The biggest threat to marriage in 2010

Facebook is the biggest threat for married people today, according to a Seattle-area couple.

Anyone who’s spent even a few minutes on the social media site knows it’s very easy to reconnect with old high school sweethearts and past flings. That’s what Kelli and Jason Krafsky found out first hand.

“I came across some old high school flames, one in particular, that really all of a sudden started to spark some uneasy feelings within Jason,” Kelli says.

“And not really even understanding why,” her husband Jason continues. “I felt jealousy for the first time.”

After that experience, they both examined what they could gain from being in touch with people they were intimate with in the past. Their answer? Nothing. Now they advise other couples to ignore friend requests from past loves, and don’t go looking for them.

With a “Dear Abby meets Facebook style,” the Krafskys answer 120 questions about protecting your marriage from social media troubles in their new book Facebook and Your Marriage.

“Couples today just don’t seem to have the boundaries with themselves that our parents’ generation had with one another,” Kelli says.

Jason worked with Jeff Kemp at Families Northwest for a decade and is now consulting with the California Healthy Marriage coalition. He says his interest in studying marriage comes from his own broken family background.

“On one side of my family tree, there’s nothing more than broken branches and severed limbs,” he says. “There are five siblings and four step-siblings and out of the nine there have been 22 marriages and 20 divorces.”

The Krafsky’s started writing their book one year ago, it’s now available online. In just one year the number of Facebook users doubled from 200 million to 400 million, and Facebook is adding 50-million users a month.

One of the trends they’re concerned about is the oh-so-awkward arguing on each other’s Facebook pages. That includes online spats, relationship status slams and digital dumping – when you change your relationship status to “single” or “it’s complicated” without telling your partner. Ouch.

“It’s sort of like being at one of those parties when a couple stops and has a fight and everybody looks around and tries to figure out how they can get out of it,” Jason says. “Unfortunately on Facebook you can’t and it goes on and on and on, and everybody reads it.”

Kelli says there are some positives for couples on Facebook. She thinks it’s a nice idea to write loving and supportive messages on your spouse’s wall. Or, why not have a Facebook affair with your spouse? Send them flirty private chats, and use Facebook messages to set up dates with your partner.

Kelli and Jason Krafsky, co-authors of Facebook and Your Marriage. They’ve been married since 1994 and have four children. Kelli’s background is in elementary education. Jason trains pastors and counselors for premarital and marriage relationship programs.

The Krafsky’s 6 Do’s and 6 Don’ts for Facebook couples:

Do:

Create boundaries to protect yourself, your spouse and your marriage.

Set your relationship status to “married’ and keep it that way.

Update each other on your FB friends and friend requests.

Share your username and password with one another.

Make your spouse the topic of your status updates at least once a week.

Be prepared to talk offline about online issues.

Don’t:

Write cutting remarks or negative statements about your spouse.

Friend exes, old flames, past flings, former crushes or anyone you’ve been intimate with in the past.

Lose track of how much time you spend on Facebook.

Report that you or your spouse is out of town.

Have private chat sessions with people of the opposite sex.

Let Facebook be a distraction from your time with your mate.