Let's call my friend "Menachem Mendel", or Mendy for short. Mendy didn't really find the blog so much as he found the user name "lubabnomore". Only because he knows me so well, has known me for so long (dating back to my Lubab days), and because of how the user name "lubabnomore" connected to him (I'll skip that detail) did he even think to ask me if I was LNM. On the one hand the fact that he didn't instantly know it was me makes me feel like I've sufficiently hidden my identity, but then again he still sorta found me.
Mendy emailed the following short message to me last week:
"Are you "lubabnomore"? And what is that?"I was both freaked and relieved. Mendy and I are close I've wanted to talk with him about all this stuff. But then again, my blog is pretty open and honest and not at all the way I would want to start sharing my thoughts with a close Orthodox friend.
I use this blog as a consequence-free outlet for my thoughts and feelings. Here I let loose with ideas that might be offensive to friends and family. Here I can talk about intimate discussions I've had with Mrs. Lubab. Here I can blow off steam about some part of Judaism that's pissing me off without complicating my "real" life. Here you readers give me feedback, or advice, or criticism that wouldn't be as honest, or as critical (or, in some cases, as sane) as the advice I might get from a meatspace friend. So, the idea of my cyber-personality interacting with one of my offline friends was a little worrisome.
Mendy and I spoke on the phone about the blog on Sunday. Mendy has been reading the blog (and I expect he's reading this too [Hi Mendy!]). Since he knows me, he knows which names have been changed, and who's who, and what's at stake.
Menachem Mendel and I didn't discuss religion too much during Sunday's phone call. We both thought it was too early for that. I certainly didn't want to get into it in that first discussion. My main concern regarding MM being in-the-know is that I don't want this to hurt our friendship. I expect it will modify our relationship, but that's not necessarily bad. When we went to the same school our relationship was modified, and when we stopped going to the same school our relationship was modified again. That's just life. I just want to be thoughtful about how this alters things.
Mendy did have a few thoughts about the blog and in particular the posts about the wifey. Based on what he read he was concerned for my marriage, and rightly so. The thing is, what you get on the blog is just the extremes. You get me when I have the biggest need to vent, scream, cry, (insert strong emotion here). When things with the Mrs. were not very good, I came here to get it out. And I got it out in graphic. dramatic. detail. When things got better I tried to squeeze out a post or two to give you an update, but those posts pale in comparison. I've also found that posting about our marriage can be more painful than cathartic. I hate feedback like "Divorce her now. You're dishonest person who's stringing her along." I should ignore the idiots, but our relationship was fragile, I take my marriage seriously, and more importantly, very personally. Maybe when it comes to my marriage I am unreasonably committed to my wife and completely illogical... in a good way. (I hope that's how I am anyway). :)
Update on the marriage situation:
I have chosen to omit details about the wife that might identify her (or me) and I have also omitted details that might better explain the recovery of our relationship, but for the sake of bringing you up to speed I'll give you an update.
Wife and I are getting along great. The past few weeks have been wonderful. A number of outside issues that were putting us under stress have been resolved. She's happy at work. The babe sleeps like a, well, you know. We don't really talk much about religion. I don't bring it up and neither does she. We've found a comfortable arrangement for now. I think a key part of why my beliefs aren't really an issue is that she sees that I'm not trying to outwardly shake things up. I think she may have been worried about that when this first came to a head. All in all, life right now is pretty good.
Take posts down?:
Another suggestion Mendy had was to think about taking down the posts where I write about the issues me and the wife were having. He was/is concerned about my wife's reaction if she were to ever see them. I certainly see his point but I'm very hesitant to remove them. I acknowledge that there is always the risk she might read them but I think that risk is small. On the other hand I have gotten feedback from a number of people who've told me that they related to my story, or they were going through the same thing and knowing what might happen was helpful, or they hadn't yet talked to their spouse about their beliefs and appreciated hearing about someone else's situation. I saw a similar reaction when I ran the guests posts from Avi. My impression is that my experience is more common than people think. I know I was scouring the blogs for other peoples stories when I was first thinking about talking to her. I certainly appreciated these posts by Baal Habos (post 1, post 2). I hope that reading about my experience might help some other people out.
As far as the Mrs. finding the blog? She is computer savvy and knows her way around the Google, but she would probably never get caught dead reading a blog. She made my jaw hit the floor the other day when she said she hasn't ever really used Wikipedia. Basically, she doesn't web surf so there is little chance she would find the blog on her own. If she were to find it would be because I did something stupid, like leaving a browser window open on the home computer. This is a risk (I ain't perfect), but I am obsessively paranoid about the LNM stuff. I downloaded a browser that she hates, and I restrict all my blogging and blog-reading to that browser. She probably doesn't even know that it's on the home PC. I've changed the browser settings in that program so it doesn't save any history, cookies, etc. I try to close the browser whenever I leave the computer (even if I'm only stepping away for a second). At this point I think the benefits outweigh the risks. Who knows. Maybe I'll change my mind.
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Anyhoo, this is one of the longest posts I've ever written. I am definitely a minimalist. On this blog I try to follow the axiom "Less is More", possibly to a fault. Today I've gone way over the "keep it short" line.
Do you have a story about your spouse finding your secret blog? How did it go? Has a friend, or family member figured out you were writing an anonymous blog? (BTW, if you have an interesting story maybe I can have you guest post it). LMK.
26 comments:
I'm not married, but I've had friends figure me out on a fairly regular basis. While it's a little jarring at first the end result is typically that people who don't want to discuss it don't and the relationship doesn't change much.
