My girlfriend keeps me out of her Facebook profile - how to understand why?

Question

We have been together for 6 months. I met her family and she met mine. After about one month of dating she showed me some pictures on Facebook. After a while I thought I could add her on fb, and I did. After a few days I told her about my friendship request and she said

Ah yes I saw that you found me on Facebook!

... it made me feel like a stalker. Recently I also saw that she made her friends list hidden (before they were visible to me). When she is out with friends/family she posts pictures and shares with their friends on Facebook, saying "I am with A, B, C ... feeling happy" and so on. She also shared a pic of a place where we were together... not even mentioning me. I believe she has ex(es) on Facebook and that she is still in contact with him/them. I found out that when we met she had a boyfriend, and while we texted each other to arrange to meet (I was abroad so it took a couple of months) she had other dates.

How can I discover why she keeps me from seeing her Facebook profile and convey that it bothers me without making her feel offended?

edit: Just noticed I forgot to specify that because of work, since we met we actually live faraway from each other, about 250 km.

Answer 1

Your comment

Thanks for the answer. For me this is a sign of weakness. It forces to humiliate yourself asking for explainations she is supposed to give, even better... explainations for a behaviour she is not supposed to have. Her explanation should be due to me.

strikes me as concerning. Talking with someone to try to understand them better should not be humiliating. We are all different people, there is little to nothing that we innately know about each other. I am not aware of any duty we automatically have regarding explanations of social media accounts. Ideally, romantic partners would be able to talk things over calmly and rationally. But not everybody is always calm and rational.

I find when trying to talk with people about things they are uneasy about, it helps to come into the conversation with a very calm perspective. If you come into the conversation with feelings of hurt that she has shut you out of this part of her life like this on the forefront of your mind, that will quickly put her on the defensive and things will escalate.

I'll admit, I'm a bit autistic. But in this case, it allows me a bit of perspective that you might not have, because I can close my eyes, but I can't close my ears to the sounds around me. I have heard so many public relationship fights that started with the guy saying that his woman owed him something less than a minute before they met up. That never goes well.

But when the guy is talking about finding out how his lady is doing and hoping she's doing well, just before they meet - those conversations tend to go much better. But it's not just about the difference in the choice of words, it's about the difference in respect behind them.

If someone I was dating was talking about how I owed her stuff with her friends when we were having a relationship disagreement, I don't think that I'd respond to that very kindly. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't either if those situations were reversed.

I would recommend adjusting your attitude to be more respectful of her, and to understand better that she's a distinct entity that you will never fully understand. But unlike most such entities, she's been gracious enough to give you a chance to. The differences between us are amazing and wonderful. Talk to her from the perspective of trying to work out such a marvel, and I feel you will find that it's easier to talk with her than before.

I'd also like to comment that your other question may be more related to what's going on here than you might think. That sounds like a situation that would tend to get somebody very angry. It could be that she's seen that anger in you, and is worried about it getting misdirected onto her. I would like to think such things don't happen... but I'm autistic and cannot shut off my ears. I know better.

Answer 2

There's a bigger issue in play here that you gave away in the first paragraph:

We have been together for 6 months. I met her family and she met mine.

From what I can tell, you're now at a point where this is a serious relationship to you, and you feel that it's about time you were allowed into her digital presence as well as real. I'm going to side against a lot of the answers here who say you have no right to be included there. That'd be like saying you have no right to desire an emotional relationship as well as physical.

(disclaimer: not in cases where people aren't big social media users).

From the sounds of things you both use Facebook a decent amount. She uses it to share status updates about her feelings and her life, and you're wondering why she doesn't mention that you're a (presumably) big part of that. I'm also going to err away from the usual answers here that suggest trust issues are solely yours to deal with. A partner who cares has a responsibility to do what they think is reasonable to allay fears too, and to discuss anything that they feel isn't reasonable (source for that is my therapist who has spent the last couple of months opening my eyes after being gaslighted by a previous girlfriend who made me think I had trust issues, when in reality my love blinded me to the fact that she just wasn't trustworthy). Wondering why you aren't being included in descriptions of her social life is valid, but you won't be able to mention it until you are friends and can see naturally that she doesn't bring you up. To say so now would be to admit that you know she isn't including you. Rules are "be nice" here, so I'm going to err on you being a good guy and this eating you up and making you think and act a little suspiciously due to desires for a trusting monogamous relationship, rather than you being some super stalker.

