Mark Mehigan: ‘My boyfriend never posts pictures of us and likes pictures of other women’

Q. My boyfriend keeps liking a particular colleague’s pictures on Instagram, leaving flirty comments and yet he never posts pictures of us together. From looking at his social media, you could think he is single. There is no evidence of me on his page. We’ve been together for three years. I have raised it with him and he dismisses me, saying that he doesn’t care about Instagram and “that’s not what really matters in life”. This bothers me because he is non-stop stuck into the phone liking pics of this woman and it’s driving me crazy. I’ve now started checking her page all the time to see what she has posted and to see what he’s writing under the pictures. – Isabelle

Hi Isabelle,

This is a tricky one. There is probably a certain expectation for me to exercise a bit of balance here and apply some evenhandedness when discussing your relationship whilst also reassuring you that Instagram isn’t the be-all and end-all et cetera, et cetera. Unfortunately, I am not of the balanced variety myself, so let’s pick up the pitchforks and work ourselves into a frenzy. I think your partner is in the wrong. And I think you deserve better. I hope your role as the phantom girlfriend will be short lived because the fact he has no proof that you exist anywhere on his page is the biggest red flag I’ve seen since the Joseph Stalin documentary I watched on YouTube in Malaga airport during the Easter Break.

And that’s before we even look at his other behaviour. Now obviously I should caveat that I do not find it strange for a man to become friends with a female work colleague. I am not some sort of neanderthal who believes any interaction between a heterosexual male and a person who possesses breasts must be sexual. However, in this instance I’d say there’s definitely something awry.

“Liking” several pictures at once on Instagram is the siren sound of the horny. A digital plea for attention that has marked the beginning and end of many relationships since the dawn of the internet. I think you are well within your rights to be upset. Let no person convince you otherwise. This sort of Instagram activity is usually not harmless. Unless it’s from your aunty who lives overseas and exclusively uses social media to send you animated rabbits jumping out of chocolate eggs during Easter or hysterical warnings via forwarded messages on WhatsApp about non-existing viruses called APPLE CRUMBLE or CINNAMON BUN.

When it comes to solving this issue or getting to the bottom of it – the problem here is that your boyfriend is relying on the irritating and ignorant technicality of not “actually” doing anything and thus putting the onus on you to prove any formal wrongdoing rather than for him to explain his behaviour. It’s not fair. He knows what he is up to. And what’s worse is that he knows he can get away with it. I reject the “I don’t care about social media” defence too. Just because the last thing he might have posted on Instagram was a picture of himself in very questionable aviators at Slane Castle in 2005, it doesn’t mean he can’t understand the impact of his actions. And even if he doesn’t care about social media, does he care about you? He should be able to see the damage this is doing offline and that alone should be enough for him to change his ways.

I’m amazed at how comfortable people are to behave like this so publicly. It’s up there with the bewildering confidence of weekend cyclists in lycra, loitering in the doorways of suburban coffee shops on Saturday mornings, leaning back against the walls in such a way that nearly always results in their waists pointing out forwards with their genitals on display as if they are making a minuscule offering up to the sun Gods. I’m just trying to get a white Americano, Keith. I don’t care that you’ve cycled to Howth or are more financially secure than the nation of Greece.

Nevertheless.

As often seems to be the case with this column – if not life – a solid conversation could quickly call a halt to all of the confusion. Directly explaining to your partner that his behaviour on social media has started affecting your self esteem and impacting your trust should have been enough to get his attention. I’m sorry this achieved nothing. Trust is a close companion of happiness in any relationship. It is the glue or cement that welds the two of you together. You cannot flourish – or function – without it. I would do your best to stay off the female colleagues’ Instagram page for the time being though and focus on him and his lack of desire to reassure you or communicate. I know it will be hard but the intoxication of jealousy will only interfere with your well founded reasons to be angry with him. (Also, I’m sure the temptation to go through his phone is probably a potent one. Please refrain from doing so. Not just because it’s wrong – although it is – but by doing so you would be immediately handing him the ammunition he needs to adopt a “You are crazy, how dare you” position and deflect from the issue at hand).

Now, it’s worth remembering that I am only going off a few sentences. It’s hard to gauge the nuance of any relationship from half a paragraph. I am not a professional. I have a decent success rate with matchmaking and seem to have a good read on people but I am by no means a psychologist or relationships expert. So please take both your fists and fill them with salt prior to listening to anything I say. However, I will say this;

Life is too short to have people indirectly sabotaging your wellbeing. Can you envisage spending your future with someone who dismisses you when you are clearly upset about something? And I’m not just flippantly adopting the position of a passive aggressive minion meme either. (Mostly, I don’t buy into the internet culture of self-love, which is often just narcissism masquerading as wellness, encouraging us to drop anybody that disagrees with something we’ve done and label them as toxic.). Not everybody who criticises you is a hater. Not everybody who has a problem with your behaviour is gaslighting you either. Some people just don’t like you. (I need to remember this more than anyone.)

Anyway, before this becomes a roast of the wellness world and my murky interpretations of therapy buzzwords, what I’m getting at is this; You have tried to reason with this person. You have been emotionally assertive and clearly identified the elements of his behaviour which are upsetting you. For whatever reason, he doesn’t seem interested in changing his ways or at the very least, reassuring you. In my twenties, I would have advised you to disguise yourself as a cactus and position yourself in the corner of his office, hoping you’d overhear him asking the colleague to unbutton her blouse in the middle of the day. And then he would be caught and that would be the end of it. But those days are behind me. And not just because he probably works from home. And that cactus needles are a nightmare to get out. But because chaos colours everything it touches, so there’s no real need to invite it into your life unnecessarily. Instead, I will just ask you if you think it’s worth it in the long run? You deserve to feel loved in your relationship. You deserve to feel desired. There are enough people, places and things out there that will make us question our worth and how attractive we are. The one place that should be an infinite source of reassurance in that regard is your relationship. Whether it’s with this man or somebody else, if that’s all you are asking for, you aren’t asking for much.

Are you looking for love? Are you sick of the apps? Do you need some advice about love and dating? If you have a question for Mark, send it in to info@image.ie with the subject “Agony Uncle”, or DM @image.ie for advice straight from the Taoiseach of Grá himself.