First Chris Pratt and Anna Faris took to the ‘gram to announce their divorce. Then Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan. And who could forget Jonathan Van Ness’s iconic breakup announcement and subsequent IG Story?
Breaking up is hard to do. And in the digital age, it’s even harder. How much do you share with the cyber world? How do you alert your loved ones when shit gets real? What’s worth keeping private? The answer, of course, varies for everyone — but one thing’s for sure: tons of people post about their breakups — even those of us with far less than one million followers.
Whether it’s a joint post crafted with a partner or a rage-fueled diatribe by an ex-girlfriend scorned, check out how these four women posted about their breakups on social media.
J.* drafted a joint divorce post with her husband, and they both posted it to Facebook. In it, they acknowledged their "amazing run" while requesting respect and privacy.
"My ex-husband and I were together for 16-and-a-half years, and married for almost 11. While I was the one who sat him down and said I think we should talk about a divorce, we agreed not long after that we both knew it was coming. There was no momentous blowout or event — we just grew apart over time. We ended our marriage amicably (as social media shows), and we’re still solid friends. We don’t hang out, really, but I’ll always care about him and always want the best for him. That last part was a big motivator in deciding to split — he deserved someone who would be excited about the same things he was — and so did I."
"We’ve always had separate social media accounts, but we wrote the post together, and posted it at the same time. We were still living together, and we wanted it to go up at the same time because we knew it would catch a lot of people by surprise. We didn’t want whoever posted it ‘first’ to feel weird about it. If I remember right, he was sitting on the chair next to me, I was on the couch, and we did a count down."
Do you and your ex still follow each other on social media?
"Yep. He’s really active (always has been), and me — less so. I haven’t been less active because of our split, but I’ve definitely lost a core group of friends as a result, so my social use has just dwindled."
Did your ex post about the breakup as well?
"Outside of our mutual posts, not that I know of."
Why did you decide to post about it?
"We were together for nearly 20 years and so many of our friends and family though of us as the perfect couple. We never fought, we were always together, and we kept any issues between us between us. He has a HUGE social circle across a ton of different smaller social circles — he knows everyone. We didn’t want to have to go through the story over and over again, because while it was big news to a lot of people, it was still heartbreaking for us. It hurt to have to live through it and relive it with each retelling. Broadcasting it let us just get it out there and be done with it and also quell any rumors before they could even start. I wasn’t going to let anyone speak poorly of him, nor was he going to let anyone do the same of me.
"We saw so many friends go through tough times — and social media is where a lot of us go for that support. Vaguebooking (such a gross term) just makes people wonder what’s going on, and it wasn’t what we wanted."
What kind of feedback did the post get?
"Generally, or at least publicly, it was overwhelmingly positive. Our friends told us they loved us and supported us. As time has continued on, my ex-husband and his girlfriend and I hang out from time to time, and one of us posts a picture of the three of us. He is less blatant about it, but I’m very open about ‘YES WE’RE COOL. WE ALL GET ALONG AND IT’S GOOD.’ He might be less blatant about it because he’s just always been more subtle than me, or maybe it’s because he feels he should out of respect for his girlfriend (which is cool by me). Or maybe I’m just shouting it from the rooftops because if I have this platform, well, I might as well use it for good."
After her two-year relationship ended, Paula posted about the breakup on Facebook, and then at the suggestion of her mom, decided to take a social media detox, which ultimately really changed how she interacted with the world.
"We met in Washington, D.C., in the summer of 2015 (I was 22, he was 23) and dated for what felt like forever but really was only about two years. Things were starting to get pretty serious between us. We had both been in ‘love’ before, but this time felt very real and very right to us. It was the longest either of us had been in a relationship. We were starting to have discussions about moving in together and getting engaged. These became tension points for us and started to show the deep cracks in our relationship. I had been having doubts for a while, but really wanted to see things through and work it out. I just felt like sticking it out was expected of me after having been together for a while.
