Following exes, privacy settings, and the Instagram conversation you haven’t had yet

Nobody tells you that at some point in a serious relationship, you’re going to have feelings about an Instagram follow.

Maybe it’s your partner still following an ex. Maybe it’s a like on a photo that felt a little too personal. Maybe it’s the fact that your partner keeps their phone face down and you can’t quite articulate why that bothers you, but it does.

Welcome to one of the most genuinely new relationship territories of our generation, the digital boundaries conversation. It doesn’t have a rulebook yet, which is exactly why it causes so much trouble.

First: your feelings are valid even if you can’t fully explain them:

One of the things I find myself saying a lot in the therapy room is this: you don’t have to be able to defend your feelings for them to deserve airtime. If something about your partner’s online behaviour makes you uncomfortable, that discomfort is information. It might be pointing to something about trust. It might be pointing to your own attachment patterns. It might be pointing to something your partner is actually doing that warrants a conversation.

You won’t know which until you talk about it.

What the research tells us:

Studies on social media and relationships consistently find that ambiguity is the problem more than the behaviour itself. It’s not the ex-follow that tends to erode trust, it’s the fact that neither person has ever said what they’re comfortable with, so one person is privately uncomfortable while the other has no idea.

Researcher Muise and colleagues found that social media-related jealousy is particularly driven by the availability of information that’s just ambiguous enough to be concerning. Seeing your partner like someone’s photo doesn’t tell you anything definitive, but it might give your threat-detection system something to chew on.

The conversation most couples avoid:

Digital boundaries conversations feel awkward because they can sound controlling or insecure if you don’t frame them right. So they're sometimes easier to avoid. And then resentment builds quietly in the gap between what you’re comfortable with and what you’ve actually said.

The frame that works: this isn’t about rules or surveillance. It’s about both of you knowing what the other person needs to feel secure, and deciding together what you’re both comfortable with.

Some things worth discussing: How do we each feel about staying connected with exes online? Is there anything either of us does online that the other doesn’t know about and should we talk about that? Are there things we want to keep private from each other, and what does that mean for our trust? How do we want to present our relationship publicly, do we post about each other, and does that matter to either of us?

There’s no universal right answer here.

Some couples are completely fine with their partner following exes. Some aren’t, and that’s okay too. What matters is that you’ve actually had the conversation and that you both know where you each stand and have made some kind of shared agreement rather than operating on unspoken assumptions that are quietly accumulating.

The couples who handle this well aren’t necessarily the ones with identical values. They’re the ones who can talk about it without it turning into an accusation.

Navigating trust and digital boundaries in your relationship? I can help. https://www.brisbanecouplescounselling.com/services-and-fees