Letters to the Editor
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Show him your love with sex
No joke, I'm completely sincere and serious. It probably wouldn't work if the genders were reversed. But you can make sure that your husband knows how much you love him if you boff his brains out for the next week. Multiple times a day. Drag him into the janitor's closet at the hospital if you have to. Tell him you love him as well, of course, but make sure it's in between orgasms. There will be no doubt left in his mind.
That is what you're worried about, right? That he doesn't believe that you love him, since he read all that stuff in the journal? If so, then follow my advice, and problem solved.
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and your journal is hardly the final word on you.
Possibly you could make it clear to him that he isn't reading a balanced account of your feelings by definition of the fact that it's a journal. Journals are for working through difficult thoughts and issues for most people, so that's what is found in them. If he wants a balanced account of your feelings, I feel certain that a source is available to him.
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Of Reading and Snooping and Secrets
I realize that I'm likely the only one, anywhere, who feels this way, but I long for a husband who will read all my secrets, know all my dark recesses, and still love me. And in exchange, I'd want to know that he trusts me in the same way, that he's an open book and he trusts me to take what I find in the proper context. I'm not advocating active snooping, I'm advocating not having secrets (from the one person with whom you're closer than anyone else, ever).
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Password Protection?
I don't know, but Cary's advice to lock up one's journals and password protect one's email accounts from one's spouse had me doing the RCA Dog look.
I mean, what the fuck?
The solution to a trust issue about the way we feel towards our spouse is to make sure we keep ourselves locked away from our spouse?
I have never figured that one out. I have been married 24 years, which is 168 in dog years, and a couple of them have been REAL dogs. We have our email accounts and we also know each other's accounts so we can check our emails for one another on the fly. All accounts are joint. A lake house from my family is in my name. The primary residence in my wife's name while the mortgage is held jointly. This has been done for asset balancing purposes in the event of death, but it also reflects reality in the event of divorce.
So this honeymooner had concerns about her spouse. So what. After twenty four years we can peel the paint off the walls impersonating Burton and Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, and that is when we are being nice to one another.
You live with someone long enough you are going to know everything about them whether you want to our not. If you found out some secret from long ago, you more than likely get pissed it's been withheld rather than think, "huh, I never knew that."
That kind of shit might be cute when you are still in a loving scenario absent teenagers trying to pit you against one another. Now we look at each other more akin to the way Peter Sellers looked at his Oriental house boy Kato in his Pink Panther movies.
Friends with benefits? We're mortal enemies with benefits.
We don't need anymore fucking surprises. We need to know each other's email accounts in case we have to figure out when to pick up a kid at lacrosse practice. If I find out my wife thinks I'm a piece of shit, I can check the date of the email, add 48 hours and know her period is going to start.
If I find out she has a secret lover I will simply have to do a background check to see if he can assume the payments before a head for the nearest fucking exit.
Really Cary. Password protection? That might fly for newlyweds, but grizzled veterans are too shell shocked for such cutesy protections. I've watched episiotomies. We've cleaned puke together. We've hurled hurtful things at one another as if it was sport. What secrets?
All we're trying to do know is outlive one another so we can enjoy what we amassed while we are still continent and capable of engaging in sexual congress with a willing partner.
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As someone who has been there
What makes this hard is that people have a tendancy to believe that what you write in private reflects your *true* feelings, and no matter what you say, they don't trust that you are being honest. It's understandable that people feel this way -- we often hide our true feelings to keep the peace, to be polite, to hide the fearful and ugly sides of ourselves. And when you say "I didn't mean it" about your private writing, well, why would you lie in private writing?
I'm not saying your husband will never trust you again. I'm just saying that this could be very difficult because you need him to believe that those words don't reflect your true feelings. They reflect what you felt in one moment, and those feelings were influenced by your fears and insecurity -- they were really about you, as much as they were about him.
In your situation, I might say something like this to him. I might say something like, "I know it's hard not to take my private journal very seriously. I know you won't believe that I didn't mean it. I completely understand why you would worry that my journal might contain my true feelings about you, that you can't trust what I say to your face. So I want to show you this entry from October, this entry from March, all of these entries where I wrote in my journal that I love you and and adore you... these were my private thoughts, too, and they are the truth."
If we are honest, we all know that we have unattractive thoughts, even about the people we love. These thoughts come in bursts of fear and insecurity and irritation... they come when we feel tired and emotional, when we feel frustrated. They bounce around our minds as we struggle to function each day. They don't reflect "the truth" about us, they reflect that it's fucking hard to be human. Nobody feels good all of the time. If you can talk to him honestly about all of this, make him understand, I think you will be okay.