Is oversharing a Millennial marriage problem?
Oversharing is by definition, the act of revealing an inappropriate amount of information about one’s personal life. In today’s set up, we can connect with contacts at the touch of a button. This is probably the most cliched sentence you have read in the recent times however that does not make the statement any less true. Friends with whom you might have organically lost touch with are all in your inner circle now , thanks to that well meaning whatsapp group of school mates.While social media, indulges the oversharing nature of your public life it silently also indulges in your temptation to share your private one.

I am not addressing here the oversharing of pictures, check in information, opinions or relationship status. There is another type of sharing that happens, a very private one.The ‘ Hi’ that you sent on a ‘Whatsapp’ to a friend who may not be part of your immediate physical surroundings. That friend that you see rarely and hence feel comfortable enough to vent out to . That friend who slowly becomes a screen that grants you the privacy and safety to talk about things that are difficult to talk to in person.
When things are going downhill with your spouse or partner , you quietly go into the comfort of sharing with a person who is far removed from the reality of your situation. It costs nothing. Not a dime needs to be spent no matter how far away he/she is. If both of you have the time, the chats or calls turn into a free therapy session. You share details of words that were spoken, incidents of the past, your feelings. Oh it all feels so good. After the session, you are rejuvenated . Refreshed, you now head back to your real situation. Things are calm because you spoke it all out to some one else.

It sounds like the perfect situation . It felt the same to me until I began to think. Look at it this way , you are facing an issue with a and you vent it out to c. C hears you out , calms you down and you feel better. The loop feels incomplete does it not? You had an issue with ‘a’ but you settled it with ‘c’. C who has no implications of the consequences of your issue with ‘a’ ,has temporarily calmed you down. Hence you do not feel the need to sort it out with ‘a’. The issue does not get the importance, reverence or recuperation that it deserves for a as well as b. An relatively less informed entity C has crept up into the space of a and b.
Now B is you, replace A with your spouse’s name and C with the name of that friend who you ‘ talk out’ things with. Just do a random check to see if he/she is not some one you meet often . There are high chances that your answer is a yes.
Let’s skip a generation back. Our Parents’ too were sure to have gone through all the ‘teething problems’ that our generation of married millennials are going through today. However I truly wonder if they had the luxury of sharing it with the extant of people that we have . Most of the sharing I assume would happen within the family . Probably to your mom, dad, brother ,an in law or a co sister. Does it help better when you share with your family ? Considering that family has a better view of the situation and more information on the parties involved. Also when you share with family, it could so happen more often than not that you are sharing with some one of a different generation ,does that help you get a wiser more matured perspective?
Yes there is no doubt about the fact that , millennials are going through a lot of extra stress compared to the previous generation. Every day we are being rubbed in our faces about the class mate who has the ultimate job, the friend who has the latest car, the colleague who has the best house and another that has the perfect body. We deal with the pressure of living up to impossible standards of marital harmony where every celebration is grand and proclamatory in its nature, where the spouses look picture perfect and the settings are scenic. A little mental comfort in the form of friends , even if it involves oversharing is nothing to raise alarms about. However, if we are not careful, will this comfort lead to a sort of complacency in marriages. Will you stop connecting, rectifying, fighting, rebuilding, restructuring, transforming, shaping and crafting your marriage the way it should be , because you have the momentary comfort of a largely inconsequential friend?

Will your efforts reduce where it matters because of diversion? Will issues that get unaddressed tarnish the connection you have with your spouse?
I find this topic intriguing and significant. Worth a discussion may be.