J.Lo's failed attempt to not look embarrassed

Marriage can make you look like a clown —especially when you’ve been flaunting it all over the internet, making it #RelationshipGoals for other women.

Look, there’s nothing you can do about a marriage ending. No amount of “happy selfies,” flexed six-packs, corny Instagram captions, or over-the-top birthday parties can cover the fact that either the guy you chose was an idiot, you were an idiot for choosing him, or maybe you both just weren’t a good personality fit from the get-go. How do I know? Because J.Lo did all of that.

Tbh, writing about J.Lo and Ben Affleck has been on my mind for a while now, because many things about their super public split bothered me. Every tabloid I opened this summer and every celeb podcast I tuned into was buying into J.Lo’s PR spin: “She looks so happy!” The strategy was all about pretending nothing bad happened, really. It’s all fine, when it’s… obviously not. That’s the first thing, that bothered me. The second thing was that no one was digging into the real issue here—the embarrassment that hits when a very famous woman loses a man.

J.Lo’s highly visible relationship and subsequent breakup offer a perfect example of the challenges associated with publicly sharing one’s romantic life.

Marriage can make you look like a clown —especially when you’ve been flaunting it all over the internet, making it #RelationshipGoals for other women. So, is this what J.Lo—and every woman who overshares her love life on Instagram—deserves? Of course not. While J.Lo’s situation is a quite specific case, it serves as a reflection of a larger trend. Public displays of relationships, while seemingly glamorous, often come with hidden pitfalls.

But let’s unpack it.

The Problem with Posting Your S.O. on Social Media

I know, I know. PDA is trendy again, and I love love. Playing it cool is definitely out—I’m simply not sure yet if we should take our newly re-implemented romantic gestures, love letters, love-biting, etc. straight to the internet, ya know?

Call me old-fashioned, but it gives me the ick when I see former classmates in their mid-thirties sticking their tongues out online, cosplaying teenage love. It’s weirdly unsettling when Machine Gun Kelly kisses Megan Fox’s fake baby bump in his latest country song. And before you accuse me of age-shaming, I also don’t need to see your thirsty teenage daughter making out with her boyfriend on TikTok. I’d honestly rather... watch some high-quality porn—at a time and place where I’m comfortable, and that’s definitely not Social Media.

Anyway, back to the topic. Even if certain people like J.Lo desperately want to post their engagement ring online, don’t they ever think the whole situation through? Like, can’t you keep one good thing just for yourself? Does the whole world really need to know you’ve found your “person”? (again.)

I dunno, but celebrities and regular people who can’t stop making everything about their new boyfriend or girlfriend are annoying as fuck to me.

• Like, don’t you have a personality?

• Are you superior now? Complete?

• Who were you before, now that all you post is your boyfriend?

• What does that content even say about you?

This brings us to a crucial issue: the impact of tying one’s personal life too closely with public persona.

Making Your Husband Your Brand

When your husband or boyfriend becomes part of your brand, he’s automatically riding on your reputation—and vice versa. Worst case? You’re inviting an untrained dog with mood swings into your carefully curated business.

WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THAT?

We’ve seen endless horror stories where women tied their careers to their “soulmates,” only to find out he’s cheating two months later and then, suddenly, wondering why the tabloids are being so ruthless. It sucks, but even the law sees it this way: once you drag some nobody into your public life, your privacy rights aren’t what they used to be.

Sabrina Carpenter said it best:

Heartbreak is one thing,
My ego's another.

And bitches know what she’s talking about. It’s one thing to get your heart broken in private, and having your heart shattered as a mega-star, an influencer, or a brand who turned her man into a financially beneficial sidekick. I still remember some of those “I want to tell you something” influencer statements way too well to ever forget about that!

When I went through the worst breakup of my life, at least I didn’t have to write an official break-up caption pretending we’re going to mutually support each other for the rest of our lives and I wish him all the best lol.

I also didn’t have to delete half my feed.

I could cry in peace, without my pain splashed across social media. Looking back, there’s no trace of heartbreak on my Insta that anyone could pin to a specific guy, and I’m happy about that. He wasn’t part of my brand, so he couldn’t take anything away from me in that regard.

I write about love, dating, and toxic relationships, but you won’t find my current private life on display. That’s what makes writing about love so appealing for me. I can hide behind my public persona while actually living my happy relationship in real life, without monetizing it. I don’t have to be that writer with the “perfect relationship” preaching from a place of superiority–and I don’t want to be.  

By not posting my relationship, I’m keeping us clean. My ego isn’t fed by likes, comments, or “You two would have beautiful kids!” (I know we would).

Of course, if you’re famous, it’s different. Sure, you can decide not to post your relationship (looking back at Taylor and Joe), and skip confirming whether or not you got secretly married in Capri last summer. And yes, it’s exhausting to hide your partner at every public event, especially if you want to show up together. But you can definitely influence the level of embarrassment when the fallout happens by how much you let the public into your private life.

Public Embarrassment in Patriarchy

So, yeah. Once you take things public—as J.Lo did to the max—there’s going to be some level of embarrassment when it all falls apart, because the stakes were so high. Too high? I personally think that J.Lo wanted to prove to the whole world that she was worthy of this specific love from a man who has shown his true colors one too many times in the past. She wanted to be the one.

I asked myself the following.

What’s worse for J.Lo—the breakup itself, or the public embarrassment? The heartbreak, or being globally pitied for months? The break-up, or the crumbling image of their “second chance at love”?

Beyond individual embarrassment and scrutiny, there’s a deeper societal impact at play. When public figures like J.Lo put their relationships on display, they inadvertently contribute to a culture where personal worth is often tied to romantic success and public perception.

Here’s the real question: Isn’t it sad that successful women like J.Lo still tie their self-worth to marriage, like it’s the 1950s? Because that’s exactly the message you’re sending when you can’t stop posting or talking about your marriage, when your Instagram is one big highlight reel of “suspiciously happy” couple pics. To me, it’s not giving “happy.”

It’s giving performance.
It’s giving low self-esteem.
It’s giving conservative.
It’s giving status.

It’s like you’re doing it to make your parents happy, and make other women feel bad because they haven’t achieved what you have. And therefore, if you lose what others haven’t achieved, you’re, by default, in their place again. Alone, and on top of it all, embarrassed. Because despite all your efforts to be a great musician and actress, you were not “the one”.

Isn’t that where the embarrassment truly stems from? The failure and shame of not continuing a marriage that you “should have” continued, even if it didn’t work out? The failure and shame of not being a woman worthy of love? The failure and shame of not being good enough? The failure and shame of not being able to keep a man? The embarrassment comes in many forms and questions, and they all have their roots in patriarchy and amatonormativity. Maybe the embarrassment stems from wanting to get married in the first place.

If we all stopped being so annoyingly public about our relationship choices, the pressure would ease up for everyone. No one would have to feel embarrassed when things go sideways, because there’s other shit going on. No one would need to perform happiness to prove they haven’t been dumped, because less people would care in the first place.

If I think of Madonna or Cher, I don’t ever think about their relationship status. I don’t care what person they’re dating. If they’re single or not. I didn’t google it. I know that Cher is a rich man, I know that Madonna is a living legend and both will get as much Botox as they want and hook up with 27-year-olds if they feel like it.

That’s truly empowering to me—not seeing J.Lo getting married and divorced for the seventh time, or whatever.

Girl, please. Take a break from those workouts and actually feel your feelings. Stop tying your worth to a man’s word. It’s too late to pretend everything’s fine.

And that’s absolutely okay.