Minnie Mouth
I contributed to the ruin of my marriage with my big mouth, constantly sharing our intimate details with my girlfriends. Well, my wonderful new boyfriend is a pretty private person and has asked that I not share this stuff with my chick circle, and I've agreed. However, my friends have gotten used to living vicariously through my drama, and they aren't liking my new tight-lipped approach. They even seem resentful, like I don't trust them anymore.
--New Boundaries
Him: "I think I have psoriasis on my penis."
You, picking up your phone to text: "Ohh...that's terr--...can you spell that for me?"
Yes, I've heard -- privacy is supposedly dead (buried in a shallow grave with a dial-up modem somewhere in Jersey). And yes, many people treat it that way. However, though the private details of our lives -- our thoughts, emotions, and closed-door doings -- aren't things you can hold (like your "Hooked on Phonics" coffee mug), they are our possessions just like the physical objects we own. In an 1890 Harvard Law Review article, Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren explain that privacy is a natural human right that comes out of our right to be left alone. Basically, unless you're a public figure or you've done some bad thing that affects the public, the information about your life belongs to you.
Gently inform your girl posse that the info cookie jar is now closed. Explain that this has nothing to do with them and everything to do with your boyfriend's right to pick the privacy settings on his life. And no, the fact that you and he are in situations together doesn't change that. He's agreed to share his life with you, not your friends, your Twitter followers, and three cranky federal agents in the "Heating and Cooling" van outside his house.
"I contributed to the ruin of my marriage with my big mouth, constantly sharing our intimate details with my girlfriends. Well, my wonderful new boyfriend is a pretty private person and has asked that I not share this stuff with my chick circle, and I've agreed."
This is pretty much all you need to tell your girlfriends. If they cannot grasp that you understand the part you played in the dissolution of your marriage, and your commitment to better behavior now, they aren't much in the way of friends to you. They should be supporting your decision on this one.
tasha at December 29, 2015 4:06 PM
I wonder if there's some other aspect of her life that she could share with her girlfriends that will satisfy their need for her drama. Like work.
Patrick at December 29, 2015 4:55 PM
"They even seem resentful, like I don't trust them anymore."
Well, you don't. And it sounds like you are right not to. It isn't your job to entertain them. You need better friends.
Cousin Dave at December 30, 2015 11:49 AM
Here is the thing for me: She shared her dirt with her friends...and her friends obviously threw their private thoughts into the face of her husband.
This bespeaks toxic people. My wife shares confidences with me about her friends, and as a polite carbon based life form, I do not trot out that I know Friend B is a cheater, Friend D is a husband stealer, or that Friend T is a lush. Because it would be hurtful and impolite.
They...did not have that sense of discretion, manners or empathy.
So maybe she needs to reassess more than her sharing patterns.
FIDO at December 30, 2015 7:51 PM
I suspect her first hubby asked her to button it. A lot. She'll cut loose shortly.
Richard Aubrey at January 2, 2016 3:46 AM
There's only two of us in the van. Layoffs, y'know.
But you'd be surprised how much info we can get from the conversations of "friends"; a lot of it you don't want others to know.
Heating and Cooling at January 5, 2016 7:45 AM
If they want drama, maybe they can discuss the current GOP clown car...
kamwick at January 8, 2016 4:58 PM
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