There's a growing need for partners to establish clear guidelines about the role social media will play in their relationship, says clinical psychologist Samantha Aldridge.
You met online, your romance blossomed via text messages and emails, and its images are spread across Facebook.
For a generation that increasingly thinks eye contact means pulling out the iPhone or iPad, partners have little chance to confront their problems face-to-face.
"There is a risk that social media is replacing real relationships," says Samantha Aldridge, clinical psychologist and executive director of development and practice at Relationships Australia (RA).
Although financial stress and communication difficulties again topped RA's recent annual poll as causes for partnership collapse, lack of trust and communication issues have risen as problem areas in percentage terms.
Even though only 16 per cent claimed social networking had a negative effect on relationships, they cited less face-to-face contact, partners forgetting how to communicate and spending less time together as the causes.
"Problems are further inflamed if one partner wants a private intimate life and the other a public online life," says Aldridge.
She says rather than being a substitute for a relationship, social media should be used as a tool to complement one.
In couples counselling at RA, Aldridge encounters these common problems:
* Men complain their female partners spend too much time on Facebook.
* Women complain their male partners spend too much time online gaming, staying up until the early hours of the morning and selfishly ignoring childcare and domestic chores.
* Both complain of lack of connectedness between each other.
* Affairs are discovered in text messages on their partner's phone.
* Arguments play out in text messages. "These can escalate - in the absence of body language, other than punching the phone harder, there are no physical cues," says Aldridge.
* One partner discovers the other on an online dating site. "One man even paid for it with their joint credit card," she says.
Adding to the headache for some is that when it's all over the breakdown can go viral and the potential for public humiliation by the dumped partner is bigger than ever.
"The post-separation grief is made so difficult as the ex-partner's life is played out loud over Facebook for everyone to see."
Aldridge says there's a growing need for partners to establish clear guidelines about the role social media will play in their relationship.
She advises that when couples are negotiating rules at the beginning of a relationship, up there with "Who's going to take out the garbage" should be "Where's social media going to fit in our relationship?"
"It's a good conversation to have," she says.
Aldridge proposes the following issues need to be canvassed if couples want to face social media's everyday threat to their relationship:
* Are we going to talk about our relationship online - to others and each other?
* How are we going to represent our relationship on social media?
* How much time is reasonable to spend on social media?
* Should we agree on a limit and a curfew for time online?
* Will we wait to discuss our problems face-to-face, rather than arguing via text message?
* Which conversations should we save for face-to-face discussions - for example, children and financial issues?
* Do we agree to avoid texting the other that it's over?
* If we break up, how would we deal with it - would we keep arguments and announcements offline?
"If either partner is not prepared to be flexible and considerate and make compromise, then these problems can eat away at a relationship and result in its breakdown," warns Aldridge.
By Virginia Ginnane
