“Create a life that feels good on the inside, not just one that looks good on the outside.”
Throughout life, we have all been guilty of portraying something that we are not. Society has made it even easier to do so with social media. The old saying, “Keeping up with the Joneses” is more prominent today than ever.
Years ago, we were not able to know what everyone was doing, eating, thinking, or saying at any given moment. Now, social media outlets have made it as simple as the click of a button to find out what your bestie, or in some cases your mortal enemy, is up to.
It is only natural to have a slight tinge of jealousy or envy when Jane takes the vacation of YOUR dreams, watching John get the promotion YOU deserve, or seeing Suzie live the fairytale you imagined for YOURSELF.
The same is true in divorce and co-parenting. Instead of spending time making memories with our children, we often post exaggerated or staged photos of the amazing life we are attempting to portray on social media.
There are several reasons why this happens. For instance, we do this to prove to others that we are, in fact, great parents. Perhaps during divorce and custody battles, allegations were made otherwise. Therefore, you feel the inherent desire to validate your parenting skills.
Another reason could be that we want to show our exes what they are missing out on. Maybe we are bitter about the abrupt ending of the marriage, or we want to flaunt our new and better relationship. Often, we feel the need to exaggerate our happiness on social media, but likely we are just trying to prove that happiness to ourselves, instead of others.
Lastly, we do this to sway others in our favor. During custody battles we are often asked to have as many character witnesses as possible. Showing our best sides on social media, is one way that we attempt to prove who the ‘better’ parent is in any given situation. Documenting only the positivity and good attributes gives outsiders the proof they need and desire to testify on our behalf.
We believe that some women can be insecure by nature.
They may feel an undesirable need to please others, often losing themselves in the process. This can be true for men as well.
Who says we are supposed to be perfect?
Why do we feel the need to always look and do our best?
Often, society places extreme pressure on us to dress, speak, and behave a certain way.
For many women (and men) that grow up with insecurities due to abandonment issues, those feelings intensify with time. In adulthood, we tend to have no control over those sensitivities, making them grow immensely stronger.
When we were going through our bitter custody battle, we spent countless hours filling Facebook and Instagram with photos of ourselves being textbook perfect parents. Our attorneys even advised us of the importance of always documenting and portraying what ‘amazing’ parents we were. It became a competition among households…little did we know that it was a contest not worth winning.
If one household took the children on a vacation, the other household would up the ante, splurging on a more elaborate trip. If the children got gifts in one house, well of course it was documented, and obviously the other house had to get the bigger and better version of said gifts. The only thing we accomplished with this, was going broke and creating entitled, little monsters.
Let’s not forget that it was pertinent for us to prove that we were more in love in our new relationships than we ever were previously. By exaggerating the ‘perfect’ relationship online, it was just another way to cause deeper heartbreak to one another.
As you know, you can fake anything online…
If one of us posted a picture with a status regarding how ‘hopelessly in love’ we were, you best believe that would be on-upped by the other party. After all, we could never let each other believe that one person was more in love than the other or had moved on quicker than the other. That brings up the old saying that rang so true many times for us, “Confidence is quiet; insecurities are loud”.
on several occasions, we spent more time trying to prove our love on social media than we did actually enjoying our new relationships.
What good is it to post how amazing we were on social media, if we didn’t have an army of people willing to believe it and back it up. We are disgusted and ashamed to admit that we became so petty, that we intentionally alluded to the other’s shortcomings in order to ensure our own personal victories.
As long as it was on Facebook, then it must have been true…right?
Wrong!
It was so completely wrong.
Social Media can be an amazing and wonderful outlet. Therein lies a plethora of knowledge, sound advice, the ability to stay in contact with family and friends afar, and countless, hilarious memes. It should not be a place that our souls go to die. It should not be an outlet we use to bully and harass one another. It should definitely not be a platform to air your dirty laundry…
Unless, of course, you are two women who are attempting to tell your story of how a bitter custody battle created an extremely strong friendship and co-parenting relationship. In that case, preach on sisters!
All in all, portraying perfection on social media is completely unnecessary. There are no perfect bodies, no perfect children, no perfect jobs, or no perfect relationships. We all have flaws.
Our children are all – at times – naughty.
There are days that we wish we could stay in sweats and not go to the office.
And, at one time or another, we all wish our spouse would step on a Lego.
It is ok to have a bad day and then have a fantastic day. It is ok to eat a salad and then have three pieces of cake. It is ok to go to the gym seven days a week, and it is ok to binge watch Netflix while having a bottle of wine.
It is ok to not be perfect.
The most important thing is that YOU are happy.
What is most necessary is making sure you have so much fun being so completely and perfectly YOU, that you do not have time to worry about what everyone else is doing or posting online.
