It's because I love you that I'm putting you in chains
My blog is a small outlet for me. It's my diary, my journal. It's private in a sense, because no one who knows me in "real life" reads it; only those who know me online. Or at least that is how I thought it was.More than once, someone or other has said to me, your wife would be very unhappy if she read your blog. And I've always answered, or would have answered if I felt it was something worth bothering to answer, that if she cared about me she would already know what I felt and would not need to read it. And she should not be unhappy because I think that I do not reflect myself badly, and I do not paint such an ugly picture of her. (But of course, I know both that she would be unhappy and that she is because she has been reading it.)
She knows that it's private. It's understood between us that whatever I do online is my business and none of hers. Well, I say it is understood but of course, she broke that unspoken agreement by reading my emails. I didn't hide them. Why would I? I trusted her. And a relationship without privacy, without space, is nothing. She doesn't understand or appreciate that point of view, but still, she knows that I aggressively defend the notion. I have never volunteered much information about what I do online. (I have told her I sometimes help make an encyclopaedia, but she wasn't interested enough to look at it; and I sometimes email her a review or a poem, whatever.) She isn't interested in it for its own sake, only because she wants to circumscribe what I might be permitted to do. She has always been jealous, and entirely unable to see that being jealous, and feeling she has a right to infringe on my private world, is a big part of why my private world is so private. I am not indulging in woman blaming. I am not a saint, and don't claim to be one.
But it wasn't enough to read my emails, and continue to try to even when she knew that I considered it a breach of trust far worse than sleeping with another person. (Frankly, I would rather she had fucked every guy in our street than opened even one email. But I am not sexually jealous. I am jealous of my privacy.) This person, even though she does not care who I am, does not want to know and never really has, focusing only on who I'm not until I'm sick of hearing about it, doesn't want me to have any space that is my own.
I cannot hide this blog. She has the address, the name. I never intended to hide it. But I had faith -- entirely misplaced -- that she would respect my need for her to allow me some private space. (I know it seems odd to suggest that a public journal is a private space but it is like having a friend who your wife does not share. She does not get to watch videos of what you and the friend do together, or hear tapes of what you say together. My blog is addressed to myself: it's me talking to me.) I cannot move it either. Even though I only have a small readership, I would hate to lose them by disappearing. The subterfuge involved would also be painful. Besides, if she was determined enough, she would find it, unless I used a fresh account and never used any of the names that I've used. So instead I must censor myself. I can no longer be honest, no longer enjoy the freedom to think out loud. If I want to do that, I have to do it and immediately delete it, so no one can read it. I have to swallow up my feelings, becoming more internalised, withdrawn, alienated. It is not just that I can't talk about things I don't want her to know; it is that I cannot talk at all. She was not willing to allow me to have my own speech to myself. She didn't want it for herself (she is only interested in finding the bad in it, after all, working out who I'm friendly with, and how friendly, so that she can become more and more upset by the very idea that there are people -- women even -- who don't think I'm totally shit).
It is like there is someone stealing the small piece of life I have that's mine, someone splashing mud into my little puddle. She has always wanted to smother me, to own me. In the past, it felt good, sometimes, because she expressed that by looking after me, by making me feel wanted. But when someone does not care for you, does not love you, but just wants you to be chained to them, that doesn't feel good at all. It doesn't feel like anything I want for myself. If I did not have children, this would be my farewell note to her. So I know she will read this and be thinking, but you wrote this, you wrote that, as though it made any difference what was actually in my blog, any more than it mattered what was in my emails. As though that would make it unfair that I am upset by her breaking what little compact we have between us. Because that is what she has done. Or at least what it feels like to me. Some people think that marriage is just a matter of two people being married. They believe there are a bunch of obligations that come with it and that's that. Mrs Zen feels just like that. I owe her a whole list of responsibilities because I am married to her. Well, I don't feel like that. I feel that our relationship, like any other, is a continuing negotiation. And no negotiations ever work well when one side tries to crowd the other and close down its options.
