We share email accounts. We’re not insecure or anything grim like that. We also open mail to the other person and don’t think twice about it. Well, I do, Mr P doesn’t even open mail addressed to him. This is the man who got a Xmas card from his publisher which he did open, hung it on the wall and didn’t read it. I read it this morning and learnt that his latest book is being reprinted in the New Year.
Mr P is a vague person with short term memory problems. He maybe reads his email once a week and he gets a reasonable amount of business email. I check his email and I let him know if there is something he needs to read.
I don’t read anything obviously personal from someone who I know would be upset by my reading it.
::shrug:: in my household, it’s mostly for the survival of my sanity that I read everything. But then I think most people who know us both are well aware of the situation.
I have my own email account because I am my own person. Gunslinger could have my passwords if he wanted 'em. But I’d feel weird sharing an email address with him and not having one that was just me.
Mrs. Snac and I share an email address. Have since we got online back about 7 years ago. I use it for business; we both use it for general staying in touch; she gives it out to her college students. It’s also a spam magnet.
That’s really weird. Maybe it’s the friends I keep, but I’ve never heard of this trend, and frankly, I find it disturbing. Then again, if it works for some people, hey, who am I to criticise? I just think that everybody deserves their own identity, and even with the best of my friends, I don’t want everyone to know everything about me. I would never ever open a girlfriend’s mail. (OK, not completely true. I did once, knowing that when I did it, it was the end of the relationship. And it was. My suspicions were correct.) And I would be pissed if anyone opened my private correspondences. But YMMV.
See, I don’t consider email to be a big deal. It’s just… email. Just like I don’t care if there are other people in the room when I am on the phone, I don’t care if my husband reads my email. It isn’t that I trust him not to (though I could), it’s that I don’t care if he reads it. I don’t really see my email as “private correspondence.” I see it more as note passing.
The only reason I have my own email address(es) is for logistical purposes. We used to have all of our email download to the same program and sorted into various folders based on content/sender/etc. But he and I have very different preferences on sorting and other things, so we don’t do that anymore.
(Again, don’t assume that just because someone has their own address that means that their SO doesn’t have access to their email.)
I have never had anything come up that I couldn’t talk to my husband about. But if it did (ie, a surprise for him, or a personal problem a friend didn’t want me to share), I would definitely find a more secure or a more personal method of conversation than email.
My wife and I each have our own e-mail accounts. I wouldn’t want to read her e-mails and she wouldn’t want to read mine. There is nothing in my emails that I would object to her seeing, however most of it just wouldn’t be interesting for her.
I’ve checked her email for her and even opened messages for her, upon her specific request but would never do so on my own.
Spouse and I each have our own addresses, but do have each other’s passwords. I can’t remember the last time we checked each other’s email, but we have.
Same thing with snail mail. Not a secret, but each takes care of their own.
Spam never gets sent back and forth, and rarely do attachments, more for virus protection than any other reason.
Family mail, jokes, mutual aquaintances stuff, anything of interest, we share.
We don’t have business accounts, and each like our computer set up our own way.
Since we’re around each other 24/7, as a unit, there’s not much we don’t share.
Guess I’ll have to forget about any lovely surprise parties, or new jewelry.
Excluding our work emails, we have a joint email account and any separate accounts we care to set up. He has had Yahoo and Hotmail before, but mostly as spam-mail accounts. I have an ICQmail account solely for spam.
The idea of someone sending me something that they would expect me to keep from my husband is antithema to me. He’s my best friend. No one is closer to either of us than we are, so you don’t send us anything if you don’t want to share it with both of us.
That said, he never checks our joint account, and I keep Outlook open all the time on my computer, so I just automatically get anything that comes to that account (it’s probably safe to say it’s more mine than his). Anything just to him would probably go to his work account.
I also open all mail, regardless of who it’s addressed to, because we never get anything but bills, junk mail or paychecks, and I’m the only one who checks the mail. If he got something that was a private letter only addressed to him, I’d probably set it on his desk unread, though. I don’t think that’s ever happened.
Now, sharing a computer? I couldn’t imagine it. His computer just feels so…weird. And we’re about as far from tech-illiterates as you can get and not be soldering our own mobos.
My parents share an email address. They just can’t be bothered to set up another one. Anyway, 95% of their email is from family and friends that they both are interested in.
