Discretion sucks…

Earlier this morning (or very late Sunday night), I put up a blog about a fuck-headed thing my ex had done at a party we both attended last night. Reader’s Digest version – with a multitude of choices of where to sit, he chose to sit pretty much right in front of me, with his new girlfriend, knowing I don’t want to be “friends” or have anything to do with him. I chose to very politely find a way to move from the place I had been sitting in for over an hour before he arrived and try to be discreet about my moving places, since he was too stupid or ignorant or just plain idiotic to realize that his choice of seating was going to be a problem.

I wrote a very long blog about how I felt, about not being polite about him anymore, about accepting and embracing my anger and not allowing his treatment of me to go on unspoken.

I did the smart thing. I wrote the blog, I walked away from it for a while, I read and re-read it, because it was very harsh and very honest and very open and exactly what I wanted to say.

I posted it.

Then I took it down.

Blogs are a funny thing and I have been bitten in the ass by other people’s blogs and hurt very badly by their angry tirades and cruel, hurtful intents (by the way, happy birthday). I realized that this blog would just be one of those blogs. A blog that could hurt someone very badly, even though that’s exactly what I wanted it to do. I wanted him to be angry and frustrated and hurt by my words because I had been hurt by his actions, not just tonight but throughout the last years of our marriage.

But vicious, angry, nasty blogs never accomplish what you think they will. They feed the anger out in the universe and they inevitably bite you in the ass and inflict more injury and pain and hurt than one could ever imagine when they post something that like. It feels so good when you write it out and see it on the screen in front of you. But if you don’t think about what your words are going to do when the person you direct them at reads them – and, trust me, they will read them or somebody will read them to the person – then you are irresponsible and reckless and careless. My angry, bitter blog about how he made me feel tonight might inflict a significant amount of injury on him and create distance between some of his friends and myself, who I may still want to retain a relationship with. While I may rejoice in the fact that he would be wounded and injured and harmed by what I wrote, I would be no better than him to post my initial version.

If you know me, you may realize how hard this is for me to write. I am a big believer in free speech. My last short film was about just that. I think people should have the right to say whatever they want, that’s your right, that’s the American Way… theoretically.

But that does not give us permission to virtually reach out and slap someone across the face. If I want to let him know what an ass he was tonight, I should do it in person and not here. If I want to inflict pain on him, I could find a way to do it privately and not share it with all of you. If I want to unleash my anger on him, I should, again, find a way to do it privately.

This blog it about me. By osmosis, I guess, it’s also about him. But that doesn’t give me permission to publish a diatribe that doesn’t serve any purpose except to injure and harm and berate. I then sink to his level with his asinine stunt tonight. I then create the same hurt feelings I have suffered from before when I have been attacked publicly about private things.

And I hope that I am a better person than that. I can be angry, I can call my friends and rant and rave and yell and scream and say, “He’s a fuck-head and I hate him and I’m really angry.” That’s acceptable. I’m happy to tell you what happened in person when I see any of you and share my fury with you. I’d even be happy to send you a copy of the unposted blog, if you really want to read it.

But I will refrain from using this forum as a way to get back at him. Because it would accomplish nothing. It can only bring more pain, retaliation and humiliation. So I will bite my virtual tongue tonight and just let you know I am angry at him, that he was an ass tonight, and that I am very hurt right now. But the rest is private and so I will keep it to myself (virtually). I left the title up of the unpublished blog, partly because Blogger wouldn’t let me remove it and partly to remind me of what choices I made tonight.

I was told tonight that I handled the situation well. I resent that I had to, as I resent that I have to do this. But sometimes, we have no other choice than the right one. And I hope that this is it.