For those who do want to discuss it then we have at least one very interesting conversation and usually a stronger relationship afterwards.
Actually, I don't have any secrets. I think honest people usually don't.
I think that uninteresting people don't have any secrets JP.
Lubab, glad to hear that your relationship with Mrs. Lubab is going good. I hope that I added my little bit to make it better. As I said in my post as long as I assured my wife that I still loved her and that I was not planning any major disruption in our life everything was good. Eventually you can start telling her your ideas. My wife now listens to me without getting bent out of shape. She says I am sitting on the fence but I think in her heart she knows that I am not coming back to practice the Judaism of my parents. Baruch Hashem life is good....Avi
nope, all the bf's i've ever had have known about my blog(now blogs). B doesn't read any of them though...he's not much of a blog read (although he does read wikipedia all the time).
I don't know if I would be comfortable having a secret blog. I understand why you do, but if I were your wife and I found out about it accidentally I would be more pissed that you kept a secret than about the actual blog itself. But you have to do what is right for you.
OP,
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Avi,
Thanks for the input!
AE,
> if I were your wife and I found out about it accidentally I would be more pissed that you kept a secret than about the actual blog itself.
I think you are absolutely right. She might also be upset that it was public. But in a twisted way it's still private.
>if I were your wife and I found out about it accidentally I would be more pissed that you kept a secret than about the actual blog itself.
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt!
e-kvetcher,
How did she find out?
>How did she find out?
It's a bit complicated. My wife knew about many of my theological issues. And technically I told her that I had a blog, though in retrospect I realized that she had no clue what that meant...
Nonetheless, one day I was taking my kid to a cub scout event when my mom called on the cell phone. "What the hell did you do to N.?" she screamed. I was totally confused. Apparently, my wife called her crying and told her she was leaving me.
So I call my wife back and she is sobbing. Apparently she went to the computer and read my blog. Like AE said, it was the fact that I was writing all this stuff and sharing it with people and discussing it, that devastated her. She felt that I should have been talking to her about all these things. I re-iterated to her that none of these were things that she didn't know about, but she was still pretty deeply hurt.
Eventually we worked it out, though I think she still resents my blogging time, so I try to do a lot of it outside of home.
"I certainly see his point but I'm very hesitant to remove them. I acknowledge that there is always the risk she might read them but I think that risk is small. On the other hand I have gotten feedback from a number of people who've told me that they related to my story, or they were going through the same thing and knowing what might happen was helpful, or they hadn't yet talked to their spouse about their beliefs and appreciated hearing about someone else's situation. I saw a similar reaction when I ran the guests posts from Avi. My impression is that my experience is more common than people think. I know I was scouring the blogs for other peoples stories when I was first thinking about talking to her. I certainly appreciated these posts by Baal Habos (post 1, post 2). I hope that reading about my experience might help some other people out."
Considering that with your marriage you think more with your heart than your head which is normal and means you love your wife, do not make decisions about posting about your marriage based on helping others marriages at the expense of your own.
I don't want for people to figure me out either. But only because I'm shy.
All the best
Elliot Spitzer could fill everyone in on the joys of leading a double life.
It's just not a good idea to hide something like that from your spouse. When/if I meet Mr. WG, I will either tell him about my blog, or I will close up shop. It's not fair. It's a violation. Even though it is anonymous, you are putting intimate thoughts out there. Imagine...what if you published a book about your issue with your religion, but published it under a pseudonym. Would you have the right to do that without telling your wife?
My Ex and I had separate email accounts and separate computers, but we both retained the right to read each other's email if we wanted to. There is privacy and then there is hiding. You have to be honest with yourself about what it is that you are trying to do here.
My $.02.
-WG
WG,
Interesting perspective. There may be a male/female divide about how each sex looks at these things. I'm trying to figure out how I would feel if I found out the Mrs. had a secret book out that detailed her feelings on our marriage. I would certainly be very curious, but if it was truly anonymous I don't know how violated I would feel. I probably would feel exposed (even if our identities were truly secret) but that wouldn't be my strongest reaction.
In any event, good food for thought. Thanks.
i dont blame u for wanting to be anonymous. i did tell a few close friends about my blog, but mostly i prefer to be anonymous.
i dont really understand why you wont fill her in, you are always respectful and discreet on this blog. everybody needs to a sounding board and i think she'd be able to understand that. also, i bet she'd be your most loyal reader.
yael
secular dvar torah of sorts i think youd love- http://www.sguez.com/cgi-bin/ceilidh/slova/?C31894286d00A-4451-839+00.htm
and part II- http://www.sguez.com/cgi-bin/ceilidh/slova/?C31894286d00A-4457-1365+00.htm
Please restrict your personal correspondence to your personal email accounts. I will delete "comments" that should be personal emails.
Thank you.
Hello. I am 62 years old. I never wanted to hurt my dad but one evening I walked into my apartment without a yarmulka and he was there, he just dropped in. Awkward would be an understatement to describe the way I felt at that moment. We never spoke about that and he's gone.
having an anon blog is like having a diary open to the public, hoping for insight, wanting ppl to hear you but wanting to remain anonymous nevertheless. If I were your wife and I found your 'diary', your blog and read it i would be disappointed for sure...BUT..I would understand and believe I was led to read these words..It would then open up a whole new world for us. People change..I would respect your feelings always..and hopefully you would respect mine, and if I loved you and wanted to maintain a family with you, we would surely find a way to cope. In the end I would thank 'fate' for sending me to your words.
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