To Delete or Not Delete

January 24, 2012 11:46 AM

Do you delete an ex's siblings on social networks?

For those who have seen my past posts, I went through a breakup last year and each day gets better. It is still hard, I would be lying if I said wasn't, however I got my life back on track and that's good. I want to get peoples opinions on whether or not do delete an ex's siblings on social network sites. As I have said before, I have been friends with the ex's family for over ten years and have all the cousins, siblings etc as my friends. The ex is blocked and I can not see anything about him. I really don't want the ex to see anything about me though. The tough part is I really like the sister and cousins (I don't interact very much lately to help heal) but I would like to keep them in my life. My ex is a little immature and has tried to contact me over the past six months about stupid things even bothering me over the Holidays. I know that he now lives with his girlfriend after five months together and I can honestly say I am happy for him. We weren't right for each other at all. I want to close that chapter of my life and have been ignoring, blocking, not responding to anything from him. I guess it brings up another question, guys that have left girls before because another girl came into their life, did you still try and find out what was going on with the ex? I have my own answer because of his contacting me but would like to hear other peoples thoughts. Thoughts good and bad?

posted by Dee123 to Human Relations (15 answers total)

If you've still got this much drama going on with the ex I would definitely unfriend the family members. However, if you still want to maintain a relationship with them, then work on an actual relationship with them. Like, send them a friendly email. Plan to meet for coffee, etc. But you don't need them totally tied into every single thing you do and say on FB.
posted by BlahLaLa at 11:50 AM on January 24, 2012 [5 favorites]

I'm not clear on what you're asking. Are you afraid that if you comment on your ex's family's posts that he will see? So don't comment on them. If you want to keep in touch with them, do it privately.
posted by amro at 11:50 AM on January 24, 2012

If you want to keep in touch with the siblings but don't want him getting any info, you can just put them into the 'limited profile' category and pick and choose what the can see. That way you'll still have a line to them, but they (and, by extension, your ex) won't be able to see anything you're up to. This won't effect your ability to see what they're up to, unless they put you on a limited profile as well.
posted by griphus at 11:51 AM on January 24, 2012 [6 favorites]

As far as the second part concerns, it depends more on the person than the details of the breakup. Some never contact their exes again, some do. Some do it creepily, some do it innocuously. Whether or not they left that person for someone else is really a moot point, as it depends entirely on the nature of the original relationship and the people in it.
posted by griphus at 11:53 AM on January 24, 2012

I think that keeping them is fine, since you had/have a relationship with them outside of "my SO's (later ex's) family." If you're worried about them passing on information to your ex, you can filter them out of more personal posts (nearly every social networking site has some function for this; you can memail me for more detailed instructions if you're having trouble with it.)

I think if he's been persisting and not taking the hint from your silence, you're justified in sending back a polite "I'm happy to hear that everything's going well for you and Girlfriend and I wish you the best, but I'm still healing from our own break-up and would rather not have regular contact at this time."
posted by kagredon at 11:53 AM on January 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

If you've blocked someone on Facebook, that person will not see any comments or posts you make, even if you make them on someone else's wall/timeline/photos.

For more info:
What is blocking? What happens when I block someone?

If I share mutual friends with the user I am blocking, will they be able to see my comments to this mutual friend?
posted by BurntHombre at 12:13 PM on January 24, 2012

Either unfriend her or put her on a restricted list so she can only see certain posts, pics, etc. If your ex tries to find out info through her or her profile, it will be limited.

I unfriended my ex, mutual friends, his family, everything. I had to do it to protect myself from seeing (inadvertently or intentionally) updates about his new fiancee and his fabulous new life, blech. I slowly began adding back mutual friends after blocking the happy new couple to avoid them popping up in my "people you may know" sidebar -- just what it would take to ruin my week.

I never added back family though, because in the end blood is always thicker than water. Through a mutual friend's page, my ex's sister got wind of my plans and tried to ambush me and my friend with my ex and his fiancee, and weird stupid crap like that can seriously derail the healing process. (Really, divorced over two years and I had a full blown panic attack like I haven't had in, coincidentally, over two years.)

My advice to you is to avoid the potential drama and emotional pull by cutting the cord and moving along.
posted by motsque at 12:17 PM on January 24, 2012

many (like 10) years after the break up i friended my ex's sister. i was always fond of her and was interested in her life. the only reason i felt comfortable with that is i'm pretty secure in the knowledge that i'm not hunting out info about her brother and he's not hunting info on me. our relationship seemed intense and important at the time, but i think we'd both describe it now as a jumping out of the nest relationship that went on for far too long. i'd be surprised if there were any hurt feelings still.

which is to say - this all seems way too fresh and there's always time in the future to rebuild bonds.
posted by nadawi at 1:01 PM on January 24, 2012

Have you considered remaining friends but xing their feed? I do that with the feeds of people with whom I have difficult relationships, that way you can stay in touch but don't have to deal with their potentially 'painful' presence.
posted by Partario at 1:13 PM on January 24, 2012

I agree with nadawi.

I'd defriend them for right now, with a message saying that you need a little space... Then I'd make a note in my planner to get in touch with them in about 2 years (when things are calmer) with a friend request and a note saying that I've missed them, a quickie update, and whatever whatever. If they're your friends for life you can afford to play the long game with them, knowing that after you separate for a bit now, you can be friends later.
posted by spunweb at 2:20 PM on January 24, 2012

My ex kept all my family and friends connected to him on Facebook, and I honestly can't say I understand why. At first, I didn't want to be a jerk so I didn't suggest that they all ditch him like I did. Hey, it's their sandbox. They can play in it with whoever they please.

But then time wore on - omg, it's been almost four years now - and it just strikes me as strange that my friends and family are still connected to him on Facebook. I've moved across the country since then. He's moved to another city. I've been in the same relationship now for more than a year. I haven't spoken to him in almost four years, except once (very recently) to discuss our dog and find out how his family was doing.

Bottom line: I think it is your right to stay friends with anyone you want to stay friends with. But I also think that vestiges of relationships like that (especially when they've been messy) are strange, and probably best avoided or given a great deal of time before re-establishing the relationship.
posted by jph at 2:26 PM on January 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

i don't have nearly as close a relationship as you do with your ex's siblings, but mine is still a facebook friend of mine. i went through a really bad break up with my ex and he's blocked off my network—but my beef is with him and not his brother.
posted by violetk at 2:38 PM on January 24, 2012

You don't have to block the siblings. Just put them all on a limited profile setting - no photos, no status updates, no access to your wall. They probably won't even notice.

You can also X out their updates, so you don't have to see anything about your stupid ex.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 2:39 PM on January 24, 2012

Put those of the ex's family you want to keep on a restricted list, and don't merely block your ex: defriend him entirely.
posted by easily confused at 3:58 PM on January 24, 2012

My sibling's ex un-friended me on Fb when they split up. I didn't even realise this for a few months and when I did, I wasn't in the least offended. Made total sense to me. But we didn't have much of a relationship.

If I were in a position where I was friends with my sibling's SO, and they split up, I would be pretty hurt if they didn't at least send me a nice message explaining why they were doing it.

I think the better thing to do in this situation would be to put your ex's siblings on a restricted feed so they don't see anything from your activity log or pictures or whatever, and also unsubscribe from them so they never pop up on your feed.
posted by Ziggy500 at 4:19 AM on January 25, 2012