to pay child support to two separate women, and hold a mortgage and an apartment lease, he went back to her with his tail between his legs. SHE TOOK HIM BACK! There's someone out there for everyone.

My narcissist mother who likes to meddle is Facebook friends with him (as well as a dozen other people I have cut ties with who were MY friends that she nevertheless wants to keep track of). My solution, to keep myself from going crazy since she won't respect my request to leave it alone, was to block her as well.

In the modern age, that's the only control you have: what your eyes see. You have to choose to opt out and then leave it alone. He's going to continue to walk around this world making decisions that make you insane, decisions you know are bad, with people you hate, whether or not you're married to him or meddling in his business.

MissFixit

Hi,

You sound like you are determined to talk with him about this, so you are going to do what you want. I think you are bugged by this other women and want to eliminate him from your family side of things. The problem is that his relationships with your nieces or your parents are HIS to manage. Those relationships have nothing to do with you. It is super controlling to attempt to meddle in their business. Not your business.

I understand how you feel. My exA stayed in touch with my godmother for 5 years after our breakup and friended her on facebook. She accepted his friend request AFTER our breakup. I asked her not to. She jumped down my throat about how it wasn't my place and I was being controlling. ExA also kept calling her and she would take the calls for years. I asked her not to talk with him and she fussed at me for that too. She said she would be friends with whomever she wanted to be friends with. I think that is somewhat of a betrayal to me, but it was her choice to make. My ex kept in touch with her (I assume) to monitor me and have some type of weird connection to me. Out of the blue last summer he went on a call-a-thon to her home (she never answered) and after the call-a-thon was over with no response from her, he blocked her on facebook. She has not heard from him again. To this day she believes that his wife (the other woman) blocked her from his account b/c he would never do that to her. UGH! Okay. Now, their relationship was because of me but they remained in touch because of them. I have had to learn to let go of the control I so desperately wanted to have in that situation.

Ironically, exA's ex-wife before me tried to do the SAME thing. She wanted him AWAY from her family and screamed at him about it. I thought she sounded like a super controlling loon from what she was demanding/preventing him to do. It was crazy...until I was in that seat, then it seemed quite normal. My family, my control. Nope. Not really.

gippy1968

Facebook is a blackhole...... Delete your account and you will solve your problem and free up some of your time in one fell swoop!

lillamy

After my divorce, I unfriended and blocked AXH on FB.

But... then I opened a second account, after I had heard through the grapevine that he had made his page public. So I started checking in on his page every once in a while (that is, once a day at least). It brought me nothing but anger and grief -- seeing him lie about me, about why I left, about how I was trying to keep the children from him (when in reality, he had flaked out on having them), etc.

I don't know why I did it. My excuse was that I needed to know what frame of mind he was in before sending the kids to his house. But that was only part of it -- the reality was that I somehow... I don't know. Maybe I still felt guilty and wanted him to be OK, maybe I was angry and wanted him to be miserable. Either way, checking his account did nothing but hurt me. So I stopped.

The last time I checked his FB page was almost a year ago -- he had dropped out of sight completely and I wanted to see if he had updated his page at all or if he had died. And I had that same reaction of anxiety, anger, and disgust again. So I decided no more.

FireSprite

Don't do it Karma, for allll the reasons mentioned. No matter how you justify it, at the core this IS about control.

You don't need to put on your Super Hero Cape & save your family from your Ex... (Super Codie to the RESCUE!!) They are adults & entitled & able to make that decision for themselves. IF they ask your opinion about it, then by all means, be honest.


Thank you for this.... I CANNOT stop laughing!!!

lillamy

I also wanted to tell you that That Woman? You know she's in for the same fun ride you were on, right? I always wanted to send thank you notes to the women my ex dated after the divorce, because as long as he was focused on controlling them, he left me in peace. Unfortunately, for some reason, none of them ever lasted long enough that I got to remember their names...

hopeful4

Don't do it. You are looking for a reason to call and give him a piece of your mind. Step away, block him, and go about your business.