If you keep a journal, do you talk about your significant other? Do you hide your journal from him or her? Would you remove something he or she didn't want you to talk about? Do you discuss problems in the relationship?

If you don't have a journal, how would you feel about your partner starting one? Would that freak you out? Do you feel uncomfortable when someone reveals personal stuff about his or her significant other?

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Answers

Yes, I keep a journal. No I don't talk much about my SO. I keep my comments mostly to passing references. No I don't hide it from him. In fact he's one of my regular readers. He says that reading it helps him to figure out what's going on in my head.

I don't put our personal problems up there at all. I do write about those kinds of things in my paper journal. But I don't feel comfortable writing about that in public.

If Sabs started a journal, I think I'd laugh my ass off. He'd probably write in a similar fashion to "Chuck'stake". Or at least he'd try. He's not really into the whole revelatory writing thing.

On the whole I think I'd be interested in his perspective. But I would harbor fears of him spewing something and us getting into an argument about it.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Ok, I hadn't read The Gus' site until I found the link today in Beth's weblog but, am I the only one who thinks that shit sounds made up?

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

If you mean entirely made up, I don't think so. Quite a few journalers have met Gus, and a few have met Kim. I think they both exaggerate, but I think the basics are true.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

I have met both Gus and Kim, and I don't think it's made up. I do think that Gus probably exaggerates stuff sometimes, but I think it all has a pretty strong basis in reality, at least.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

(to break the italics)

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

I would be completely freaked out if my wife started an online journal. I don't have one myelf largely because I would be unable to restrain myself from airing dirty laundry, and damaging my relationship with her.

As to my reading journals, I like journals that dare to reveal the personal, but I do not like it when that stuff slops over into the forum. I don't want to be asked to have an opinion on my friends' personal lives, much less the lives of the strangers whose journals I read. It feels like being put under inappropriate pressure to me. That whole Gus forum thread on his most recent fight with Kim gave me the hives.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Gus has long been a very frank journaler, and he's had some trouble about that in the past. I do believe that what he writes represents his own viewpoint honestly.

I do talk about my sweetie Jack a lot. Fortunately he doesn't mind, and the other guy I dated (for a few months) before him was in favor of it, too. In fact, I inspired Jason to start his own!

I did go out a few times with a man that seemed baffled and concerned about the whole concept. I kept him anonymous, referred to only as X-- -.

for Jack, I refer to his daughters only by initial. I do the same for my own family. When they give me permission I'll out them.

I'm fairly frank about my emotions and experiences with Jack, but I'm also frank when I'm speaking to him. It would be a much tougher problem if I weren't.

Anita of Anita's BOD and Anita's LOL

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

I used to write about the problems I have in my relationship with Keith. I stopped for a couple of reasons:

1. I found myself using the journal as a way of telling Keith what my problems with our relationship were. I didn't like that. It felt dishonest.

2. This is the big one: I started getting a lot of commentary from people telling me what they thought I should do about my relationship. A lot of it was along the lines of "you should break up with that bastard!" Well, Keith isn't a bastard, it's just that I was writing about all our disagreements from my point of view, and I was angry, so that's how he came off. I didn't like it that people were getting this distorted view of the man I've chosen to spend my life with.

Additionally, I realized that I don't like it and in fact rather resent it when people tell me how to run my life. My opinion is, if you write about it in a public forum such as an online journal, you have to be willing to receive comments about it. I've come to terms with that as far as MY life goes, but I have zero desire to hear comments about Keith's life or our relationship together. Therefore I stopped writing about that stuff. I mention it sometimes, tangentially, but it's never the focus of my entire entry like it used to be.

That hoo-haw over at Gus's journal by the way? Crazy. Totally crazy. If my boyfriend kept a journal and wrote about me that way, I'd be gone in two seconds flat. Conversely, if I talked about Keith the way Gus' girlfriend talks about him, I'd expect Keith to leave me in about two seconds flat. It's just totally uncool the way they're disrespecting each other. In my unasked-for opinion, that is.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

I don't keep a journal but I'm in an online community and do other public writing.

