HOW MANY couples focus on their cellphones when you look around in a restaurant? What impact does this have on relationships? Have you ever thought about the power-play of fake fame?
This week’s question comes from Sam in Durban: “Help me please. Everything I do lands on social media. What is my relationship coming to? I am held accountable to an invisible partner and I am ready to carry on with my life without him.”
Just like children who need to be given an opportunity to develop creativity, couples need a sacred space with privacy to develop intimacy. The culprit, reaching for mobile media and reporting every event and non-event on social apps. I understand how you feel Sam.
I dread family events because so much of what happens in my life goes on a stage on route to fake fame for some or other material goal. Social media has become an invisible enemy for many partners who are not aware of the real price they pay. Relationships have shaped a worthy opponent to happiness:
the Big Brother of social media.
If your partner dares to not get his or her way, they risk a social media lash back from a narcissistic platform.
If relationships are meant to be judgement free and loving, then this must be the evil twin.
Being a victim of social media is no small thing. It taints relationships and worse makes us work harder for the attention of our spouses. And the problem is that social media, just like alcohol or food has become a coping skill mechanism that consumes valuable energy which can be used for bonding time. The best remedy is to use reason. Appeal to your spouse to review their reasons for always being online: if work is the reason, can they use scheduling techniques? Can they implement technology detox times?
The answer lies in how we put boundaries around the use of social media. Is it acceptable to take photos without permission?
When can we have social media free events?
What if you could measure your ability to focus before and after you became a social media junkie? When did you last read a real book and not a hashtag version of a newspaper article? Find a way to compare your quality of life and balance it with the freedom to work without geographical borders.
Create new boundaries for work in time, not physical space out of respect for your loved one.
What is the point of being in one room if you are not present and pay attention to each other.
Relationships are about connection. Disconnect from your cellphone and actually be with your partner. Look in his or her eyes and think, “I love you.”
Social media friends come and go, depending on their boredom and whether they have a real-life partner on the other side of this non-real world. Tomorrow, all you’ll have is your own partner. Or, maybe they will wake up noticing their partner's also lost interest. Avoid it becoming the all-too familiar response - that is too little, too late.
* Adelé Green is a transformation specialist coach and the international author of Can You See Me Naked? Grow in a Conscious Relationship. Post your burning question on www.adele-green.com/askadele/ or tweet on @nakedwithadele with #askadele. Also listen to #360Brunch, Sundays on Mix93.8fm.
**The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
The Saturday Star