Monday, July 09, 2007
What is this "True Wife Confessions"
How did it start?I added the original post that I sent out on June 11, 2006, along with an email to all my blog friends. Amy ( Amalah) at her ClubMom blog mentioned it and it just took off from there. Mostly this is spread via word of mouth and emails to friends and message boards. Am I Truly Anonymous?Yes. I get the emails that come to True Wife. They go to their own email address. I copy and paste the content of the post into the template of what ever edition I am working on at the moment, then delete it. I don't save the emails, or generally respond to the writer in any way. If you want a response from me - make sure you say so in the email. Otherwise I copy, cut and delete. As I've said, I'm not out to expose anyone - I've got plenty of my own scandal to handle. Are all of these true?To my knowledge. They are all from emails that I get from people. I assume they are true. They certainly all sound true. I sent a confession and I haven't seen it yet - Do you use all confessions?Yes, I use every confession. There may be a lag between the time I receive the confession and the time that the confession is published in a chapter. This depends on the volume of confessions I receive in any given day. For instance, on the day I am writing this answer, #20 has been published. Today, I am cutting and pasting for #36. Be patient and keep watching, it will pop up.
Do I have to be married?No - Partners, lovers, girlfriends are all welcome. It was just a catchy title.
Why do you allow women to whine and complain about their lives?I'm sorry, I didn't hear you so well. Can you speak up? Go read the Queen Angry Bitch post on the FAQ, that should answer it for you. If not, then fuck you. Aren't you just encouraging the stereotypical views of husbands and wives?I suppose it depends on what you mean. My goal is not to man bash. I am married. I do love my husband and have been with him for 15 plus years. The first 20 confessions are mine. However, I feel there is a definite lack of space for women to say the "unsayable". The things that we, as humans, NEED to say or lose our minds. I may say these things in a therapists office. Others may only have access to a blog like this. You get it out. Then, it either dissipates, gives you the impetus to say it to your partner, or confirms that you have some different choices to make in life. No one should be unhappy, but the truth is, we sometimes are. Marriage is not easy. Staying married is not easy. And yes, some of us chose the wrong person for the job. I'd rather it was put out here and the woman/partner have the opportunity to See it and reflect upon it. And yeah, sometimes marriage is really sad. You get to dark places that you never thought you would ever see on your wedding day. Many emails have thanked me for re-affirming that they are not the only ones who felt this way. It isn't me, though. It is You. You are saying to other women, Yes! mine does that, or Yes! that bugs me too or Yes! Sex isn't so good in my house either. It isn't judgment from the Cult of Marriage and Motherhood telling us what we should feel or do or how to act. It's simply owning our feelings, our voices. Who are you?
My name is Dawn. You can check me out on my other two blogs: I am doing the best I canThe Gimlet Eye and the Not Safe For Work Creation Desperately Seeking...Something?I am a real person, who swears alot and occasionally drinks a whole bottle of wine and does a photo essay. I'm a Mom and a Wife and a member of Phi Delta Badass. I'm an American who is going to school in Montreal for my Ph.D. in Early Childhood Education, which will only make me more of a danger to humanity. I claim no superiority to anyone. I just try to get through each day without committing a felony. I have seen some other "True "Blank" Confessions type sites - Is that you?No. They are not affiliated with me in any way, shape or form. They most likely do not have my permission to be copying the format of this blog.
How this blog started....
You guys are so inspirational.
It occurred to me how much you ALL love my true wife confessions, so, because I have nothing else to do, I have started a new blog:
True Wife Confessions:
http://truewifeconfessions.blogspot.com/
Here's my idea. I put my first two posts up, but many of you WISH you could add your own, but know that you have people in your life who read your blog, or would be upset if they read your "confessions". Now, my husband NEVER reads my blog(s), so I can be relatively fearless about my own confessions.
In the sanctum of "True Wife Confessions", I will take anything that is emailed to me as a True Wife Confession, compile it once a week (my goal is Friday) and post them. My fingers are crossed that I will get at LEAST ten a week.
All email confessions will be held in strictest confidentiality. For real. May Vlad come and impale me if I divulge. Plus, you read #18 right? You are my girls and the girls get the Iron Curtain.