"We broke up on a Tuesday night. I had no intention of breaking up with him at that time. I poured us each a glass of wine, and we sat on my bed to just chat and catch up. The conversation turned sour, and I asked him if he thought our relationship was worth fighting for. He said he didn’t know, and before I realized what I was doing, I replied that if he didn’t know, I didn’t want to be in the relationship anymore. He got up from the bed without saying anything and started to collect some stuff he had left at my place. I silently went to take his apartment key off my key ring. Subconsciously, I think I knew things were going to end because over the past few weeks I had slowly collected everything I had at his place and had brought it back to mine. I think I was trying to save us both the pain of having to go through that whole ordeal. I walked him to his car, we cried and hugged for probably an hour, and then he left.
"In the week after the breakup, I took four days off from work and went home to my family support system. We did all kinds of stuff — strawberry picking, museum exhibits, movies, hikes, and I posted every single one of those activities on social media. Before that weekend I would post maybe three to four times a month. In the first week of our breakup, I had doubled that amount. Cue my mom’s intervention, and my decision to get off all social media for the summer."
Did your ex see the post?
"I don’t know if he ever saw my post, and I never mentioned the breakup explicitly. When I scrubbed my pages I decided not to unfriend or block him, just to unfollow him. Maybe I had hoped we would be friends one day. Several of our mutual friends ‘liked’ my post, but no one reached out to me directly or even asked about our status."
Do you and your ex still follow each other on social media?
"No. When I got back on social media about six months later, a former mutual friend posted a picture of her birthday party that he was at. My heart stopped at the picture and after a glass of wine or two, I tried to social media check-up on him. This is when I found out he, his whole family, and a few of our mutual friends had unfriended me. I decided to unfollow all of our mutual friends so that I didn’t accidentally come across his picture again."
Did your ex post about the breakup as well?
"No, he was never a big poster on social media. He didn’t change his profile picture the whole time we were dating. He never even posted a picture of us together on social. A picture of us visiting the cherry blossoms was my profile photo for a very long time."
Why did you decide to post about it?
"It wasn’t so much that I posted about the breakup, but more that I felt like I needed to tell the world I was going to go offline. I was trying to see who my real friends were and if anyone cared about my well-being. At the time, it would be strange if I wasn’t on social media since that was how I primarily communicated with all our friends. A few friends liked the post to acknowledge I was going dark, but no one called or texted me to check in. All of those friendships have faded now.
"Deleting social media and getting out of the relationship really helped me for the better. I’m grateful for the lessons I learned in the relationship and from deleting social media. I’m in a much happier and healthier place now!"
After discovering that her partner was seeing someone else, Jenn moved out and posted an Instagram photo of her packed-up boxes with the hashtags #postbreakupadventures and #mythingsinlife.
"We had met at Trader Joe’s as employees. He was not the type of guy I normally dated. We moved to another state together, and we were talking about having kids. His parents bought us a house. All of a sudden, we really needed to have those real conversations, the kind that might make you take a good hard look at where you are and where you want to be. We weren’t in a bad place — I just felt like we lost our connection. He wasn’t supportive of me leaving my job because I needed to take time for my MS. He stopped texting me sweet things, like how excited he was to see me.
"After we broke up, I immediately went into survival mode. I didn’t have income and spent the majority of my savings on furnishing the new house. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to stay in Portland. I called my mom right away. She was shocked and put the bug in my ear that there was someone else. I ignored it at first. I spent the night in the guest room and told him I needed to start listing all the pieces I bought on Craigslist to get back some of the money I spent.
