The Need For Privacy

Privacy, both in emotional and physical sense, is something every individual needs – to restore energy for dealing with the outside world, to dream, to conduct small personal rituals beyond the reach of prying or known eyes.

Although there may be differences in people’s need to be alone, the attitudes are strongly influenced by the changing demands of the outside world. Priya a 32-year-old schoolteacher says she was never concerned about privacy until she had a baby last year. Now she feels the need to plan ahead for special private time, as bearing the triple responsibility of being a wife, mother and teacher leaves her virtually no time for herself. This seems to be the most common complaint of working mothers.

Although the right to be by ourselves is an important element of personal privacy, yet it is a mistake to equate privacy with the simple fact of being alone. The condition – whether in relation to friends or family members – is much a state of mind as a physical state of being. In many ways, privacy is the positive counterpart of the unhappy experience of loneliness. Whether we perceive aloofness as enjoyable privacy or as painful loneliness depends mainly on whether we have chosen to be by ourselves or whether the solitude has been forced upon us.

Social loneliness is the absence of friends and group activities. Intimate loneliness is the absence of a permanent mate. Friends cannot substitute for an intimate companion and a mate cannot make up for the absence of friends. People who live alone suffer from both intimate loneliness and insufficient privacy as they engage in a number of activities in an effort to find, and to compensate for the absence of a spouse. Couples on the other hand, may not suffer from intimate loneliness but can suffer from insufficient privacy. Unless the man and the woman have identical needs for solitude, some negotiation is usually required in a relationship; especially when initial romantic passion diminishes and the partners begin to re-assert their separate identities.

 

The freedom to take care of intimate physical needs alone is also a basic aspect of privacy; in fact a major source of argument for mates/roommates, even husbands and wives. Tasks like shaving, putting on make up etc. also serve the purpose of providing personal time and space to think or plan. But then getting this kind of privacy is not difficult to manage.  Emotional privacy is more complicated than physical, since it concerns the door to our hearts and mind rather than our bedrooms and bathrooms.

In an intimate relationship, conflicts over emotional privacy can arise even when either partner is extremely secretive or extremely open. Just as one sees many different attitudes towards physical privacy, there can be many different styles of emotional expressions.

Piyush and Vishakha who married in their late 30’s are a perfect example of a husband and wife having different definitions of emotional privacy. Vishakha is not a secretive person, but her way of getting over a problem is to think about it a great deal privately before she looks for anyone else’s opinion. Piyush, in contrast is apt to discuss a dozen alternatives with his friends and his wife before he seriously considers a particular solution. “I was unhappy at work and thought seriously of finding a new job for several months before I brought it up with Piyush,” Vishakha says. “By the time I asked him what he thought, I already had other possibilities in mind though I never would have made a final decision without consulting him. But he was very upset that I had been worrying about it and had not talked to him right away.”

Piyush on the other hand, would upset Vishakha by venting his feelings even when they did not reflect any serious dissatisfaction with his life but only expressed a passing moment. Couples like these have to work hard to find a middle ground between them. The inability to work out a mode of shared privacy is a source of stress for many couples, because they may begin to feel that they can only recharge their energies outside a relationship. The desire for privacy, on either a conscious or an unconscious level is one important reason for marital infidelity and even divorce.

Being alone together or shared privacy is a concept that is essential to any relationship. This quality in friends or couples enables them to share the same physical space without intruding on each other’s privacy. According to me, it is the highest expression of compatibility between two people or a man and a woman and the key to a long and successful married life or friendship.

But how to snatch moments of personal privacy from amidst the vast sea of routine?  Use early morning or late night hours for any private activity that clears your head and recharges your energy. These are ideal times for exercise, meditation or simple thinking about the day that is beginning or ending. If you have children, entrust the help of anyone you trust – mother, mother-in-law, sister or sister-in-law or even your best friend – to free you for occasional evenings or weekends by yourself. It takes thorough planning with understanding and involvement of those one loves the most, to satisfy one’s need for privacy.