How many people's spouses would be upset if you went through their phone or email?

[Anonymous]

And how many would be upset if their spouse went through their's?

I check my spouse's email for him all the time. Sometimes if I am looking for someone's contact info, I'll check his email or phone. Sometimes I'm getting info for him. Sometimes I am just being nosy. I wouldnt care at all if he did the same to me. It doesnt occur to either of us that there is anything wrong with it. I suppose if one of us did it bc we thought we were going to find something "bad", that would be cause for concern that we even had those suspicions but if its innocent, or even just being nosy, is it really a big deal?

[Anonymous]

If you guys routinely go into each others e-mail or phone, I see no problem with it. But, in my case, we don't. So if he did or I did without asking the other first, it would be a violation of trust. And mind you, neither one is hiding anything...

[Anonymous]

But why would it be an invasion of trust? What if he were looking for someone's phone number and it was totally innocent?

[Anonymous]

I check DH's personal email for him frequently (he can't access it from work) or go into his contacts if I need a phone number, etc. We have each other's passwords for most everything. It is just not something we consider to be an issue.

[Anonymous]

My DH think it's invading his privacy so I think he has something to hide. I don't care if he goes through mine as I have nothing to hide but I have a private email that he does not know or have access to. I only created that address to receive personal message from family members in europe!

[Anonymous]

Maybe this is weird, but DH and I share an email account and have access to one another's work accounts. Occasionally I have to tell him to not to check email until I can hide evidence of a surprise gift or somesuch. It's all open book. (He does gripe if I open a piece of paper mail addressed to him, though. Funny that there's a difference.)

[Anonymous]

We check each others' email all the time (to find an phone number, check an appointment date) but always acknowledge having done so. We aren't checking up on each other. This is probably pretty unusual and I get that for lots of people it is a huge invasion of privacy.

Our arrangement has the consequence of making my husband suspicious when I don't want him to check my email. He knows it is because I have gone a little overboard with online shopping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I check DH's personal email for him frequently (he can't access it from work) or go into his contacts if I need a phone number, etc. We have each other's passwords for most everything. It is just not something we consider to be an issue.

Right, same here.

[Anonymous]

I go through DHs phone semi-regularly, usually to clear off the 3 weeks old messages in the hopes that he might figure out how to take advantage of the message notification feature. We regularly switch phones if one is low/out of batteries, but our phones are old school and we rarely text anyone so there isn't much "good stuff" on them (aside from the spam porn text I got this weekend and immediately showed DH).

E-mail is more private so I stay out of that (OK once or twice I looked but only to get something specific not a what's in here looking around). I'd be slightly comfortable if he was looking at my e-mail regularly, even though I don't think there is anything in it that he would object to. It's just nice to have some personal space. Although to be honest, more than half of my non-work e-mails are from him so it's not like he doesn't already know what those say.

[Anonymous]

I would be upset. Not because I have anything to hide, but because there are boundries. There is so little that is just mine. I need to have some sort of privacy somewhere, and I will take it where I can get it.

[Anonymous]

We used to be totally open with all this stuff, but not so much any more. He hides his phone, deletes his internet history, and has changed some passwords. All with good excuses, of course. "Too much cached history slows the computer down." "It's not hidden, I just plugged it in... in the basement..." When I ask to use his phone rather than go get mine in another room, it's always "out of battery" or something. He's never said that his email is now off-limits, but the one time I found something alarming he went all "you went through my stuff???" Like we didn't used to do this all the time.

That said, I have nothing to hide. He can comb through my emails, texts, facebook all he wants. Not that he would want to. He's not interested in me anymore.

[Anonymous]

14:30 here - I totally agree with the 15:22 poster. It is important to have some privacy and some boundaries. While I have nothing to hide from my spouse, he doesn't need to know about all of my communications with my friends. What if I am annoyed about something he did and I want to vent to a friend? Sure, it wouldn't be the end of the world if he read it, but I would prefer him not to. I love him dearly, but I think some privacy is OK in a relationship.

[Anonymous]

I trust my husband and I never have thoughts that he's hiding something. It never occurs to me to read through his email or check his blackberry-I think it's being nosey. If I need a contact number from him, I ask. Though we're married, have a family together doesn't give me permission to go through his personal stuff whenever I feel like it, and likewise. I don't make comments on his career/job, offer unsolicited advice-if he asks me then I say what I need to say. I don't like being in other people's business, including my husbands. I love him with all my heart, but we are separate individuals.

[Anonymous]

I have full access. Often he asks me to go in b/c he cannot access personal email from work.

I on the other hand would not like it. Not that I have anything to hide, but I just don't like it.

[Anonymous]

I can check my husband's email--sometimes he asks me to go in and find stuff for him if he needs directions, phone numbers, etc., and sometimes there's stuff there that I need--no big deal. It's like an extension of me being the one who keeps track of snail mail and other household stuff. He can look at mine, because it all comes into my mac inbox on "my" laptop, but I don't think he really does.

I have a girlfriend who has a shared email account with her husband and that I don't understand at all. I know that he looks at messages which are clearly her personal messages, and a mutual friend once told me that she'd gotten snide responses from him when she had emailed the wife to make plans, so neither of us emails her anymore.

I would never want a shared account because it would be hard to keep track of messages having been read, and my husband subscribes to too much junky emails.