I am going to work on a new email address for just these:
truewifeconfession@gmail.com
or you can always get me at the balefulregards@gmail.com
Come on ladies, help me pimp my idea to the other women of the world who want to admit all sorts of things. It will make us all feel SOOOO much better.
And yes, this is open to girlfriends, partners, etc, etc, etc.
Let the Confessions Begin!
Added to say: Every thing will remain anonymous. I am going to cut and paste the confessions in a numbered list (like the first two) - no particular order. This way, the confessions will never be traceable to a person. I will also delete the emails after I transfer the info. I got enough of my own shit to cover up, believe me.Folks can either pimp the new blog on their site - or spread via word of mouth. This is meant to be anonymous for you, entirely.
Defending my baby
Well, holy shit. This must be what it feels like when your child grows up to be a mega super star and you're sitting on the couch thinking, "I am WAAAYYYYY more fun. And witty...and intelligent, and better looking, too."
Yeah, I'm talking about True Wife Confessions. The baby blog that could. My little "ha-ha, wouldn't it be funny to open this up to the world?" blog.
And now? Friends, it gets thousands of hits a day. Which is fine. It is what it is - entertainment, for some. But for others? I think it is really cathartic. Cathartic in the way that talking about post partum depression has been cathartic for me. The realization that everyone has issues that we don't talk about. That marriage and relationships are HARD, much harder than most of us ever thought. That over time things build up. Hurts develop. Needs and wants change. The person who you married is no longer the same person, but neither are you.
What has upset me is the "holier than thou" shit that I have seen come up around the entries. Partly, I should stop tracking back in Sitemeter to see where people are coming from. Then, of course, I wouldn't have to read the comments. The "These women are so sad" kind of things. The "Don't they know that communication would solve all their problems instead of posting them on the web, Don't you feel so SAD for them?", "My husband is the best cause he changes diapers and gives me orgasm's every night."
Ahem. Fuck you. You are the future Uber-Mom's and to you, I say again. Fuck you. Keep your marriage and motherhood smackdowns to yourself. Did I mention the fuck you?
I have been with my husband for 15 years. I can assure you all that I - and every other bride on the face of the earth - did not look at their spouse that day and think "Some day I will want to stab you for sleeping through another night of endless screaming of the baby". That some day will come and you think, "Is this it? This is what is has become? Dishes, meals, laundry, getting kids to school, starting over again in the morning."
If every day of your married life is sunshine and joy, than I call you a liar. Or the possessor of VERY good drugs. Or Katie Holmes.
The women who are sending in their confessions don't need another woman's pity. We have enough of that shit from every other corner, and it is just another facet of the woman against woman relational aggression we have been socialized to perpetrate.
They don't need solutions. They are pretty clear about the issue.
They just need a Space. A space to say it , out loud. To set it out into the world and release some of the power from the thought. Kind of like my visits with my therapist. I can say outrageous things. I hate being a mother. I hate my mother. I hate my husband. I sometimes hate my child.
And then, I can get on with it. Once all the dark shit is out, the light can shine in and you can go forward.
That is what I wish for True Wife Confessions. A place to purge the dark so the light can shine in. That is why I want it treated like a sacred space. A therapists office. A place where you can say the things that are eating away at you, so that you can move forward.
And Uber Mom's and Non-Mom's. Stay the fuck out of the sacred space. Until you need it. Then come on in and pull up a chair. We've already forgiven you for not knowing how hard it all is.
originally published on I am doing the best I can on 06/27/2006
That's Angry, Whiny Queen Bitch to you
Anger. Angry women. Mean bitches. Fat, ugly bitches. Hostile ho's. Man hating dykes. Skanks, skeezers, whiny sluts...do I need to go on?
These are all things that have been said about True Wife. While I have addressed a facet of this before in this post, I feel the need to explore some more.
The prime question: What is it about angry women that evokes such a strong reaction?
Is it purely because we have been socialized to think of angry women as "out of control"? That these women must be put down, or shut away? That a woman who speaks her truth can not simply be expressing an opinion or feeling, but is seen as a threat to womanhood?
