I got on Facebook just around the time STBXW hit me with the ILYBNILWY crap (almost 2 yrs back). We're still living together and hopefully will conclude a separation agreement in the next two months (Although I've been saying this for 9 months now). I've found facebook to be awesome for reconnecting with old friends, which is exactly what I've needed in the past 18 months to help go through this process. Many of my college friends and high-school friends are on it, as well as many former friends from work. I get news / updates from about 125 friends (they really are friends), and it's a nice mostly passive way of staying in touch, having their latest contact info, and seeing what's going on with them. Similarly, when I update my status my friends and family see what I'm up to -- about once a month I'll post a picture of myself or DD5, right from the mobile, and it's nice when folks chime in, etc.
Much of the site can be locked down. I keep my stuff only visible to friends, and I don't friend any'ol person that asks. Also, I keep a different set of permissions for my work associates.
Here are a couple of separation related things that have happened:
1) STBXW has been on it, and a friend on the service about as long as me. However, about 18 months back she set her relationship field to blank. At the same time mine said married. Most folks wouldn't notice this (she didn't say single and she prevented the fact that she updated from being broadcasted). However, in recent months I think it was informative to our few common friends who are also in the know about our situation. Most of the folks in our community still do not know that we're on a separation path.
2) About 9 months ago she locked me out of getting updates for her profile and actions. We're still friends on the site, but I can't see anyone she's added or removed since then, nor can I see any activity that she does. I've left it so she can see my feed just fine. I have nothing to hide, and it has a nice side-effect in a GAL context. I'm just sharing the fun stuff I do with my friends...
3) We had an outing together and I uploaded some fun fotos of DD5 and STBXW. I also 'tagged' them with her name, which is a very common practice. Two days later she asked me to remove the tag. What happens is that once tagged, even though it's my foto, the picture of STBXW and DD5 then also gets associated with her profile. A message also goes out to her friends saying 'STBXW was tagged in this foto' and they see a clickable thumbnail of the foto. So this was not intentional on my part, but apparantly it was a problem ;-) So bringing in DD5 into her new circle of friends was an issue... I had to laugh.
4) I recently had a birthday, and as a small act of claiming my independence, I changed my marital status to blank as well.
At anyrate, I stand by my ealier comments about the service being very helpful, to me, as a way of staying in touch with the rest of the world. This is a very trying time for me socially, and facebook has helped.