One of our relationship agreements is that I'm going to write about us and our problems. I'm willing to show him things before I publish them and let him tell me if I've got his side wrong. There are also some family history things that he doesn't want me to talk about. One I agreed not to discuss, the other I won't.

I try to curtail it if I feel like all I'm doing is whining. And there've been times when I wrote about something that was just annoying me at the time, and blew over, and other people took it very seriously. So that made me cautious about public complaning, more than anything he might say about it.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

George seems to enjoy being a large part of my journal. Since we live together AND work together, it would be difficult for me to write about anything if i didn't mention him at all. And i don't think i'd be very comfortable hiding my journal.

What i don't do is i don't talk about the bad things. I assume most people who have been in a relationship are aware that there is no such thing as "perfect" or lack of conflict. George and i fight. I take it for granted that people are aware that this is something which happens and i don't feel a need to write about it. I don't think it's fair - if i write, i write from my own point of view, and if i'm angry with him, it paints him in an unflattering way. I can't do that when he has no journal to retaliate. And i don't think it's all that hypocritical, because i don't discuss our problems with people in general either. We don't air our dirty laundry, so i don't do it in my journal either.

I save that for my private notebook journal.

If he started one, i would find it weird just because it doesn't seem like his kind of thing. He's quite private (guess he's going to have some adapting to do if his CD makes him famous!) and he's not into journals in general - the only one he reads is mine.

I would definitely read it though.

And, yes, once i did write something he didn't like, and i took it down - not the whole thing, just that part. If i totally disagreed with him, it probably would have stayed, but i saw his reasoning, and complied.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

I have a journal and a husband. He knows about my journal, in fact he reads it (when I'm not in the room, I can't watch someone read what I write).

I'm completely open in my journal, if we're having a problem I write about it. If he makes me mad, I write about it.

There is only one (small thing) that is off limits. He asked me not to mention something about him, and I never will.

I do use initials for my family though. (other than my husband).

They don't know about my journal though, I'm sure some day they will.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

I talk about my husband in my journal, but if something happened that he asked me not to write about, I wouldn't have a problem with it at all. He's pretty laid-back about the journal thing, and hasn't had a problem with anything I've written, but I also don't delve much into our relationship, aside from silly arguments.

I think it would freak me out a bit if my husband started a journal, because it's always been very clear that journalling is my "thing", and my addiction to other online journals has been something he's considered somewhat silly. However, if he only wrote entries about me and how perfect I am, I could live with that.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

One time I kept boxes of self-published books in an outbuilding, or shed. Termites got in them, and ate the boxes. They didn't eat the books, but they shit on the covers of the books, and the ones outside, near the cardboard, were spoiled.

Rather that pull out the inside books, which were not spoiled, I had an auto-da-fe and burned them all.

Many writers have published their own books--Thoreau said he had a library of 1,000 books, 900 of which he had written himself--but how many writers have had their own book burning?

My boys pulled the good ones out of the flames. They wanted to save them to give to their friends.

They weren't ashamed of their old man, weren't embarrassed by what a failure I was. I had cachet, to them, and their friends.

I don't worry about writing about my boys, who are characters in my books.

Brenda's a character. Writing about your significant other is like performing vivisection on the relationship, without an anesthetic.

She's tolerant of it. I'm a writer, an autobiographical writer, a writer's loved ones put up with it. How'd you like to be Howard Stern's wife?

Some subjects are out of bounds, and if she asks me not to write about something, I don't.

I rub some people the wrong way. I contributed to a forum on how you handle people who say you suck, and a contributor to the forum told me to give it a rest, it was tiresome. That is, you suck.

I must not know the etiquette, here.

Brenda has suggested I change the way I write, and I can't, or won't, and we argue about it, so she has stopped reading what I write, or keeps her comments to herself.

So the way I write has come between us, not in a violation-of-privacy way, but in a practical-consequences way. She has a stake in the fate of my writing in the world, after all.

Indeed, if I could do what she suggests--stop complaining, quit knocking more successful writers--I would do better. But then I wouldn't be who I am, and what some readers see as faults, other readers see as strengths.