What does she hope to get out of it? It bemuses me. Does she not want me to love her, to care for her, to cherish her? How does stopping me from being able to talk to myself gain her that? It just makes me despise her. More almost than anything else she could have done.
posted by Dr Zen @ 7:34 pm
19 Comments:
I share your dilemna. I blog what I want to, knowing that if the Tynemaiden comes across certain passages I could be damned more than Albrecht was. It has always been like that from my early days on Usenet; little petal had no interest in cyberlife, dismissing it as 'chat-room rubbish', although she did agree that after meeting several of the posters they weren't the sad lonely geeks she had been expecting.
You (well I, anyway) have to expect zero privacy from the web. My thoughts are out there, some of them like charged torpedoes with a chance of running back at me. Any of little petal's daughters could come across certain passages and phone her up with a 'do you know what he's said?' match to light the fuse. I have no defence, other than the 'oh lord, did I say that out loud?' response.
I don't think this is a new issue, I think that, for years, writers have faced the problem of readers coming across passages that upset their pre-conceptions of the person they thought they knew. The change, as I see it, is simply the ease with which one can now put one's thoughts up for all to read.
At the end of it, we are all accountable for what we put forth. In the same way, we can't forbid other people from differing. Sorry that your little world has been rocked.
Having been spied on and had emails read i know how it feels. But it was naive to think it wasn’t going to happen eventually. I suspect after reading this post Mrs Z will bitterly regret it. It’s a deep hole you've dug for yourself this time. I suspect you must enjoy the turmoil as i can think of no other reason for such masochism. Good luck.
I am not indulging in woman blaming. I am not a saint, and don't claim to be one.
Well thank heavens for that.
Look, this claim your blog is your private journal addressed to yourself is bullshit. If that were the case you'd put it in a Word doc. You admit to wanting to keep readers. You're courting attention in a public space, and this "understanding" that you have some expectation of privacy while doing so and that everyone is allowed to watch you dance except your wife is, frankly, wrong on so many levels I'm surprised she put up with it this long. This isn't your-singular marriage, it's your-plural marriage. You complain about her violations of your privacy but give not a word, or seemingly a thought, to the enormous violation of hers you commit every time you choose to discuss her personal life among strangers, in public, without her knowledge or consent. You think that out of respect for you she should not cross lines she knows you will view as a betrayal. I think you're right. I don't get why you don't think that goes both ways. Throwing out a little token "I'm no saint" is meaningless if you aren't willing to address your own behavior.
You won't appreciate my lecturing you. I happen to agree with you there too. I have no business at all commenting on your marriage, and I think it's a shame you've made it a matter of public discussion, when one party involved really does not wish it to be so.
-Jen
Anonymous, is it naive to trust someone? Maybe it is.
Jen, the world cannot be shoehorned into your views of how it should be. Nor my wife's. Nor mine, of course. I do not discuss her personal life. I rarely ever talk about her, and do not give any details about our life together. I talk only about my own feelings. They are mine, not hers. Maybe that's as difficult a concept for you to grasp as it is for her.
A writer must be honest. An artist is no good if he has to hide any part of himself.
I struggle with this now, and therefore am almost completely blocked on writing anything of value. I should be honest like you and expect love to accept it. Unfortunately, I have learned I cannot expect that, as you are also learning.
I also agree with Jen, in so far as I may reveal my wife in ways she finds violating. Or more likely, reveal things about myself that would include thoughts and feelings about our marriage, a very private matter that concerns her too. So I take what often feels like a coward's route and keep it off the blog.
I suspect this post is part of your negotiation with the Mrs. Your marriage will continue its evolution, more effectively than many because you don't try to close and hide your wounds. Mine evolves too, but privately. Even the slightest hints of certain truths (in my blog or elsewhere) have resulted in ... in what? More cracks in the eggshell, I guess.
Sometimes I believe I cannot be a writer (or anything else I was born to be) until I am no longer afraid to allow the egg get cracked by all the little untruths in it, so that out of the wreckage a truer me can emerge. Sounds cold but if destruction is the consequence of honesty, then the little lies aren't protecting much, are they?
I want an honest life. My blog does little to promote it. Only a total realignment, with all its risks, can do that. I often wonder how true this is for marriages generally. They must be a constant battle of compromise, leaving all parties dissatisfied to some degree or other. Of course, this comment only shows more about me.
I hope it goes well for you and your family, that things realign and only somehow get better.
Anonymous, is it naive to trust someone? Maybe it is.
