Facebook Relationship Problems: How Social Networking And Jealousy Affect Your Love Life

Posted: 10/20/2011 8:39 am EDT Updated: 01/03/2012 9:36 am EST

Lots of us use Facebook as a convenient way of receiving information about the people in our lives we don't call every day -- and people we don't know that well whose lives we enjoy watching from afar. Your college friend got engaged, yay! Your favorite cousin is moving across the country, boo. A girl you met once at a party who's baring her midriff in her profile picture wrote on your fiancee's wall -- hold on, where'd she come from?
Enter the green-eyed (or in this case, blue and white logo'ed) monster known as Facebook jealousy. Messaging someone you hooked up with before you met your current love interest, analyzing a wall post on your significant other's page, stewing over a suspicious picture but not actually asking about it -- all of these have been known to tank relationships.

If you're prone to thinking, "It's just Facebook -- can it really cause that many problems in an adult relationship?" consider this: A 2009 study suggested Facebook makes "unique contributions to the experience of jealousy in romantic relationships." Divorce attorneys say Facebook flirtations are frequently cited in their cases. And this poor guy had an asthma attack supposedly prompted by seeing how many men his ex-girlfriend had friended since their breakup. There's even a Facebook page called "I wonder how many relationships Facebook ruins every year" with over 100,000 "Likes."