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After decades of writing solely for fellow academics, I wanted to learn how to drop the jargon and write in less stodgy ways for broader audiences. So I signed up for the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, and took advantage of an opportunity to submit a sample of my writing to a workshop leader, who would then provide feedback.
When I heard back from her, she told me what she thought—and she also told me what her husband thought.
I was stunned.
I had submitted my work to her, as a person in a professional position. I assumed that what I had sent to her would stay with her. She seemed totally oblivious to the inappropriateness of sharing my writings with her husband, unapologetically, and without ever asking me first.
I'm reminded of this because of a thoughtful discussion that has been ongoing in the Comments section of my latest post here, Check Your Marital Privilege. In that article, my colleagues and I were using "marital privilege" in a way that was analogous to white privilege and male privilege. There is, of course, another sense of the phrase—the one that says that married couples do not have to testify against each other in court. That has always bothered me, too: A parent can be compelled to testify against a child and a grown child against a parent. Pairs of friends who may be closer than many married couples have to testify against each other; it is almost as if they lack protection just because they are not having sex with each other.
What the "check your marital privilege" readers were discussing, though, was much broader: They expressed dismay at discovering that their routine communications (such as text messages), and even their confidences, were mindlessly shared with their friends' spouses. From the married person's perspective, the sharing is seen as an expression of honesty and openness with their spouse—the "we are one" mentality.
In the bigger picture, the issue is whether some people, when they marry, no longer see themselves as individuals. They are not "I" anymore, just "we." With regard to the other people in their lives, the implication seems to be that they are now a unit, not a person. Communications, even secrets, are not safe with them as individuals, as they will be passed along to the spouse. Invitations are expected to include not just your actual friend, but his or her spouse, even if you have no independent connection to that person and no desire to have that person in your life.
In the past, I've experienced similar presumptuousness in the workplace. Sometimes information was shared in confidence, including about professional matters, and I, as a single person, was expected not to tell a soul. Some of my married colleagues, though, seemed to think that it went without saying that they of course could tell their spouse anything.
Not all married people embrace this mentality. I've had some married friends tell me explicitly that they respect their friendships and do not share friends' confidences with their spouses.
I'm a social scientist, so I like numbers and research. But for this question, I don't know of any. I don't know how often married people routinely share all of the communications and conversations they have with others—even confidential ones—with their spouses. And I don't know how relationships—both the coupled kind and friendships—fare, depending on whether married couples see themselves only as a unit and not also as individuals.
My guess? Total "we-ness" is a sign of insecurity. Couples who really do share everything with each other, even things told to them in confidence, probably feel proud of their tight bond. Maybe they really enjoy it, when things are going great, even if all that one-ness is a way of dealing with the anxiety of insecurity.
But what happens when those relationships hit the skids? What happens if they then try to turn for comfort to the friends whose confidences they have betrayed?
