Why Don’t You Share Your Partner on Social Media?

Super User News

In modern times, social media has become its own third party in relationships. It’s where you display to the world who your chosen lover is, giving glimpses into your romance and celebrating milestones like anniversaries and engagements. From the Facebook relationship status to Instagram stories and posts, social media is an avenue through which you declare your love and mark yourself as taken. In fact, for many, the absence of a social media presence can feel like a rejection or be indicative of something wrong within your relationship.

However, every couple is different. Some may choose to keep their relationships off of social media for privacy reasons, while others may find the idea of being vulnerable online paralyzing. But is there a right or wrong way to navigate being online while in a relationship?

Should You Share Your Partner on Social Media?

While you may know some couples who are obsessed with sharing every intimate detail of their lives together, there are others that choose to remain fully offline. It can even be a lopsided effort, in which one member of the relationship is open and comfortable with oversharing, while the other is more offline or reserved.

A study in “Social Media & Couples: What Are the Important Factors for Understanding Relationship Satisfaction?” found that among Facebook users, having your partner visible in your profile picture or marking your relationship status as taken was significantly associated with higher relationship satisfaction. Another study by Carnegie Mellon University found that when one partner frequently shares glimpses into their life without including their partner, that partner can feel excluded and intimacy could be impacted.

However, everything is defined by intention. Oversharing online just to project an over-idealized image of a relationship doesn’t make your relationship healthier than one that flies more under the radar. An article on “The Psychology of Oversharing on Social Media” suggests that posting about your partner frequently may signal anxiety about the relationship, or a need for external validation. Couples that share their love in order to curate an audience rather than to purely celebrate their union may do so to prove something, while couples who feel secure don’t feel the need to broadcast their love. An article titled “The Quiet Couples Last Longer” suggests couples who post less about their relationship tend to have healthier dynamics, as they don’t feel compelled to perform.

So is there a right or wrong way to navigate being online and in love? Ultimately, it’s completely up to you and the partnership. It’s important to have a conversation about your own decided social-media boundaries. How much do each of you want to share? Are you aligned on it? Avoid jumping to conclusions like the absence of posts equates to the absence of love, while being honest about what you need in order to feel chosen.

Why Don’t You Share Your Partner?

With that, 21Ninety took to social media to ask users who keep their love offline why they don’t share their partners. All responses were anonymous.

“Honestly, the vain side of me won’t post him. Too many of my close friends who met him said I looked too good for him.”

“I don’t like having people in my business.”

“I’m gonna be honest, if I’ve ever moved quietly about someone that’s literally my girlfriend, it’s because I’m moving funny. An honest man is a man that’s loud bout his girl.”

“Because what if we break up?”

“I don’t post him because I’ll probably be annoyed with him in the next 10 minutes.”

“My girl and I don’t really share each other online and I guarantee you we’re ten times happier than these couples doing photoshoots with their dogs.”

“I’m not posting my man until he puts a ring on my finger to be honest.”

“It feels sacred to keep my relationship offline. I’m working on keeping more of my personal life private and being less online, honestly. Giving the world so much access to my mind and heart has left me exhausted.”

“I shared too much of my last relationship, now I never will again.”

“They’re lowkey kind of ugly.”

“As a lesbian, I move too quickly to share anyone online. She’ll have broken my heart by time my followers learn her name.”

“I don’t share my partner out of protection, for him and for myself.”

“If I have my man in my photo dumps and then we break up, I gotta go and delete whole entire seasons of my life. Instagram needs an option where you can delete a single photo from dumps.”

“I’ve learned the hard way that if your partner doesn’t share you, it’s because they’re cheating. Now I keep social media entirely out of my relationships.”

“She doesn’t post me either. Neither of us are very active outside of infrequent grid posts.”

“I share glimpses of my partner, but never his name or socials.”

“I waited a long time to share my partner because this is my world and it’s about me.”

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