Curiosity is an almost irresistible force.
Maybe it is. But I know Mrs Zen's password for her email account, yet never open it.
Mind you, I'm not really all that curious.
Am I the only one here who thinks that marriage is not a life-sentence? Getting a divorce is relatively simple. All that bullshit about commitment is a hangover from mass religion. And though I disagree with some of your moral judgments (like that reading e-mails is worse than sticking your dick in someone's cooch), I feel bad for you having to live with this, and I don't think your right to privacy in a public place is ludicrous. It is obvious that you two are in very different places. As for the children... well, being a child of divorce is tough, but living in a house where there is no love is probably going to fuck them up more. Do you really want them to grow up thinking that it's okay to go on living in a hopeless and cold stupor of a loveless marriage? Or worse, blame themselves for the both of you not having a life? Happy children are the ones who have happy parents. Sometimes that means that parents cannot be together.
Of course I don't think that marriage is a life sentence (which is probably why I'm less hung up on sexual fidelity than most: I don't expect a person never to think about others for 50 years just because they got hitched). But I do think that it's possible to negotiate an environment that won't hurt the children, and given that I believe that, I feel I can't leave. I have issues with living in Australia anyway, and I don't feel that I could if I were separated.
I know, I could martyr myself so that I could remain part of the children's lives, but if I'm doing that, why not try to do it so that I am part of their lives, not a more distant figure?
It's easy to come up with pat answers (and how easy I find it to fix other people's lives!) but you need to be in my shoes, married to a citizen of a country you've grown to despise, with kids that no court will give to you, to grasp how difficult what from the outside seem like simple choices actually are.
And above all, I want to fix it! I do not want to get divorced. I am capable of loving Mrs Zen, and she has plenty of good qualities.
But part of fixing it, for me, is that she must recognise that I am a private person, with my own world, and whatever she fears is in that world (rightly or wrongly), that is who I am and how I live, and I'm not going to change. So part of fixing it is finding a way to accommodate that as I find ways to accommodate things about her that I don't like. A big part of the problem is that we do not have a fairy tale. But who the fuck does?
Well, if you want to fix it, that's great, I guess. Certainly no one will be able to accuse you for taking the easy way out.
The only problem is (as I gather from posts, mind you, so I undoubtedly have a skewed perspective on the situation) that you don't seem to agree on what "marriage" entails. You seem to want the kind of person who will be there when you need her and for what you need her, and stay completely out of whole parts of your life. Someone to share some burdens with, but not others, someone who will help you when she is called, and stay away when she is not, a kind of friend and roommate who you can occasionally fuck, but who won't mind if you fuck other people and pursue other goals. You justify this attitude by the fact that you would be perfectly willing to do the same for her and be the same for her. She, it seems, is still under the impression that people who are married must share everything, not just be sexually faithful, but have a genuine bond of thoughts and feelings, which is why she is frustrated and furious that you divulge your innermost desires and angst not to her, but to a bunch of faceless assholes on the internet. I do not know how to reconcile you. You don't want to change. I don't know if she does. So the idea of creating a safe yet un-intrusive environment for the children seems as likely as America abolishing guns.
I think you know what you have to do Dr Zen.
Things are what they are, reality is what it is, and that is nobodys fault.
boots sez:
If I did not have children, this would be my farewell note to her.
Think about that.
You cannot let your soul rot and pretend you are being there for your children.
My best wishes are with you.
boots sez:
I am capable of loving Mrs Zen, and she has plenty of good qualities.
I was once engaged to marry a woman who could have been everything I wanted in a wife had she only been other than who she was. She was wise enough to see soon enough what I could not see until many years later.
I admire you, Zen, for a couple reasons here that in my opinion others are making light of.
One. You're consciously putting your children's needs ahead of your own. It's often true that unhappily married parents are worse than divorced parents, but it's also often true that unhappy marriages are temporarily so, and can be made happy again. Children that are launched into their lives unhampered by the baggage of their parents' questionable divorces and replacement marriages are the goal, and it's admirable when parents see that and do the difficult work of making it happen. These days, far too many give up.
