Dear Bloggy: Digital diaries tell all

When Amelia Zatik-Sawyer of Cleveland, Ohio, is having an issue with her husband’s long hours or morning moodiness or annoying affinity for stuffed animals, she turns to a third party to unload. But it’s not a therapist or marriage counselor or even her mother who patiently takes it all in.

It’s her blog.

“It can definitely be like a digital marriage counselor at times,” says Zatik-Sawyer, 29, who blogs about her life as a mother, wife, writer and restaurateur at ChefsWidow.com. “It enables me to express how I’m feeling without yelling at him. Instead, I can collect my thoughts and write about it and he can respond to me in person. It’s 100 percent helped us out.”

While there’s long been evidence that writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings can be therapeutic for individuals, some people have discovered that blogging about their relationship can actually be therapeutic for their marriage.

“My blog has always been my therapy,” she says Zatik-Sawyer.. “I’ll write about something, he’ll read it and then he’ll call and we’ll talk about it. It pushes us to communicate.”

It also helps keep two very busy people in touch.

“We’re not your normal 9-to-5ers,” she says. Her husband works 15 to 17 hours a day in preparation for the opening of his new restaurant while she takes care of their two small kids and writes.

“We don’t see each other that often so it’s how we keep the lines of communication open. It’s not about being negative about the relationship; it’s about me using the blog to let him know how I’m feeling.”

Britt Reints, a 29-year-old marketing executive from Orlando, Fla., who blogs about her marriage at Miss-Britt.com, says blogging also helps smooth out the rough patches that can result when two people with different communication styles fall in love.

“I’m a very verbal person and he’s not, so when we have arguments it can be overwhelming for him,” she says. “But words on a page aren’t as intimidating as your wife in your face puking her feelings all over you. He can sit and read it and think about it. It gives him space and he’s not overwhelmed with the pressure to respond right away. Several hours later, he’ll bring it up and say, ‘By the way, I understand what you were trying to say.’ ”

Digital dirty laundry?
But while bloggers tout the benefits of their online journals as a way to help them navigate the twists and turns of the relationship road, experts point out one big potential pothole: blogging is public.

“I think it can be helpful, but it is a very indirect communication tool,” says Dr. John Grohol, founder of PsychCentral.com and author of “The Insider’s Guide to Mental Health Resources Online.”

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“Most people communicate directly — talking to each other (face to face) or on the phone or through e-mail. But with blogs, you’re not just putting it out there for your significant other, you’re putting it out there for everybody else. You’re making all of this — what we’d typically refer to as dirty laundry — public.”

How public are these journals? Reints says her blog typically gets about 1,200 hits a day and Zatik-Sawyer says ChefsWidow.com pulls in around 1,000 readers daily.

Craig Bridger, a 34-year-old freelance writer from Brooklyn says his blog, NakedPicturesOfMyWife.Wordpress.com, averages only about 100 hits a day — perhaps because the “pictures” he posts are strictly metaphorical.

“There are a lot of blogs out there that are virtual diaries, but I have strict rules about that,” he says. “I would never sit down when I’m furious at her and write an entry about how I can’t stand her. I would never reveal anything that would be painful or hurtful to her. That just wouldn’t be fair.”

Others are quick to acknowledge their blogging boundaries, as well.

“I try to be really careful and never say anything that I think would humiliate my husband,” says Gail Konop Baker, a 48-year-old author from Madison, Wis., who blogs about the “Secret Lives of Doctors’ Wives” at GailKonopBaker.com.

“I don’t think he’s my No. 1 reader but I know people that know him are reading it. I always have that in my mind.”

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