When I was married, I always set up separate accounts for my wife and I. Not for secrecy, just for neatness and minimizing confusion.
My wife and I share an email address. We don’t see any reason not to. We also share the same phone number, the same post office box and the same house. We don’t share toothbrushes (although we have a couple of times while camping and such).
We work at different places and get some emails there.
We share an e-mail address. We actually have two set up but haven’t given out the second address because Mr. Pundit would never bother to check it. I also open all of his mail, unless it’s personal (e.g. a birthday card), and pay all his bills. I sign his name on the back of all checks made out to him and deposit them in our joint account.
If someone wanted to discuss something confidentially with my husband they know where to find him.
As TV time said, we all share a telephone and a mailing address. What’s the big deal?
I have a friend, she is my best friend (we are 35 both females).
We email each other our rants about our kids, life, the days events, laughed and cried in some letters.
Nothing “wrong” or confidential… but I would not want her husband to read it all. Not because it is about him (or anything that would even bother him) But they are my thoughts and feelings I am sending (telling) to her.
They have seperate accounts BTW and I really think he would find our emails un-interesting but again it is us being able to share our feelings just as if she were here in the same room alone.
Sometimes it is easier for us to type it all out, then discuss it on the phone or in person at later time. Most of the time she takes her lunch at work and reads/replies to emails.
Makes me wonder how many of these couples that share an email addy also have their own private address set up “on the side.” I can’t imagine sharing an addy with a SO, but differnent strokes, I suppose.
The thought of having the same e-mail address as my fiance strikes me as creepy. I don’t read his mail; I don’t go through his wallet; I don’t pick up the phone and listen while he’s talking; why would I want to read his e-mail? Sure, we share a life, but we have our own friends and our own separate identities. I’m not about to give up any expectation of private correspondence with my friends and family.
Pretty much interchangeable. About half the time when they ask for her, they really want me and when they ask for me, they really want her anyway. But if they want me, she summons me and vice-versa. It’s the same thing with the email. If I get something while she is using the computer, she’ll tell me and if she gets something while I am using it, I let her know.
No, unless they want to talk to both of us. But then again I don’t open the email that looks like it’s for her either. Why would I? I am not really that interested what her sister Beth has to say about her first grandchild. Besides, I know if it is important, she’ll tell me. If mine’s important, I’ll tell her. Why wouldn’t I?
One side is saying how sharing of accounts is intrusive, rude, lacks trust and shows insecurity.
The other side is saying how sharing accounts is convenient, honest and how not sharing indicates dishonesty or trying to hide something.
What works for one relationship doesn’t work in another. What would be suspicious in one relationship is insecurity in another.
Different strokes and all that, people.
I have shared e-mail in the past, and I have had separate e-mail. There was no insecurity, no lack of trust, no hiding in either arrangement. The choice to share or not to share was made on practicality at the time. At one point it was more convenient to share. Now it’s more convenient to not share. Different people have different arrangments that work for them, even if they wouldn’t work for you, it doesn’t mean they are wrong or bad.
It should also be mentioned that nowadays most every email program comes with provisions for multiple identities,while in the past, it was a pain in the like-donkey.
Well, we had been married for about a dozen years before we got email, and as XPav points out, it was a good deal more complicated then to get multiple addresses than it is now. I’ll also venture to say that most people I knew who were getting email then got just one address. Some have changed over to two; some haven’t.
I suspect that if I were starting over again in the relationship dep’t I might be more inclined to keep my old address…simply for convenience sake. I wonder if there’s a difference in answers to this question based on when the frst email address was obtained.
As for privacy and such…I don’t know. If an email has as its subject heading “Class Friday” or “Fact checker 4” or something else that clearly deals with Mrs. Snac’s college students, I leave it alone. If it says “revised manuscript” or “writing project” or something that identifies it as dealing with my freelance business, she leaves it alone. Most of our friends overlap. As someone else said, if we wanted to deal with something a little more privately, email wouldn’t be the way to do it. Which is fine.
And if others are more comfortable doing it a different way, that’s fine too.
If the caller wants to speak to my husband they will generally follow social convention and ask, “Is Mr. Pundit home?” In which case, I hand him the phone. It is a unique and clever way of handling this very complicated situation.
No. That would be needlessly intrusive. I wait until the call is over then rewind the tape I’ve made of the conversation and listen for myself.
