When it comes to diaries, journals and the like, where do you stand on the privacy issue? Do you read your teenage daughter’s diary without a second thought, after all, an informed parent is a good well-armed parent? Or do you feel you shouldn’t look in your child’s diary unless there is good reason to suspect something is wrong in their life? Or do you believe it’s never okay?
What about a spouse? Is it ever okay to read a spouse’s journal? I’m just curious ‘cause this came up in my house over the weekend. I’ve been working through that Dr. Phil Life Strategies workbook I bought a couple of weeks ago. It hasn’t been easy, nor fun. Right off the bat, good ol’ Phil makes you deal with your past. The point is to help you see where the beliefs and attitudes you have today came from…not to give you an excuse or someone else to blame. Tim asked me about the book and what I was doing when I first started. I told him what it was and shared some of the things the exercises made me take a look at, but I certainly didn’t tell him everything. Especially not the deepest, darkest thoughts that were dredged up about my marriage. I didn’t feel there was any point. I mean, everyone has some not so great thoughts pop up every now and then in a marriage, but that hardly means the love is gone or the marriage is over or whatever else you can imagine. The bottom line for me is that I’m happy in my marriage. Bad things happen from time to time, but I am committed and in it for the long haul.
So, what happened is that last Sunday when I was away all afternoon, taking Matt back to school, Tim read the workbook. He left it out on the bed so there was no doubt. Still, I asked him and he admitted he had. I asked him if what he’d read made him happy. He said, “No.” I asked him if he was upset with me. Again, he said, “No.” And everything was okay that evening, but come Monday morning he was in “a mood.” I endured “the mood” and the cold-shoulder that went with it all week. When asked, Tim assured me he was not angry at me, but I’d be amazed if he spoke 50 words to me all week.
Enough is enough, you know? Everything finally came to a head yesterday (let’s just say my house wasn’t the place to be yesterday morning). While the excrement was hitting the fan, the Hubster throws something in my face from the workbook. Aha! I knew he was holding my most private thoughts and feelings against me. “Funny” thing is, he was steamed over the idea that I didn’t want to get married in the first place. I had to drag out the workbook and show him that what I’d said was that I wished we had waited a little longer to give ourselves time to get a little more financially stable and maybe figure out what some of our life goals were. (Our first date was the day after Memorial Day and we were married in the middle of November. There was a lot we didn’t have a clue about.) Did he really think I’d have stuck around for 22 years if I hated being married (to him)? Well, the clouds parted and the sun came out and Tim finally figured out the truth and *POOF* everything was all better. For him anyway…..I made stew a little before I caved to a good mood.
Sheeeeesh! If you’re going to hold my own words against me, make sure you’ve got them right.