Okay, if I’m reading you correctly, your past drug history is no big deal to you, but you are aware it would be a big deal to your spouse (“would only cause stress”). Do you not bring it up because you don’t think it’s a big deal, or because you don’t want to deal with your spouse’s reaction? Did your SO not mention the debt because he/she didn’t think it would matter, and then it turned out that it DID matter a LOT to you?
My personal anecdote: I had an abortion when I was 21. I later married and had two wonderful children, but at the time, having an abortion was the right decision for me. I don’t regret it and I am not ashamed of it. It’s just a fact of my life. I don’t think it’s something worth mentioning, although once I did share my experience with a younger friend who was considering terminating her pregnancy. But how am I to know if it would be a deal-breaker to a SO if I just don’t happen to bring it up? Or am I not bringing it up because I KNOW it would be a deal-breaker, even though it isn’t to me? (By the way, my SO does know about it as it came up once in conversation - was not a deal-breaker).
What is the dubious look for? I feel no shame over my abortion. Yet I still mostly choose not to talk about it, in real life. On the Interwebs is a different kettle of fish; I talk about lots of stuff much more freely over the Interwebs than I do at home.
And you very quickly know if an abortion is a deal-breaker to a man. Hell, I’d never date a man who had such a thought process even if I had never had one.
I still don’t know why you think it’s weird that some women just view it as a medical procedure. There are all kinds of people out there and I’m sure for some, it’s just not a big deal. Does it bother you that there are people who don’t think it’s a shameful thing?
Yes, but private is more of an end result and not the reason. Why would one keep something private? It could obviously be a myriad of reasons and rationale. But one, just one, might be to avoid judgment on actions that society or a mate or a stranger would deem less than savory. Whether that’s an abortion, a rape, pre-marital sex, smoking, or even liking reality TV.
Perhaps I am not explaining right. You say all of the women you know who have had abortion have felt shame. When told this wasn’t the case, you were dubious. I posted that I didn’t feel shame, and you wanted to know if I thought of it as a medical procedure.
But it doesn’t matter how I felt about it - only that I felt no shame.
If you must know, I felt a great deal of gratitude that I lived in a country where I could make this choice.
Not at all. I’m all for those who want abortions to have em. I just have never met a person or heard about a person who has had one and just claimed it was just a medical procedure and that’s that. It’s a vast world made of many different people, and I’m sure that one or two might think that clinically about something most might consider an emotional decision.
I agree, that could be one reason. But it’s not the only one.
I consider flossing my teeth and pooping to be private, too, but not because someone is judging me on how I choose to do it; especially if I myself don’t consider it to be “unsavory”. I just feel that not everything needs to be shared.
I don’t want this to degenerate into an abortion issue. Getting back to my original question in my OP, though, was how does one decide which things should be shared, and which things should not? Is it about what I myself consider noteworthy, or what my partner does?
I guess I’d view it as the latter more than the former. If I were in a relationship where I hoped for a future, I’d be very forthcoming. Of course, it would be hard to have too many secrets since I’ve been posting here since 2003 and I can’t take back any of the things I’ve said that he can look up! (The price of dating someone you met via messageboard.)
Not feeling ashamed doesn’t necessarily have to equal feeling proud. There are many things in all our lives which we’re neither ashamed nor proud of. And yes, sometimes it is just a medical procedure.
Sorry DivineComedienne, didn’t see your redirect before I posted. I’ll leave it here.
Most abortions result from unsafe sex. Unsafe sex is something to be ashamed of (right?). Therefore most abortions should carry with them at least a minimum amount of shame. I would hope that women who have had abortions because they failed to take the appropriate precautions before and during sex learn from their mistake. Not because of the connotations of murder or whatever that arise from certain social and religious stances on the procedure, but because abortion is often taxing on the body and unsafe sex can lead to some pretty shitty STDs. I mean, most of the time it results from poor judgement (either from the man or from the woman [and I know the pressure women sometimes receive from their male partner so it isn’t as cut and dry as it might appear]). It’s okay to admit that an abortion resulted from poor judgement. It doesn’t invalidate the procedure in any way. I understand that some women have needed an abortion through no fault of their own – and so yeah, no shame there. Shit happens sometimes. But I get the feeling that some pro-choice advocates are unwilling to admit that abortion usually results from a poor decision because they think it weakens their argument.
But it’s definitely something that most women should reveal to their partners before the relationship approaches maximum seriousness. At a certain point the longer you’ve waited to come out with the truth, so to speak, the more it seems like you’ve been trying to hide it, or that you’ve attached a bunch of negativity to it, which makes it seem like it’s more shameful than it probably is. And choosing to never reveal it seems to me to mean that you don’t trust your partner’s judgement on the matter, and that kind of difference of opinion is likely to crop up at some point or another, I think.
So that my post isn’t a complete hijack: Before a relationship becomes a serious commitment (what this means is open to interpretation) I think it’s appropriate to reveal any incident in your past history that you feel might potentially cause conflict with your partner, which requires that you’ve been in the relationship long enough to know them. This can be a graduated thing. Revealing that you have an STD should happen almost immediately, before intimacy, at the very least. Revealing that you have a history of bankruptcy should probably happen before you move in together or start sharing finances. And maybe revealing that you are a fan of the Raiders should only be revealed when you are absolutely comfortable exposing your worst, most terrible personal failings without being laughed at or seen as less than a man for it.
I don’t think unsafe sex is a smart idea, no, but I don’t see why we have to bring shame into it. It’s a smart idea to brush your teeth but we don’t say that getting a cavity filled involves shame, even though you may have neglected to do something you should have (brushing properly).
I guess it depends on the person, though. I’ve never had an abortion but I don’t know if it would occur to me to bring it up. I really don’t see it as a big deal. As Anaamika said, you probably know your partner’s stance on abortion early on. If I were with someone pro choice, I don’t really think it would be a big deal. If they asked and I’d had one, I’d just say yes. And I don’t think I’d be in a really serious relationship with someone who’s pro life because that could cause problems down the line if I did want to terminate any unwanted pregnancies.
For what it’s worth, I haven’t had a terribly limited experience with women; I did march happily through the 1960s and 70s during the revolution and my experience was certainly not confined to the women of my generation. And it wasn’t just my wife and I never said all of you pulled this shit.
You have to reveal everything that could come up again some day. So the STDs, criminal records, debt, psychotic relatives, and the like. Other than that, a couple should negotiate the rules. Don’t ask for more than your partner wants to reveal, don’t offer more than your partner wants to know.