privacy & emails

[misskelly]

Hi, does anyone on this post share email accounts with their SO? I know I'm totally wrong here but I feel sad about my BF changing his password so I won't see his emails. We used to be pretty open about stuff like that and now he says he needs this to be private. I suppose I shouldn't feel excluded, I'm not very good at this relationship stuff. Maybe I do have depression as someone noted in an earlier post. :-(

[bluechocolate]

Absolutely not. Nor do we open each others mail or listen in on each others phone calls, which to my mind are the same as reading each others emails.

 

Do you not trust him or something?

 

I suppose I shouldn't feel excluded,...

 

Excluded from what?

[RowanRavyn]

We know each others passwords, its not a big deal for us. Its just the way things are. ::Shrugs::

 

My inlaws have one account.

 

 

I know a most of our friends couldn't care less, but I know several who are very private.

[Karlise13]

What if I want to vent about my sig other to a girlfriend?

 

Or what if she wants to email me about her new boyfriend (and how they hung from the chandelier?)

 

Or what if I want to surprise him with a birthday party and need to email a bunch of people?

 

Sometimes it's not about hiding big secrets. It's about having a tiny corner of your life that belongs JUST TO YOU.

 

I don't think most people like being joined at the hip. Most of us need some area of our lives that's ours alone.

For some, that's keeping a journal.

For others, it's having a workroom in the basement or a night out 'with the boy's or 'with the girls' where you can take time out from the relationship.

 

We all need that.

[tiki]

Mine isn't password protected (through my home Outlook Express) so he can see mine anytime he wants. He has given me his password to his email account. I don't see the big deal. We're almost married (in one month) and if there's nothing to hide, then why hide it?

 

"I feel sad about my BF changing his password so I won't see his emails"

 

What upsets me is that he once gave it to you and changed it so that you couldn't check it anymore. That's a red flag. He's got stuff in there he doesn't wish for you to see anymore.

[dyermaker]

If you feel you can't trust him, don't be in a relationship with him.

 

But there is a difference between privacy and secrecy, and you do yourself a disservice when you blur the lines.

[tokyo]

Hmm, I have an online account, but I get my emails via a POP3 client to my mail program which is not password protected.

If I had a boyfriend I guess, I wouldn´t tell him my password to access my emails online, but I also wouldn´t put a password up for the mail program at home. I´d expect him not to read my emails even if he could, I´m very private about these things. I know guys who are nosy as hell and I am totally sure I couldn´t live with them. It´s about respect.

 

But what someone else mentioned before, I also find it weird that he didn´t mind sharing his password with you and now stops it. That´s a bad sign.

[Cupcake]

I don't think it's realistic to share an email account. How coud two people share the account? I mean, how would you know what mail goes to whom? Would the subject line always have to include the recievers name? I just think it would be complicated to have to provide instructions to everyone you give the email address to.

 

For instance, "Here is my email address. But make sure you put my name in the subject line so that I know it's for me. That way my SO doesn't accidently open, and delete it."

 

Maybe I'm just lazy !!!

[Merin]

I think Dyer makes a good point...

 

There is a difference between having some privacy and keeping secrets..

 

God, it's embarrasing to say... but my bf (ex now) actually hacked into my email account, I wasn't hiding anything and he had never asked me point blank for the password.. so it made me pretty pissed that he had done it.. then again, he also hacked into my online cell phone account so he could make sure I wasn't talking to any guys again, I wasn't keeping things from him... but for real, all I could think was wtf was wrong with him!? showed a lot of insecurity and pissed me off.

[krbshappy71]

That's funny this came up, just a week or so ago my SO was telling me his friend's SO reads all the guy's emails. I know I'm pretty nosy...but that even surprised me. So he said something to the effect of "if you do that I'll password protect the computer" and I shrugged, said I don't know why I'd want to...he asked if I would mind if he did that to me (to help me understand why it'd bother him) and I replied "I wouldn't care, I have nothing to hide." So I think its two ways of looking at it. I'm not suspicious of him because I do understand the "little space of my own" feeling, but on the same token its not an area I need of my own. Does that make sense? His computers still are not password protected and I don't snoop, I have no interest in its contents. I use them for what I need and that's it.

 

Now my journals on the other hand.....sometimes I wish he'd read them and sometimes I'm so glad he doesn't dare because there is some pretty heated anger in them, HA! I think they are probably my only "space of my own". It would probably bother me if he read them if he then turned around and got upset with me about them. Don't look for what you don't want to find.

[Ladyjane14]

I hate to be the voice of suspicion here, because EVERYONE deserves a certain amount of privacy.

 

What bugs me about this is that it looks like it's a change in his established pattern of behavior. Before, it didn't bother him if she looked. Now, he needs a password to keep her from looking.

 

I don't think it means necessarily that he's cheating. He could be planning a surprise party for you, or ordering your Christmas gift. There are any number of reasons that he could be wanting more privacy.

 

But changes in behavior do demand attention. If I had stopped to wonder why my husband needed separate e-mail accounts and different passwords, I might have been able to avert a whole lotta trouble.

[lostgirl26]

I agree with everyone else's posts. My husband and I have a joint email account that is not password protected and then we each have our own Yahoo accounts or whatever. We do not read each other's email in the joint account and cannot access our private emails. I don't read his mail either, he says I could but I consider it rude to do that I guess. There have been times he has accidentally got into mine and since I usually use mine to vent about things he was not happy with some of the things he found but...thems the breaks. I tired to crack his email once but only after finding tons and tons of porn links on the computer that had titles like married couples seeking single females and extra marrital relationships. He somewhat came clean about this one, whether I believe it is another thing but....thats a trust issue.

[whichwayisup]

Just because one is married or in a relationship does not mean that you have to share everything! You don't OWN eachother! Privacy is privacy, single or not. I think no matter what, we all need to do our own thing, have our own friends and BE alone at times.

 

If I am pissed at my husband for something and just feel like complaining and venting, why can't I call my bestfriend and tell her, OH man he's just getting on my nerves today and he's just being a pain in the ass... OK so he is hiding in the other room listening...Hmmm, not good. I don't mean any of it, I love him and things are just fine! I am just venting and having a rough time. AM I allowed to do that? Or is that wrong.

 

I know I've done it before and probably will do that again. He knows too! I tell him when he's getting on my nerves! I can't hide that stuff from him anyways, he makes my blood boil at times!

 

So personally I would not like it if he listened in to my calls. It's my time, personal or not, I'm talking to someone on the phone and it's just nice to have some space while doing that.

 

I'm sure others will completely disagree with me, but hey! Used to that now!