This morning, I was showing my fiancé some pictures from my Instagram when she saw another woman who had posted a story that showed up on my timeline. Since most of my friends are guys, and I mostly follow sports and tech content, she asked me who it was. I told her (truthfully) that it was my ex girlfriend that I broke up with 5 or 6 years ago.
Of course my fiancé knows about my history and past relationships, and I’m fully over all of them. But she seemed kind of on edge about it and when I asked her why, she said she thought it was weird that I was still following a woman on Instagram that I broke up with years ago, when she and I are engaged now. Her point of view is that because we are in a serious relationship and are going to get married, there’s no reason for me to have past partners on any of my socials.
I want to be really clear that I don’t talk to my ex. The last time I messaged her was about a year and a half ago, when I sent her a quick DM to ask about her brother. (I went to school with him and wanted to see how he was doing.) It didn’t go beyond that. Furthermore, I followed my ex on IG back when she and I were dating, it’s not like I sought out her account when I was with my now fiancé.
My fiancé still thinks it’s a bit weird though. Her point of view is there’s no reason for me to have my ex on my IG. I asked her if she still had her previous partners on social media, and she told me no. She said when things ended with her 2 previous boyfriends, she blocked and removed them all from her socials and deleted their contacts because she wanted to make a clean break. She’s told me before she doesn’t like to have lingering photos and messages from exes because otherwise it’s hard for her to move on. She also said she felt it would be “sleazy” for her to still have her exes on social media when she’s committed to me. She’s a little bit upset that I didn’t feel the same way.
What is the best way to proceed here? Of course removing my ex from my IG and other socials is the easiest option but I also don’t feel like I need to cut all ties with someone to show I’m over them.
7 comments
You’re right you don’t need to do it.
Now ask yourself this. Is it worth it for your relationship with your fiancé? If yes, the delete it. It wont matter as you don’t talk to her and you are over her. If it’s not worth it, then you gotta ask yourself why.
What I find a bit crazy is… You two have developed a relationship to the point of engagement, years of investment. And this was a totally unimpactful thing so far. The ex on your socials has not given you trouble until she discovered it and is now insecure about it.
We all handle break ups differently.
Just because she deletes and blocks exes, doesn’t mean everyone needs to handle their break ups the same way. A lot of couples can end things on a civil enough note to remain followers on socials. Not everything needs to be one way or the other.
Anyways, I always stand against people expecting you to remove followers. If they don’t like your personal choice, they can leave.
Has she ever expected you to do this before over someone else? Or is this a one off, first of its kind situation?
Because now, this is where I begin to think for myself… What is ultimately more important to me?
What do I actually gain from having my ex on social media?… Not a whole lot.
At this point, she is just a number to my followers count. We’re strangers now. And to keep the peace of the relationship, I might let her have this one and remove the account.
Because the alternative is to jeopardize the investment of the last couple of years. It will likely create tension moving forward and kill some of her confidence.
But again, that is only on the condition of this being a first time situation. If it makes my future wife feel more secure in the marriage, that is what I value most.
I don’t think this hill is worth dying on.
Her scorched earth approach to relationships seems really immature to me but whatever. She can do as she wishes. I don’t see why you can’t still be friends with or follow exes though.
What I’m curious about is if you are over your ex and almost never talk to her, why is it such a big ask to remove her from your social media? Like, why do you *not* want to delete her? You’re acting like your girlfriend is forcing you to cut all ties with your ex, but it sounds like you don’t have any ties to her except social media, which isn’t a real connection. So again, why is unfollowing such a big deal? What are you losing?
Bottom line: whats or who is more important to you? Really it’s a small request. If travel photos are this important to you then you have your answer
If you don’t speak to your ex anyways, then why would you insist on following her on social media when the woman who is about to be your wife is telling you it’d mean a lot to her if you unfollowed? This really isn’t rocket science.
Why not just do it ? Your fiancé isn’t wrong. She’s an ex. You don’t need to be following her when you are about to have a wife. And if it’s so serious for you that you need to come to Reddit to ask about it, maybe ur not over this ex.