I would go into this fairly honestly but without mentioning the exes (which I'm going to come back to at the end), or that you know you're being excluded from mentions. You should say that now 6 months in, you'd like to update Facebook to say that you're in a relationship with her but that you can't currently because you aren't even friends on it. A lot of people here say ultimatums are a terrible thing, but this isn't a massive ultimatum - at the very least it requires her to give you a reason why she's unwilling. However, depending on her answer you may learn some rough truths about where she thinks the relationship is. This gets you to your goal of being friends with her on Facebook, or at least gets you the answer you require as to why she's unwilling. And more than that, if you are at different stages in this relationship, or have different feelings about it, it's best to know than make yourself ill wondering.

Now onto the dealing with wondering if she's talking to her exes. I'm more than willing to admit that I'm reading parallels from my experience so let me know if it's fully out of touch and I'll delete. This is coming from how you met I expect. I had the same thing. You feel like you guys met and got close through texting while she currently had a relationship on the go (and that you had already gone exclusive in your head while she was still dating other people), and you're worried the same may happen to you. Seeing her facebook profile won't fix that. Even having her status update to "In a relationship with drSlump" won't change that. Only you can decide whether you have the trust and confidence in your relationship to overcome the reduced trust levels that came from knowing you were the "other guy" for awhile, and an option while she was your only. I can guarantee there's no way to bring that up without offending her, and I wouldn't suggest doing so if you guys weren't sat in front of a relationship therapist (and you aren't at that stage this early into a relationship). She can't help reduce that trust worry (like she could with the being friends on Facebook issue) because to do so she'd have to give you full access to all her chats and communications - and that is beyond unreasonable, and more so (as I can attest from my personal situation as the "other guy" for awhile) won't work because even if you had full access to her communications when you met up, you can't stop your partner just deleting messages to "other guys" before you see them.

Answer 3

I want to take this answer from the perspective of it bothering you and you questioning what the reason could be instead of suspecting trust issues.

I would take a quiet and relaxed moment and say that I have problems understanding something and would like to talk this over.

Then I would ask if there is a reason for not being friends on social media and that you are worried/bothered because you don't know the reasons for her actions. Don't touch the "suddenly" hidden friendslist, it is likely that this point will make the conversation take a bad turn since it indicates some kind of controlling.

Also I would avoid the topic of contact with ex-partners at first. This also is likely to make it worse since this really indicates trust issues if you are only suspecting it and not knowing it for sure and still even then it leaves a sour taste when mentioned.

( I'm not saying these points should never ever be spoken about but it should be done at a later point. Your primary goal right know is understanding her actions and finding a solution that makes you both satisfied. )

The exact wording is not that important, but it is important to be calm and understanding, so don't accuse or asume things. This is no situation for finger pointing and accusations.

If it escalates and starts to get into a fight, I would suggest an immediate stop of the discussion and starting it over after a period of time where both have calmed down.

Based on the answers and the possible found solution, you can continue planning your further actions for the relationship.

Answer 4

I would address it to her like:

You need to explain why based on your own criterion her way of using facebook is hurting your feeling. "Usually I consider it is normal to be friend on facebook with my partner and to display our relationship status but how about you ?"

Given the fact that you are already together since 6 months and that the relationship sounds serious and that you are both using actively facebook it clearly can be see as an relationship issue.

I think the problematic of the topic is not connected to respecting her privacy, but rather to know what are her privacy criterion and why. A love relationship is based on sharing intimacy, so it is fair to understand the "where and why" this intimacy start and finish.

Upon that it will be up to you to decide if you can be happy with that level of shared intimacy or not.

Now, taken from my own experience, I had been with a girl for 2 years, who never accepted to add me on facebook, despite posting picture of place we went without mentionning me, sweared to me that our relationship was serious, I had meet her parent just like you. When I was asking for the reason I was told that my question were overly inquisitive and that I should respect her privacy. It turns out she had several boyfriends... dating them all at the same time.

So long story short, be respectful but stay vigilant.