[JoeS21]

Or, "defriend" her?

What if you kind of got along okay from a distance but she has a tendency to invade your privacy (open your mail, snoop, cross boundaries, etc.), and lie about you?

My problem: If I remove her as a "friend" distant relatives might ask about it. Then there's the likelihood of a no-win situation: If I tell them why I took her off, then that starts a family fight, gossip, etc. If I don't say why I took her off, then they hear her side of the story which, based on the history, is likely to be very offensive and pretty much a complete lie. Relatives are likely to believe her lies because she's been at an advantage for so long. As my mother, I was NOT "allowed" to correct her when she lied about me or I would get punished.

What would you do?

[~Christina]

This ! Facebook is going to be the downfall of mankind. It's YOUR facebook add who you want,delete who you want. If it's such a drama filled fest why not delete all your family? or just make 2 facebook pages . 1 with family and 1 without.

There are many ways to find a simple solution

Linkedin is a more professional networking deal.

[hvert]

Unless she is doing something really obnoxious on my Facebook, I would keep her on. You can create a special category for people (like your mother and distant relatives) so they don't see what you post.

I defriended my father on Facebook and blocked him. No one but him asked me about it, fwiw.

[JoeS21]

Originally Posted by ~Christina

This ! Facebook is going to be the downfall of mankind. It's YOUR facebook add who you want,delete who you want. If it's such a drama filled fest why not delete all your family? or just make 2 facebook pages . 1 with family and 1 without.

There are many ways to find a simple solution

Linkedin is a more professional networking deal.

Sounds good! I don't know why I didn't think of that.

[IchbinkeinTeufel]

Good one. Honestly, I don't tend to let this stuff control me, (or at least I endeavor to not let it control me) despite how it might make me feel. Point being, if I wanted to remove her as a friend, I would do so, then explain to her why (felt I wanted Facebook to be more private) and that would be the end of it; if she or others don't understand and attack me (so, you) for that, then that's not my (your xD) problem. Of course, I wouldn't add her in the first place. My dad's online, but not on Facebook; if he were, I can see me being tempted to have him on my Facebook, but my Facebook is private-ish; he respects that.

My thinking is that if we never stand our ground about these things, we'll constantly be hiding and walking on egg-shells; drives me crazy. Take my parents for examples, they won't tell my step-mother's parents to basically stop bringing tons of food over (really wasteful amounts) because they can't eat it all, don't like it all, and/or it just goes to waste. Personally, I think it's ridiculous, and if they'd let me, I'd just tell them myself. Problem is, they left it soooo long that now it REALLY is an issue because they've lied for ages, which is just not the best way to handle it, IMO.

So, ... I guess what I'm saying is: do you want to drag this on for ages, driving you crazy, making you feel uncomfortable, all with her being none-the-wiser, or, do you want to stop it here and now? I'm sure they will recover and time will go on as always. Also, logically, I'd have thought that what goes on between you and your mother has nothing to do with anyone else, so, ... with that in mind, I wouldn't really care of the others decided to kick up a stink over something that has nothing to do with them, ... besides, it's just Facebook; it's not a real representation of years of friendship and family, ... or is it?

That's just me, anyway. That's just how I would do it. Is that cold, maybe? I don't know - I do things in weird ways, apparently.

[geis]

My mother is the type who spent most of my life saving up details that she could twist and use against me in arguments later, sometimes years after the fact. She's gotten better recently, and we are Facebook friends. However, I don't post anything intensely personal on Facebook. I use Facebook a lot to connect with people I work with, since they're all over the state. I post things about my life, but only things that are work-appropriate and that I wouldn't mind sharing with people I don't know well. If I posted more personal things, I wouldn't make them visible to my mother. There is a way you can create filters on Facebook, so you can post things so they're visible to only the people you've added to that filter. That can be really useful if you decide to friend your mother but don't want her to see certain things you post.

[ifst5]

I thought there were ways of adjusting what can and can't be seen by certain people on Facebook anyway? So figure that out, keep her on board and then she can't be overly controlling or feel left out in a way that could lead her to lie and gossip. Problem solved.