I write about how I got here, and a lot of what we went through is painful, unpleasant to read, and downright ugly. Hard to keep a light tone, and stay upbeat with.

I'm optimistic and I have a sense of humor. But the pity pot can lure you in, when you are tired, or down.

Trying to work full-time, write full-time, and be a full-time spouse, parent, and son is a load, and not seeing any daylight, year after year, will get you down.

It doesn't make me a bad person. Ad hominen attacks to the contrary notwithstanding.

Some people suck. They gotta eat, too.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

My writing is autobiographical, and I have published bits and pieces of it myself, here and there. Pamphlets, fliers, books. Other small presses have published books and chapbooks of mine. Little magazines have published poems, stories, interviews, and letters.

These writing have gotten me in trouble at my job. Much like writing an online journal might, after your co-workers, your managers, and the human resources people where you work read it.

If you write honestly and openly, about subjects that matter, in plain speech, that is sure to set off red flags.

Ambrose Bierce said whenever you see the plain truth, plainly stated, in a newspaper, it is followed immediately by a retraction and an apology. Which is why you seldom see the plain truth, plainly stated, in a newspaper.

The Daily Bugle is like a newspaper. An anti-newspaper. I state the truth as it appears to me as plainly as I can. I am trying to get at, and witness to, the truth of who I am through daily typewriting. Witness to is half of that.

Writing without publishing is like chewing without swallowing, James Jones said. I publish wherever I can.

I tip my hand, blow my cover, give my enemies, at work, a sword.

Everyone has enemies at work. The Old Rollback is designed to insure you do. It's a constant turf war, to hold what you got. You are supposed to stab your buddy in the back, bear false witness. Once you lower yourself to their level, they have you.

Writing has caused me to be not hired, passed over for promotion, furloughed, when others were kept on, over the holidays, laid off, for lack of work, allowed to resign, and summarily fired. Once I almost had to whip the boss's ass to get off the premises.

I claim to have been blacklisted, twice, not counting washing out of graduate school, and don't think it's hyperbole.

Because of my writing.

This has caused a strain on my marriage, my health, my wife's health, our finances, and the prospects for our old age, which is rapidly approaching.

It has caused me to feel angry, afraid, sorry for myself, jealous of other writers, depressed, guilty, and ashamed, and it all goes in whatever book I am writing, and botches it.

BOTCHED BOOK, I called one book. I called another LEPROUS HOTDOG. From Charles Bukowski's "Talent unrewarded is the most leprous hotdog in the pot."

Nixon gave his enemies a sword. I give the Mall Builder culture an enema. Enema verite.

What you see on the end of the fork when you really look.

Sometimes you have to eat with chopsticks to see what's on the fork.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

She's tolerant of it. I'm a writer, an autobiographical writer, a writer's loved ones put up with it. How'd you like to be Howard Stern's wife?

Well, seeing as how she's left him, I wouldn't count your chickens if I were you.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

I'm the one who said--on another forum--that Jack sucked.

Actually I said that he's tiresome and to give the endless and redundant posts a rest.

I was unsuccessful.

As a writer I must accept this.

Jack continues to believe that, no matter the subject, a 300 word autobiographical post is just the ticket.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Since I have neither a journal nor a significant other, it's kind of academic for me. If, however, I did have an SO who started her own journal, what I thought about it would depend on what she said in it and just how much she gave away. Hard to know how I'd come down until I was actually in the situation

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

I have a journal, and I talk about my significant other in the context of relating something we did together, or something funny he said, or his reaction to something. He reads my journal and I've told him to let me know if something bothers him, but so far there haven't been any problems. I don't discuss problems in the relationship, or if I do say anything I make light of it. I'm sure this makes my journal more boring, but a healthy relationship is more important to me than hits to my journal. Also, members of both our families read it (including my mom) and there are some things I would just rather keep between us.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

If I had a SO to write about, I would most likely still be keeping a journal...relationships in my life are equated with insanity... mine mostly.

