Are digital diaries the new Dear Abby?

My story on married couples who blog about their relationships, Dear Bloggy: Digital diaries tell all, went live on MSNBC.com yesterday. It seems that quite a few people are using blogs as a way to communicate with their spouses, letting them know when they’re upset about long hours, undone laundry or that annoying collection of dead stuffed animals out in the garage.

Amelia Zatik-Sawyer, a mother of two and self-proclaimed Chefswidow.com explains it like this:  “It can definitely be like a digital marriage counselor at times. 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.”

Obviously, there are good points and bad points to blogging about your partner. On the plus side, it allows you to sit down at a keyboard and get your feelings across without interruption (something that’s sometimes difficult to do during a discussion, much less a knock-down-drag-out fight). On the down side, though, blogs are public (although they often don’t feel like it), which means you run the risk of airing dirty laundry. Or, should the temptation grow too great, to use dirty laundry as a way to increase those almighty hits.

It’s an interesting topic that’s fueled the usual amount of reader debate. For instance: 

MOST EXCELLENT THERAPY INDEED!…. As long as you don’t mind putting YOUR BUSINESS ON THE STREET! The computer age has probably been more responsible for the BREAKDOWN OF HUMAN RELATIONS than anything.

I would rather be known as someone who shared things virtually and gave back to my community or a group of people on the Net rather than in real life.

So what do you think? Is blogging about a relationship helping to destroy life as we know it? Or is it just another way to give back to the community — even if it’s just a community of two?  Do you blog about your spouse? Your kids? Your boyfriend? Your boss?  Do they read what you write and then blog about you?

Would love to hear your thoughts. Would also love to give a shout-out to Duane Hoffman, the talented news artist who did the illustration for this piece (pictured at top). Now THAT’s something to blog home about.