[size=14pt]ONLINE ROMANCE, …. Is Facebook making your marriage vulnerable?[/size]
By Bolatito Adebayo

Sunday, October 31, 2010
The good old game of cheating on a spouse has gone digital – all thanks to Facebook, the globally successful social networking site that even presidential candidates and other politicos are exploiting to sell their message.



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Yetunde






To get into the game all you need is the name of an ex-lover, whether an old flame of first love. You simply log on to Facbook, click the right buttons, and voila! you get reconnected to an old flame,

Say a simple hello and the deeply buried come flooding back and gushing out. You need no love letters and the agony of the long process of waiting for the reply. With the new improved method of cheating, it is instant, cheaper and the parners in the affair can communicate at any hour, day or night, and right from home with your unsuspecting spouse even sitting beside you.

Interestingly the Blackberry and other smartphones make it so convenient with instant messages and chat rooms. In other words, you are in a world of your own. As the thrills set in, and fuelled by secrecy, memories of the break are erased and both parties, clearly forgetting that they might eventually get their fingers burnt ‘drown’ themselves in the ocean of passion.

The result is that what began as a simple reunion on Facebook eventually leads to broken marital vows, leaving devastated spouses and angry children. Such was the case of Irene (not real name) who discovered what she called her husband’s Facebook betrayal. “Last July 2009, I discovered my husband had been chatting online through Facebook with a former high school friend who was a single woman. I stumbled on some emails which were very upsetting.

When I approached him about them he admitted he was emotionally involved with her. He even said that our marriage was in trouble. It was a complete shock to me,” Irene said, making a great effort to conceal her pain.

Olufemi Oluwole, who regularly spends time on Facebook opined that some spouses really feel insecure when their partner gets addicted to Facebook.

“I have read articles on the effect of Facebook on relationships and I know that it is true most husbands get jealous when they see their wives hooked on Facebook, chatting with old mates, former boyfriends and what have you. Also many wives feel bad too when they see their husbands get closer to their old flames through Facebook. They pry into one another’s inbox and sometimes they just leave a message on their status update that states, now single, now divorced etc.

However, Yetunde Onipede who works with an NGO holds a different view: “Facebook doesn’t break homes but some married people don’t know their boundaries. Because they are not physically seeing that person, they believe they can flirt, but that in most cases gets them into trouble with their spouse. You know they start off with some leading question and instead of the party to put a stop the person keeps playing with fire and one thing leads to another.”

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