If I had a partner I really wouldn't care if they had a journal and wrote crap about me, as long as they were only venting... and it was just that. I doubt that I would read it, I would only get neurotic if I did.

I try to remember that these are peoples lives we are reading about and try to tread as lightly as possible.

-- Anonymous, June 25, 2000

I keep an online journal -- have been for almost five years now. In that time, I've gone out with a few people. None of them were journallers; it would have been interesting if they had been. I think I would have asked them to do the same with their references to me that I do with my references to them -- try really hard not to misrepresent them, generally give them their privacy, and don't air dirty laundry -- especially right when you're angry.

I know that's probably contrary to the spirit of how some people view journalling -- a moment-by-moment transcription of your emotional state. And if my journal were anonymous, then I'd be tempted by that. But it's emphatically not -- it's public and personal and professional all at once, and I have to think about the long-term consequences of every single thing I write. So I may decide once in a while that it's okay making myself look like shit for the purposes of truth in journalling, and damn the long-term costs...but I doubt I'll ever think it's worth making my partner look like shit. It just doesn't seem fair or right.

And yes, that does mean that the journal comes across as a little happier/pleasant than my real life is, which is a shame. For me, the real truth of my pain and sorrows and frustrations shows up in my fiction, not my journal. And obviously, again, that's a level removed from flat-out truth. I suppose the only times I get as real as I can get, are when I'm writing non-fiction essays -- and those are terrifying for me. I'm doing more of them recently, though.

-- Anonymous, June 25, 2000

This is really timely for me, having just started a journal. One of the things which delayed me for a while (apart of a complete lack of technical ability), was the way to handle this element of things. Tristan does not email people he hasn't met, has never contributed to a forum, and doesn't really understand why I do. But he accepts that it's something I enjoy, and that I don't need him to understand it.

So I wasn't going to tell him about it at all - or I was at least going to avoid the question for a while. But I wanted to update on Saturday, and we have a small flat, and he was wondering what I was doing for an hour on the computer, and he guessed. And he actually thinks it's pretty cool - he likes the idea of having a record of what we've been up to.

I have made a conscious decision to write my journal as if everybody mentioned may read it one day. This doesn't mean I write just nice things about people - I write what I'd say to people's faces. I don't generally rip into people to their faces, so I won't be doing it in my journal either. And as far as writing about Tristan and our relationship is concerned, I'll approach it exactly as I do with my friends. I don't tell anybody about our sex life, or the details of any disagreements we have. That kind of stuff is not anybody's business but ours, and if I don't gossip about it to the people I've known for years, I'm fairly unlikely to publish it online.

I'll be giving my url to my family in New Zealand (so I'll hopefully be excused from emailing them so often), and I know that will keep me honest. Tristan will also have it, but I don't know if he'll read it. He knows what forums I'm read and contribute to, but doesn't read them because he feels they're 'my' space.

-- Anonymous, June 26, 2000

As a retired Air Force Officer, I was pretty disappointed to hear that the Air Force Office of Special Investigations raided the home of the author of this journal concerning Air Force pilot training.
The author was forced to remove some entries but they let him keep most of the site up, at least for now. For the life of me I can't figure out what their problem might have been, the journal is entirely favorable about the Air Force.

-- Anonymous, June 26, 2000

Jim, it isn't about being favorable or not - there was a huge stupid 'shut the barn door after the horses have fled' movement in DOD in the aftermath of Sandia last year. Check any military site these days - there's just about nothing informative there at all anymore. They are cracking down hard on unofficial sites.

In many cases, it IS dumb, but there's been no lack of directives being broadbanded out on the subject.

-- Anonymous, June 26, 2000

Yes, I keep a journal (for about six months now). Yes, I do talk about my SO. It's a little strange since I use a different name for her, but she hasn't warmed up to the idea of my using her real (first) name yet.

Although I do talk about her a fair bit, it is mostly about where we go and a little about what we do. I may mention that one of us is upset, but I don't mention precisely why.

I don't hide my journal from her. She reads my journal regularly. In fact, she read my journal before we got together, so she had an idea of what she was getting into. I can remember precisely once where she asked me to amend a journal entry and I did. Most of the time, I have good judgment when it comes to these things.

