Note to Bloggers: Some Topics Should Be Off-Limits
I have been feeling pretty crappy since putting up last week’s Breadwinner post.
It was ok to write it, but that’s where it should have ended.
I never should have hit the ‘publish’ button.
Personal financial information is personal. There’s no way to get around that. It’s ok for me to write whatever the hell I want about me, my spending, my balance sheet, my thoughts on finance, etc - it was something else entirely to bring my partner into it. I can’t control my thoughts and feelings, but I can and should exercise better control over how I articulate them to readers.
It doesn’t matter that Matt and I have talked about the things I wrote, many times. It doesn’t matter that I told him I was writing about the topic before the piece went up. What matters is that I posted something thing that I knew would hurt his feelings a bit.
I knew it, but I did it anyway.
When I published that article, I thought it would be catharthic for me and helpful for some of my readers. What I didn’t think about (at all), is that I was crossing a line - I knew that this specific topic is a sensitive one for Matt, and making it public was a betrayal in a way. Just because it’s something that the two of us talk about and acknowledge didn’t give me permission to write about it.
I thought it would be compelling reading.
And based on the comments, it was.
But to what end? I feel no better (as a matter of fact, I feel worse).
Where is the line between personal finance and one’s personal life? I would never write a post about our sex life or dish about a family member here - why I didn’t recognize that this was a topic that required equal sensitivity? Are some things better left unpublished, or is there something to be gained by putting this all kinds of financial stuff out there?
Based on the icky feeling in my gut, I’m going to play it safe for awhile.
Tune in tomorrow for my riviting post on Four Retirement Risks and How to Address Them.
Stumble it!
June 4th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Heidi - I will be honest. I did think to myself that I would never have written (or at least published) that post. I have a hard and fast rule when it comes to the love of my life, and that is that I will never say anything hurtful about him to anyone else. I might grumble about him a little to my closest friends once in a while, but I never say anything that I think I might regret later, or that I know would be hurtful if he knew I had said it to someone. My husband follows the same rule too, and it’s really helped us be respectful of each other.
Having said all that, don’t be too hard on yourself. We all make mistakes, and your relationship will recover.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
I second that you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself. Sometimes you have to cross the line to find and appreciate it. You seem very sharp, so it’s probably an issue that won’t come up again. Hey, you got it out the way early, right?
June 5th, 2008 at 7:14 am
I think in your situation since your family and loved ones read your blog it made posting something like this harder on your.
Although in my opinion a blog is like a dairy its for your thoughts and feelings and its where you can be brutally honest and work out your own feelings on paper.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
I think different blogs and bloggers have different privacy levels. Some people feel comfortable posting anything some don’t. I hope that in the end getting out all these feelings help you two work through them.
I think it may be helpful for your readers to know that other people feel that way too…
June 6th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I will tell you that I am in a somewhat similar situation in that my potential fiancee to be (weve been together for a little over a year and things look good) has some significant assets that she tells me need to be ‘protected’ by which I assume she means a Pre-nup.
The down side of this, and maybe your readers have some additional comments, is that I don’ t think I’ll ever be able to sign a document that would assume a marriage will fail. It’s not a religous thing, it’s more of a moral thing. I haven’t broached the subject with her again and don’t plan on it for a while, but I guess eventually it will ‘test’ us to the extreme.
If she’s willing to move to that step without one, then great, that’s what I want.
Otherwise I’m afraid that the light at the end of the tunnel is very likely an oncoming freight train.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:06 am
I know I’ve made some major goofs in blogging about my personal life. We learn from our mistakes. Sometimes you don’t know where the line is until you cross it. I once wrote a list of 10 reasons I “greatly dislike” a girl in our town, thinking that I am anonymous and she would never find it. Thanks to statblogger and other tracking programs, she found it, and I had to answer for it.
We all learn where that line is, and we have to promise we’ll try not to cross it again. Your partner can and will forgive you for your mistake, as long as you promise not to do it again. God knows I won’t be writing another “10 things I hate about you” article anytime soon.