The long and short of it is Yes. Angry women have historically been shut away, shut up, shut off. Sure a few get out. But Rarely. Rarely. The societal tide that keeps a tight lid on what women say and do in the public eye is still iron strong. Don't believe me? Go to your playgroup and announce that you hate being a mother. Better yet, tell a soon to be married friend what marriage is REALLY like. Everything. Even the night that you fought about why the toilet wasn't fixed. Or the fight about why you didn't have the common decency to leave me ONE bottle of Spring water. Or the compromise sex, so you can get back to what you were doing....
Dear God. The tide of women trying to sweep you out of the room and away from the true believers will be gi-normous. Nice ladies don't SAY these things out loud. They shouldn't even think them, let alone say them...or write them down.
Women's anger triggers something so fearful that it must be suppressed at all costs. If one woman breaks out of the fold, the rest are sent to reel her back in. If they can't do it nicely, they will do it dirty. The name calling, the insinuations, the out right smack down. Say you don't like your husband and you become a fucking whore who should have never gotten married.
Say you don't like your child? Why don't you blow your brains out before your child becomes a miserable bitch like you. She's going to be a useless waste of space - just like you - anyway.
Speak a truth and you become a whiner. Oh, and probably Fat too.
If the women can't reel you back in - the men start. Miserable bitches who don't deserve to be married at all. "I feel sorry for the poor guys who married these lazy bitches."
Geesh. Even Morphing into Mama got in on it. Asking why TWC didn't have a torch carrying mob beating down my door (referencing a confession about "since you gained so much weight I'm just not as attracted to you).
Oh, but I do.
The thing is? My mob is the mob of angry women. The torches they are carrying aren't against me - they're FOR me, and every other woman in the world. Every other woman who was sold these cults called motherhood and marriage and are standing up to say "Sometimes things Suck! Why did no one tell me! Why haven't I had a girlfriend lean in and say these things to me?" I'm not suggesting they let the cult down by gaining weight. That's why they aren't coming for me.
I'm not afraid of women's anger. Maybe this is because I do not fear my own anger. Yes, there are times when I read confessions and wish I could help someone process what she is feeling. There are times when I worry for someone I don't know. However, the truths that are being expressed in this venue are so potent, so gritty that it has taken on it's own life entirely.
Life is about choices. My shitload of therapy has illuminated that I have a series of choices both before and behind me. I am where I am through my own choices and it is my future choices which will lead me to where ever I land.
I did not start at this place, however. At first, it was all my parents fault. They were the reason I was unhappy. Then, it was my boyfriends fault for being so controlling. And when it stopped being everyone else's fault, I saw it was my choices - my ownership of the place I was choosing to be now. You can't be a victim if you choose to Not be a victim. You become, in that moment, a survivor. The power dynamic shifts.
For some of the women writing to TWC, I look at this as a step in the journey for them. Some call it whining, I see it as testing an unused part of their inner voices. The part that will some day awaken to the choices they have both before and behind them. I will have been honored to have even the smallest part in that awakening.
Originally published on I am doing the best I can on 7/06/2006
Putting on my Big girl shoes
*Deep Breath*
When I started TWC, I chose to maintain a certain "Distance". I felt that if this forum was to be what I intended, I needed to accept everything as it came. Confessions that concerned me. Confessions which may disturb me. Confessions which pissed me off. All of them.
I knew from alot of my work around female relational aggression that women - especially when they feel powerless in some areas of their lives - look to participate in Horizontal aggression. In other words, attacking people who are to the left and the right of them. Usually these people are other women.
You tend to see this in social groups, ergo the "queen bee and wannabe" phenomenon. I participated in this in high school. I viciously targeted some other girls, just as I had been targeted by others. I would love to tell you all the names of those girls who I feel were my tormentors, but that would be to leave out my part in the flip side. Yes, I was tormented by them - the mean notes in the lockers, the exclusion of me at the lunch table, the decisions to exclude me from social events. Yes, I remember their names.
I am, however, not blameless. I was active in the targeting of others. I led others to targets and set them upon them. I intentionally set out to hurt other women. For what, you may ask? For being female. For daring to look at my boyfriend. For perceived slights against my person. I called them the names. Slut. Whore. Skank. Tramp. Skeeze. Beast. Bitch.