"Then I went crazy ex-girlfriend and found his laptop while he was at work. Momma was right! There was someone else. I left a note on his laptop with Messages open saying ‘Thanks for this, you can sell the furniture if you want — I’ll take the cash’ and I called his mom. He had mentioned his parents’ interest in buying the furniture I had purchased for his home, so I let her know it was too painful to stay in the house and that I’d really appreciate their help in recouping some of my losses. I then created a spreadsheet of my purchases for each room, and they offered me 90% of what I paid. I still have moments where I think of items not listed. The thing that I have the BIGGEST regret about is the pair of Ingmar Relling chairs I found on Craigslist the moment I arrived in Portland. In my state of panic, I sold them to his parents for one-tenth of their worth. I can’t wait to make ‘fuck you money’ so I can buy my own vintage pair with an ottoman!
Did your ex see you post? If so, what did they say?
"I’m sure he saw it, but he didn’t mention it."
Do you and your ex still follow each other on social media?
"We did for a bit, until him liking my posts made me feel bad so I DM-ed him asking that he no longer follow me. I tried to be friends at first because I didn’t want to hold onto anger, but it got to a point where I found it unnecessary for us to be involved in each other’s lives."
Why did you decide to post about it?
"I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was a call for community. The people that showed up for me during this time are some of the most inspiring people I have the pleasure of friendship with. It made me realize I’m exactly where I need to be, and I have an incredible army of rad people with me."
What kind of feedback did the post get?
"Support! It also helped me put into perspective all the relationships I’ve built over the past eight years ,and I discovered that I was exactly where I needed to be."
After her breakup, Nicole posted an Instagram photo of herself in front of her gym with the cheeky caption: "Because your gym will never wake up one morning and tell you it doesn’t love you anymore. Happy 365, OTF. Best. Anniversary. Ever."
"We met on an airplane, and travel played a huge part in our relationship. About seven months in, he was deployed with the military overseas for two months. While he was gone, his apartment lease ended and I packed and moved him into a new apartment. Once he returned (nine months in to our relationship), we went to a wedding together where I was a bridesmaid. His family happened to be on vacation that weekend, but he chose to come to the wedding because we had been apart and we knew the wedding was going to be a great time. However, he was in a shitty mood all night, supposedly upset he was missing his family vacay and had to spend a lot of time at the wedding alone while I was tending to bridesmaid duties (understandable on both sides). That night, when we went to bed, and I was setting an alarm on his phone, he received a text from his sister that made it clear he had told her how miserable he was. At this point I knew something was up, so I made the choice to look through his phone. I found multiple texts talking shit about me to his mom and sister including a list of reasons he should break up with me — from his mom. Somehow, I got deep enough to get into his Notes, where he had a list of RELATIONSHIP RED FLAGS he was keeping track of.
"So, I did what any modern woman would do. I kicked him out of our hotel room and told him to find a different place to stay and different way home the next day. We decided to take a break from one another and a few weeks later, decided to try to mend things and get back together. After two months of trying to make it work, we were clearly too damaged, and he had completely shut down and was no longer putting any effort into the relationship. He recognized this as well and told me he didn’t love me anymore and couldn’t be with me during the week of our one-year anniversary. We talked about it a bit, he wouldn’t budge, and I walked out of his apartment. We never spoke again."
Did your ex see you post?
"I know he saw the post, but he never said anything to me about it. I found out that he screenshotted my Instagram post and sent it to his family and friends."
Do you and your ex still follow each other on social media?
"We are friends on Facebook, but we don’t follow each other on Instagram anymore and I have his entire family blocked on all social media."
Did your ex post about the breakup as well?
"No. He has only posted two photos since his last post of us in August 2017, so he isn’t very active on Instagram."
Why did you decide to post about it?
"I think I was pretty broken at the time and wanted to post to make it look like I was doing great without him and didn’t need him to make me happy. I definitely wanted him to see it. I wanted it to appear that I was happier to be with my gym for a year than I would have been with him for a year. Looking back, it was immature but it did what I needed it to do at the time."
What kind of feedback did the post get? It got lots of likes and comments. It also caused some acquaintances to reach out to check in on me because they figured out this meant a breakup had occurred.
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Source: Refinery29 – Anabel Pasarow