I've been an expat for 20 years. Facebook has been at the center of both the best and worst parts of my life abroad.

• Nicola Prentis has been an expat for over 20 years and currently lives in Spain with her two kids.
• Facebook turns 20 years old on February 4 and has had a big impact on her life abroad.

Facebook turns 20 on February 4. The social media site has helped enhance and sustain my life as an expat — even if it did help get me caught cheating on a partner.

During my Istanbul years, between 2006 and 2009, it was just a place to post status updates and keep in touch with friends back home.

Accidentally leaving my laptop open on a Facebook message chat is what informed my then-Turkish boyfriend that I'd cheated on him. He'd been away on military service, and I'd been alone in Istanbul for 18 months. I'd made decisions I wasn't proud of.

But the fling was over, my boyfriend was back, and up until that terrible discovery, our relationship had been going well. In the long two years that followed, while we tried to rebuild the trust, he'd scour my Facebook activity for evidence of more cheating.

I eventually disabled my profile and didn't resurrect it until I was free of the destructive cycle the relationship had become. At that point, I could see that the problem wasn't Facebook.

The social media site was a vital lifeline but did nothing to enhance my expat experience.

Starting two careers from zero

When I moved to Madrid in 2012 and created a new profile, Facebook pushed beyond helping me keep up with folks back home.

my friendships were based on IRL writing groups. While we did have a Facebook group, it wasn't the backbone of how we met up, and I certainly wasn't using it for networking. It wasn't until another writer invited me to join "Binders" — a fast-expanding network of writers — that Facebook changed my life for the better.

As a blogger and educational writer, I didn't have a professional network in media, but fellow Binders shared industry advice, editor contacts, and calls for pitches. Suddenly, I could get my writing into household names like Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, and The Independent.

Thanks to that Facebook group and others I joined later, I learned how the digital publishing industry worked, how to refine an idea into a story, pitch, follow up, and negotiate fair rates. To date, I can trace over 50 published articles to those groups. Those Facebook groups gave me a real writing career that has allowed me to stay afloat through single motherhood as an expat. Late-night phone scrolling still helps me find ideas and places to pitch.

Facebook was instrumental in my most recent career change when, in 2021, I started a business teaching personal finance online. Still today, Facebook groups are where I'm picking up advice, opportunities, and a network of people to learn from in the online business world.

Building parenting communities

When I moved to Girona, a city in Spain where I knew no one, I made friends and sought advice via parent groups, often canvassing for answers to logistical questions in bigger Barcelona and Madrid groups as well as the Girona ones.

Being a freelancer in Spain is monstrously complex, with millions of rules and implications for tax and social security. The advice I get from Facebook groups is often better and faster than I get from the accountant I have on retainer. Sometimes, my Facebook expat network and work collide, like the time I bought a secondhand kids' bike, and the seller's husband became my favorite content writing client ever.

Facebook brings out the connectors in any field, those people who genuinely enjoy bringing people together and to whom I'm forever grateful as I'm a fully paid-up introvert. My local "mamas and papas" group is co-hosted by an amazing woman who regularly holds family meetups. She's just about to cater to that other hard-to-navigate need, dating as a foreigner who's been burned out by Tinder, with a speed dating night.

Looking for love

But even with relationships, Facebook has played a helping hand. Gone are the days when that cutie you lost contact with became a "What if?" Like, Tobey, the tall, good-looking German engineer I English tutored in the Yellow Submarine hostel in Brisbane in 2003. At the time, I wasn't ready to date as I was getting over another heartbreak. That was the year before Facebook launched.

In 2022, my comment on the photo of a family friend I hadn't seen for over 10 years led to a short but on-the-brink-of-serious relationship. And I'm just about to visit an ex in Australia from 21 years ago. Over the years, I'd looked him up without success and recently spotted someone else tagging him in a local news post.

If I moved again, I'd join a few Facebook local groups with the word "expat." Then I'd look for more nuanced groups to fit with being a parent, or hobbies and work, knowing I'd have instant connections, advice, and pre-made friends when I arrived. Facebook makes it possible to slot in as if you've already been hanging out for ages, whether you're meeting for the first time or just for the first time in decades.

Got a personal essay about living abroad or parenting that you want to share? Get in touch with the editor: akarplus@businessinsider.com.