When my boyfriend asked me to stop targeting the girl he had briefly dated before me, I tripled my efforts. How dare she seek his protection. I did not dare address the actions in which my boyfriend was engaging. The continuing to talk to the ex-girlfriend in a way that felt ( and later proved to be) not quite over. He was my giver of status. I was his girlfriend. He had the power. He did not need to modify his actions. I had to modify my actions.
That isn't what I want for TWC. We, as women, have to modify our actions ALL THE TIME. We second guess and worry about others feelings and how we are perceived. We hide and shield and change so that others are protected.
I will not censor TWC. I won't. I can't tell people what to feel or how to behave. However, the tone of some of the comments in the last several months have felt....vindictive. A Public Stoning. Burn the Witch!
That isn't what I wanted. I wanted women to feel safe here. If no where else, then here. Safe to say the things you can't say elsewhere. That doesn't mean I am saying that you or I have to agree with the confession. We simply exist to acknowledge it's presence. We don't need to tar and feather the confessor, do we?
I currently have run out of enough confessions to make a chapter, so I will wait until I have 10 to publish the next one. I wonder if the risk of being called a name has made some think twice about wanting to send ones in. If so, my purpose in this website is negated.
My last point is this. You don't know WHO is confessing. It could be your best friend. It could be your mother. It could be me.
Do you want to call them or me whores? Really?
Originally posted on TWC 1/2007
Burden of Proof
I have started and discarded this post several times now. At first, I assumed it was that I was busy with the end of my term in school and the proposal that I had to write.
Then I contemplated that it might be best to say nothing - let it all die down with no comment. Not only is that not my nature, but it is hardly the nature of TWC. I can't recall a time when I have said nothing - even when saying nothing would have benefited me more than saying something. The curse of the assertive chick, we call it in my family.
And yes, I have talked with people who are dear to me about this. Each confession becomes a part of me - I feel protective about each person and the space that I create with them. I may not love what they say, but the space in which they say it is intimate to me, for me.
I suppose the only thing I can say is that I regret it. I regret that it has happened here, but I do not believe that it is the norm. I honestly do believe that 99.99% of these confessions are real and true at the time the person wrote them. That is not to say that I do not believe that we are reading unmitigated 100% truth, for there are always multiple sides to every story, but that it not what we are here to do - judge if one thing is more true than another.
I have not been shy to talk about my postpartum depression. I have not been dishonest when I said that I considered killing my child, for I was very ill and in the depth of the depression it felt as if I was trapped in something so terrible, so inescapable that I had no choice. It was her or me. While I did not reach psychosis, I did skim it. I idly planned. I day dreamed. The thing that held me back was my fear of being caught - not the wrongness of the action. I thought "Perhaps if I crash into a tree, then no one will know that I meant to kill her...but if she dies..."
When my therapist and I finally began to unravel what had happened to me, the saying out loud of that thought was earth shaking. I was saying the worst possible thing a mother could ever, every say. I cried through many sessions as I came to grips with the real-ness of what I had thought, what I had more than once dreamed about. I still get a little teary as I look at the on-the-verge-of-adolescent girl laying at the foot of my bed. I am grateful for therapy and modern anti-depressants for returning her mother to her.
I can believe that someone could plan and/or cause the death of their infant. I can believe that they could be very ill and have made a decision that, in a different time and place, they regret deeply. I can believe this, because I was very nearly that person.
Perhaps this willingness to believe that people have places and things which lie under the surface of the faces we show the world allows me to treat each confession as real without many questions. Perhaps my burden of proof is low because I have been to places inside myself which I never believed were possible, and certainly did not fit into my image of myself as smart, successful, confident wife, mother, daughter and woman.
Perhaps this makes me naive. I prefer to think of it, instead, as being very receptive to a wide range of life experiences.
So, I will not block. I will not censor, I will not edit. I have faith in the community of confessors and readers. I defend this space that we have created together, but I will not police it.
I apologize for the time it took me to respond. It took some time for this to come together for me and I wanted to be sure of what I wanted to say. Keep sending in confessions. Only we can determine what we want this space to be.
Originally published on 4/20/07 on TWC
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I am doing the Best I can
Gimlet Eye
These Beans
Have Spilled
What is this "True Wife Confessions"
How this blog started....
Defending my baby
That's Angry, Whiny Queen Bitch to you
Putting on my Big girl shoes
Burden of Proof
Secrets No More
July 2007
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