What I don't like about this arrangement is that I find myself holding back on writing how I feel about some things. I'm finding that I can't air some of my insecurities and doubts about my relationship with her. I know these things are normal, I just don't think that she needs to hear them.

-- Anonymous, June 26, 2000

I keep an online journal and I have a husband. I used to be more frank about our relationship than I am now. I do talk about his being transsexual though because I know I would have loved to been able to find a wife or partner in the same situaion in the beginning. So I am holding onto the probably arrogant hope that I might teach people some things about TSness.

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

I write about my SO in my journal and if we have a fight I write about it. One might think it's airing our dirty laundry but I do my best to write it in the point of view of how *I* feel about it. I try hard not to speculate on his motives or state how he feels as fact. If I guess about it I make sure to specify that I'm guessing.

I also make sure to write good things about Dave too. If he's been super sweet to me or I'm feeling crazy in love with him I write about that too. I like to write more good than bad.

The things I'm trying to stop writing is about other people in my life. Rants about my friends or Dave's mother. I try to use the same principle as when I write about Dave to stick to the parts that are about how I feel, but it doesn't always work with these people. It's hard not to call Dave's mother a bitch.

Dave knows my journal exists, and probably knows where it is, but does not read because I've asked him not to. On several occasions I've thought of telling him he could read but have decided against it. It's my personal place to write about how I feel and it helps me a lot. Often when I write about him it helps sort out my feelings and then I'm able to go and talk to him about it, clearheaded.

Colleen

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2000

I've never made any bones about the fact that there's tons of stuff I don't write about. Sex, religion and politics are all on that list, pretty much.

I write about my beau all the time. He's asked me not to post actual photos, but I do include my drawings of him from time to time. I don't use his real name (or anyone's, for that matter), mention where he works, or tell any of his private stories. I don't mention much in the way of conflict. Too personal.

He knows about the journal, alright- in fact he set up the original format, and uploaded the first entries until I learned to do it myself. But even then, he didn't read it. If there's an entry I think he'll espcially like, he might have a look, but otherwise he considers it to be my private corner of the net.

Oh yeah, the Gus thing. I've long been flabbergasted at the stuff he writes about Kim. Then I checked out his source code, and saw all the other stuff he comments out. Whoa. I'd be haulin' ass outta there in about .02 nanoseconds if that was me.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2000

There are consequences in publishing. Some are positive: friendships, creative expression, acknowledgment. Others aren't as positive. Even though this is rather obvious, some journallers seem surprised at negative consequences.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2000

In keeping with what Joy said, which is totally true, I think that a lot of people who start a journal don't realize how easy it will be for people to find your journal.

If you have ever made an enemy, in your life or online, and that person finds your journal, well, you are going to get some negative feedback. You'll get nasty forum posts, and possibly nasty emails. If they keep a website, you'll find your site linked on theirs with some associated nastiness. It's unbelievable what some people will say to people they dislike.

Personally, I don't give a rat's ass what other people say about me, but if you're a sensitive person I'd think twice about starting an online journal.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2000

When I had my journal going, I talked about my SO all the frigging time once I started dating him. It basically became the soap opera of us- I detailed every single solitary problem or issue that came up (except for sex, which I never commented on). I vaguely mentioned that I had a journal to him at some point (it preceded him), but later on he found the URL and very much wanted to look at it, but I asked him not to, and afaik he didn't. Knowing him, I doubt he would have asked me to not discuss something or remove it, but when I first started dating him I wrote stuff (at length, for weeks) that I found out later he considers a gross violation of netiquette (which, as a relative newbie, I had NO idea about). Seeing as I was too lazy to go back and remove all of that, I just never let him read it.

I would probably be pretty wigged out if someone I dated had a journal and wrote about me- it wouldn't be so bad if I were still doing mine and ours were open books to each other, but that was not how I wanted to play when I had an SO. I basically used my journal to rant my head off when I was frustrated and did not want to share those feelings with him.

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2000