Two. These public confessions are not journalism. They are clearly part of your process for dealing honestly with your marriage. I tend to agree that, knowing these are private thoughts (no less so for being shared with total strangers -- how many people have been counseled in intimate matters down at the pub?), your wife would do well to leave them as private and not read them. This is quite different than if you were airing all this stuff around your neighbors.
I was listening to Soft Machine and thought of you.
Moon in June
Words and music by Robert Wyatt
On a dilemma between what I need and what I just want
Between your thighs I feel a sensation
How long can I resist the temptation ?
I've got my bird, you've got your man
So who else do we need, really ?
Now I'm here, I may as well put my other hand in yours
While we decide how far to go and if we've got time to do it now
And if it's half as good for you as it is for me
Then you won't mind if we lie down for a while, just for a while
Till all the thing I want is need
Till all the thing I want is need
I want you more than ever now
We're on the floor, and you want more, and I feel almost sure
That cause now we've agreed, that we got what we need
Then all the thing us needs is wanting
I realized when I saw you last
We've been together now and then
From time to time - just here and there
Now I know how it feels from my hair to my heels
To have you on the horns of my dilemma
- Oh ! Wait a minute ! -
Over - Up - Over - Up - ... Down
Down - Over - Up - Over - ... Up
Living can be lovely, here in New York State
Ah, but I wish that I were home
And I wish I were home again - back home again, home again
There are places and people that I'm so glad to have seen
Ah, but I miss the trees, and I wish that I were home again
Back home again
The sun shines here all summer
Its nice cause you can get quite brown
Ah, but I miss the rain - ticky tacky ticky
And I wish that I were home again - home again, home again...
Living is easy here in New York State
Ah, but I wish that I were home again
Just before we go on to the next part of our song
Let's all make sure we've got the time
Music-making still performs the normal functions -
background noise for people scheming, seducing, revolting and teaching
That's all right by me, don't think that I'm complaining
After all, it's only leisure time, isn't it ?
Now I love your eyes - see how the time flies
She's learning to hate, but it's just too late for me
It was the same with her love
It just wasn't enough for me
But before this feeling dies
Remember how distance can tell lies !
You can almost see her eyes, is it me she despises or you ?
You're awfully nice to me and I'm sure you can see what her game is
She sees you in her place, just as if it's a race
And you're winning, and you're winning
She just can't undertsand that for me everything's just beginning
Until I get more homesick
So before this feeling dies, remember how distance tells us lies.
Singing a song in the morning
Singing it again at night
Don't really know what I'm singing about
But it makes me feel all right
--
I can't say how apropos, but it's a nice song nonetheless.
Don, you have it exactly right in my view. If people I knew in meatspace read my blog, I would not write anything about Mrs Zen. I'm not trying to humiliate or embarrass her. The more careful reader will have noted that I do not ever use or hint at her name, so that not even someone doing a random search will stumble across it. Nor do I use or hint at my own name, although if you knew me, you'd know this was me, if you know what I mean. And the pub thing is right. You tell strangers things you would not tell friends because if they judge you, well, you don't have to face that judgement often.
And I have said enough times, I think, that I don't think things are unfixable. It is not a question of bad Mrs Zen, good Zen, so I'm not powerless to make things better.
efflux, thanks very much. Robert Wyatt is *always* apropos, because if the words don't quit fit, the feeling surely will.
Well, Zen, I can only hope for better times for you and the mrs., that you can enjoy each other as well as the children, and find a closer, more trusting relationship among the day-to-day stuff you're dealing with.
boots agin:
And I have said enough times, I think, that I don't think things are unfixable. It is not a question of bad Mrs Zen, good Zen, so I'm not powerless to make things better.
It's not about good/bad and it's not about power/making, it's entirely other than any of those things.
Can you accept her precisely as she actually is instead of as you wish her to be, love her instead of your dreams of her, and do it as a naked soul vulnerable to the pain of rejection for being who you truly are?
A relationship is not an auto, you can't take off the carburetor and tinker it to your specifications, you actually are powerless to "make" it be anything other than what it truly is. The trick is to see what is there now in reality, and to allow the other person the same view of yourself. Beyond that the relationship will either fix itself or destroy itself and you have no more power than an observer over the result. It is this powerlessness that makes love so precious, it's not something you "make", it's something you're either blessed with or not.
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