Not sure what to make of this

[zerosumgame]

My wife and I have a shared facebook.  She does whatever on it and I use it for the market place.  I noticed when I would go to search for something names of guys she had some type of relationship in the past would show up.  Then they would be gone a day later.  She had been removing them for the search history.  So this conversation happened this morning and I'm not sure how to respond. 

 

Me:

    I think it’s time you have your own Facebook.  I’m not sure why you look up people and then delete it but it seems fishy to me and I’m not interested in dealing with that kind of stuff.

The Wife:
    You think everything’s fishy. I look up all kinds of people and you always think it’s fishy. You need to just get over it. It’s old.

Me:
    I don’t care who you look up.  It’s the deleting part that bothers me

The Wife:
    Who cares.

 

 

I'm not sure I remember ever commenting on who she was looking up as being fishy before but if I did I don't remember.

 

Is this an invasion of privacy on a shared FB?

Should I just start my own?

I haven't replied to her and not really sure how to.  I feel like I should say something before I get home or it's going to be weird.  

[Wiseman2]

1 hour ago, zerosumgame said:

Me:I think it’s time you have your own Facebook.  

Definitely each have your own FB account.  Privacy and boundaries are important in any relationship. As far as what her search history is, it's unimportant. 

[mark clemson]

Unless she's actually using it for infidelity, she might as well have her own. If it's clear she's completely done with these folks except for nostalgic curiosity then it's fine. Deleting COULD be a sign of something shady, but more likely she is just heading any questions off (or attempting to) so it doesn't become something she feels she has to justify.

If you get the sense she is actually looking for a new lover or "rekindling" something with one of these old ones, it would be a different matter.

[zerosumgame]

I don't get the deleting part.  If it's harmless why delete it.  If shes looking to start up something else I'm not going to try and stop her.  On top of that I think her reply of "who cares" was rude.  She was the one who wanted this shared facebook to start with. 

[basil67]

8 minutes ago, zerosumgame said:

I don't get the deleting part.  If it's harmless why delete it. 

She she deletes it in order to avoid having conversations like the one you've just posted here. 

You could have simply started up your own FB page for the reason "I'd like my own FB account" but you decided to go the way of argument as delivering the news.  Hence her deleting stuff.

[Wiseman2]

16 minutes ago, zerosumgame said:

I don't get the deleting part.  If it's harmless why delete it.  If shes looking to start up something else I'm not going to try and stop her. 

Please get your own accounts. She's deleting it because she knows you can see her search history and will ask questions.

But frankly there seems to be more issues than FB, just as her flip answers and your accusations of "fishy" behavior.

Please address where this contempt, stonewalling, resentment and discord is really stemming from. How is the marriage overall? This FB conversation seems like a symptom of other issues. 

[BaileyB]

1 hour ago, basil67 said:

She she deletes it in order to avoid having conversations like the one you've just posted here. 

Bingo! 

 

[zerosumgame]

OK so this is viewed as acceptable behavior?

I am in the wrong for thinking that this is fishy in nature?

 

To be blunt I'm sure if I was looking up one night stands and hiding that from here the conversation would be different than the one I had. 

[Alvi]

4 hours ago, zerosumgame said:

I don't get the deleting part.  If it's harmless why delete it.  If shes looking to start up something else I'm not going to try and stop her.  On top of that I think her reply of "who cares" was rude.  She was the one who wanted this shared facebook to start with. 

She is probably finding out that sharing a facebbok with you wasn't such a good idea after all. Get your own separate pages with passwords. More than likely she feels that you are  "policing" her facebook activities. Yeah, the comment was rude but it depends on a context. How often do you accuse her of anything? I don't know how nice you can expect her to be if she has to defend herself against your assumptions and accusations over and over again. Why did you ask her if you are not trying to stop her? Look, she is not in a school, where she gets to be called to the front desk by a teacher. She is tired of yours "Why, why, why" and wants to shut down any pointless and unnecessary arguments before they start.  Delete or not delete, if she wants to cheat she is going to cheat and there is nothing you can do about that. I bet there is a lot of other stuff that is going on in your marriage that you are not talking about on here. 

[basil67]

2 minutes ago, zerosumgame said:

OK so this is viewed as acceptable behavior?

I am in the wrong for thinking that this is fishy in nature?

 

To be blunt I'm sure if I was looking up one night stands and hiding that from here the conversation would be different than the one I had. 

I can't say it would bother me if I found that my husband had looked up people from his past to see what they are doing now.  I'm confident that nothing would come of it

As far as the conversation goes, if you had your own FB, your wife wouldn't know and there would be no conversation.  

[ShyViolet]

I think it's very weird to have a shared facebook account, period.  You are two separate people, you should each have your own accounts.

Unless you literally think she is cheating, then stop policing her facebook activity.  This is petty and ridiculous.

[Wiseman2]

15 minutes ago, zerosumgame said:

 if I was looking up one night stands and hiding that from here the conversation would be different than the one I had. 

How do you know she's looking up one night stands?  It seems rather stupid to do it on a shared platform when she can just google them, no? 

Why would she provide you with a list of names of one night stands in the first place? Who does that? 

Edited December 20, 2023 by Wiseman2

[zerosumgame]

1 hour ago, Wiseman2 said:

How do you know she's looking up one night stands?  It seems rather stupid to do it on a shared platform when she can just google them, no? 

Why would she provide you with a list of names of one night stands in the first place? Who does that? 

She has talked about past hookups when we were younger and on her own I didn't ask.  That's why I knew a few of the names. 

 

I haven't been checking up.  I haven't looked into what she was doing since she was caught in the middle of an emotional affair 10 years ago.  I wasn't checking in on her then but she got a hey babe look at this text while she had me working on her phone.  You can guess what the picture that followed was.  I was clear that if this was going to be a thing I was not going to be married to her anymore.  She decided at that point that we needed to share a facebook.  I guess she wanted to do it for the sake of transparency.  I agreed and that was that until this happened and her reply caught me off guard since I don't question anything about what she does ever.  I refuse to be haunted by the past and at the end if the day it was my choice to stay the first time. 

[Wiseman2]

33 minutes ago, zerosumgame said:

she was caught in the middle of an emotional affair 10 years ago.  

How was she caught in the emotional affair? How old is she now? Hopefully you realize people don't need FB if they want to cheat so this checking the searching history is neither "transparent"  nor useful.  Please consider marriage therapy to resolve the contempt, resentment, lack of communication and trust. 

[mark clemson]

18 hours ago, zerosumgame said:

OK so this is viewed as acceptable behavior?

I am in the wrong for thinking that this is fishy in nature?

"It depends." Looking up past BF/GFs is something I've done. It's more nostalgic curiosity.

Looking up a past BF/GF in order to start up an affair with them is another matter. Intent is important for something like this.

You could ask that she stop, but honestly that seems overly controlling if it's just looking them to see "how they turned out" etc. IF at some point you get a genuine sense that there is more to it than that, then you'd want to address it. This could involve insisting that she stop, it could involve marriage counseling to explore why she is doing this, etc.

[LuckyM]

I delete people and messages constantly just because I want to. I hate clutter and avoid FB.

at home and on the web. Maybe she is the same way. She doesn't like looking at the person's face

or name any more. Same with me. Some devices have no mechanism to delete some old names I found.

You are blowing this up. Get your own FB page. And leave it at that.  Counseling is a bad idea.

BTW    what is an emotional affair?