How to Edit Your Relationship Status on Facebook

Updating your relationship status on Facebook sounds simple — and it usually is — but the process has a few moving parts that trip people up. Whether you're newly engaged, recently single, or just want to remove that information from your profile entirely, here's exactly how it works and what to expect along the way.

Where Facebook Stores Your Relationship Status

Your relationship status lives inside your profile's About section, specifically under the "Life Events and Relationships" category. It's not found in your main settings menu — a common source of confusion. Facebook treats relationship status as profile information rather than an account setting, which is why many users look in the wrong place first.

The field supports several status options:

• Single
• In a relationship
• Engaged
• Married
• In a civil union
• In a domestic partnership
• In an open relationship
• It's complicated
• Separated
• Divorced
• Widowed

You can also leave it blank — which means no status appears on your profile at all. This is different from setting it to "Single."

How to Edit Your Relationship Status on Desktop

1. Navigate to your Facebook profile page (click your name or profile photo from the homepage).
2. Click the "About" tab beneath your cover photo.
3. In the left-hand menu, select "Life Events" or scroll to the "Relationship" section — depending on your version of Facebook's layout, this may appear differently.
4. Click "Add a relationship status" if none exists, or click the pencil/edit icon next to your existing status.
5. Choose your new status from the dropdown menu.
6. Optionally, add a partner's name, a start date, and a privacy setting.
7. Click Save.

How to Edit Your Relationship Status on Mobile (iOS and Android)

1. Tap your profile photo in the bottom navigation bar (iOS) or top-left corner (Android) to go to your profile.
2. Scroll down and tap "See About Info" or the "About" section.
3. Scroll to the Relationship section.
4. Tap the edit icon or "Add" if no status is set.
5. Select your status, adjust any optional fields, and confirm the privacy setting.
6. Tap Save.

The mobile interface updates periodically, so the exact label or tap sequence may vary slightly between app versions. If you don't see the relationship section immediately, scroll through the full About page — it's there, just sometimes buried.

Privacy Controls: Who Actually Sees This 💬

This is where things get nuanced. Facebook gives you per-field privacy controls, meaning your relationship status can have its own visibility setting independent of your other profile information.

Your options typically include:

Choosing "Only me" is functionally equivalent to hiding your status — it won't appear on your profile to others, but you haven't deleted it from Facebook's records.

When you change your status, Facebook may prompt you with the option to share a life event — a post announcing the change to your network. This is optional. If you skip it, the change is made quietly without a notification going out to friends. However, if you accept the share prompt, it can appear in your feed and trigger reactions and comments, which is worth thinking through depending on the circumstances.

Tagging a Partner and Linked Profiles

If you tag another person in your relationship status (such as selecting "In a relationship with [Name]"), that person receives a notification and must confirm the connection before it appears publicly linked on both profiles. Until they confirm, the status shows on your profile but doesn't link to theirs.

If you're removing a tagged partner from your status — whether changing to single, divorced, or removing the field entirely — Facebook handles this quietly by default, though a life event post is still offered as an option.

Removing Your Relationship Status Entirely

To delete your status rather than change it:

• On desktop, click the edit icon and look for a "Remove" or "Delete" option rather than selecting a new status.
• On mobile, the same edit flow should present a delete or remove option at the bottom.

Once removed, the field simply won't appear in your About section at all. This is a common choice for people who prefer to keep personal details off their public-facing profile.

Variables That Affect the Experience 🔍

The process described above applies to standard personal Facebook profiles. A few factors can change how this works in practice:

• App version: Facebook's mobile interface updates frequently. Older app versions may show a different layout or label.
• Profile type: Business pages, creator profiles, and Pages don't have relationship status fields — this is personal profile territory only.
• Account restrictions: Accounts with certain limitations or under review may have restricted editing ability across profile fields.
• Region-specific rollouts: Facebook occasionally tests interface changes in specific regions before rolling them out globally, so your layout may differ from what's described in most guides.

How visible or prominent your relationship status is — and how much it matters to your overall Facebook presence — depends entirely on how you use the platform, who's in your network, and what you want your profile to communicate.