I agree with Eva Luna. The fact that you are married does not mean you cease to be a separate person. I would never have any problem with my wife/girlfriend keeping her own privacy. In fact, if she didn’t want to I’d probably not like it.
My husband and I share an e-mail address. I also have my work address, and a separate free address (which I used to sign up here).
If I think people are likely to spam me, I give them the free e-mail address. I also used it recently when I ordered some Christmas presents for my husband online, so he wouldn’t be hit with the “Hey, here’s what you ordered, how much it cost, and when we’ll be shipping it to you.”
It just seems simpler to avoid the logging in and out deal. The downside? He chose a really dorky e-mail addy, which I always have to apologize for. Also, he sometimes deletes mail I wanted to read before I get the chance to. (Hint: If I subscribe to an online newsletter, it’s because I want to read the damned thing!)
I wouldn’t mind if my best friend decided that she wanted to share my personal email with her spouse (assuming I trusted her judgement that I wasn’t going to be teased by him about my Horribly Detailed Menstrual Problem the next time we had pizza on gaming night).
However, if the email goes to both of them, then there might be a chance of BestFriendSpouse deciding that they were entitled to read my personal email (I mean, Spouse deciding, not Friend deciding after reading the email), which is a whole 'nother thing.
Not that my friends’ spouses are jerks, but some of them DO have a shortness of tact, and an inability to judge when topics are inappropriate or privately intended. The way I deal with this without screaming is that I don’t give them information I need to keep private-- and fortunately for me, my friends have private email addresses, so if I feel the need to share with them about a Horribly Detailed Menstrual Problem, I can.
I have a separate addy from the Raven-- actually, I have two. One is occasionally used by work to send messages to me-- since I work at a medical answering service, and the usual message is asking me to clarify what happened with a particular call-- it’s possible and even probable that the email will contain private patient information. Much as I love the Raven and trust him, it’s not at all ethical for me to leave that information in a place where he might mistake it for his email. Leaving it on my computer with a stored password is fine, he’s not going to accidentally sit down at my computer and read it, but he might accidentally click on it if it were in the in-box.
Corr
If you trust your spouse enough to share an e-mail address, you undoubtedly also trust him enough to not read personal mail. Of course, the flip side to that is that I don’t betray that trust either.
I share an email addy with Mr. Naz, and we’ve never had problems with privacy. Anybody who we want to talk to is aware that we share the inbox, and if they address both of us. However, we tend to read only what we get from our respective friends and family (i.e. he reads emails from his mom and tells me about them, I read emails from my parents and tell him about them). We treat snail mail the same way. Like others in this thread have said, my husband and I are a unit.
To everyone here who says things to the effect of, ‘it’s about remaining individuals’, or ‘I can’t imagine sharing because it’d be losing my identity’, I have to ask, why do you think so? I mean, it’s just an email address. A form of communication, but not part of who I am. Please don’t take offense if I sound snotty; I’m just curious as to why this means so much to you.
I’ve got friends who live in the backwoods of a large third-world country, who can only check the internet once a week (at best). They are a couple and they each have their own e-mail address. Since whenever one is in the city on the internet, the other is generally at home with the kids, whoever has the chance will check both addresses. I (and whoever else e-mails them) know this, and address my e-mails appropriately. But I still appreciate that they are separate addresses! i don’t really know why.
What really freaked me out was when I sent an e-mail to my recently-married friend and got a reply, from the same address, with a sig line of ‘Love (his name) and (her name)’. First of all, I am certain that the message only came from him, she probably did not read my e-mail or contribute to his reply. Second, I am equally certain that she does not ‘love’ me! This felt like a jealous, possessive and intrusive move on her part. If it was so important to share an address, they should have gotten another one, rather than tacking her onto his with no notice!
‘Becoming One’: I share everything with my SO. Well, not exactly ‘everything’ - we don’t always share opinions, or roles in relationships with other people. I will not pretend to speak on his behalf (except when he knows exactly what’s happening). in such cases I will sign my own e-mails ‘Mr and Mrs Cowgirl’. If I am corresponding with an old friend who has never met him, why should his participation in the discussion be implied?
Bathroom door: yes, start the thread ! I for one am curious.
I don’t have shared e-mail with my husband. It would make it really hard to plan a surprise for eachother that way. Also I like getting cute little e-mails from him during the day.
That’s funny that you mention this. My husband and I have separate email addresses, but he always signs his more letter-like (as opposed to the ones that say, “What time are we meeting to go fishing on Saturday?”) emails from both of us. If he’s writing to a married or otherwise-attached friend, he always addresses both people. He’s signed both of our names since we moved in together years ago. I think you’re right that if she even read your email, she probably didn’t have much to do with the reply - that’s how it is in our household, anyway - so you shouldn’t attribute jealousy or possessiveness to her. My husband does it just because he feels like we are a unit and anything he says to them is open for me to know (I feel the same way).
Although we do have separate email addresses, he regularly forwards his personal emails to me so I can see them, or he’ll call me over and I’ll read them over his shoulder. (I wouldn’t go as far as to go into his account and read his emails, because I’m not that interested and I certainly don’t feel like he’s ever hiding anything from me.)
As far as I’m concerned, anything anyone tells me or writes to me is shareable with my husband. If it’s not, don’t tell me because he’s not someone I keep secrets from. Our friends know this, respect this, and as far as I know, have the same relationship with their SO’s.
We keep the bathroom door open, too!
So the e-mail reply came from HIM exclusively (you are certain of it), yet you accuse HER of acting jealous, possessive and intrusive because HE signed it “Love, Jim & Suzy?”
I’m sooooo confused.
Honest & open, my foot.
Just because you don’t have any secrets from your partner doesn’t mean I don’t either. If you insist on not having a seperate personal email address then I guess I just don’t email you anything personal.
That’d be what I’d tell you. Don’t tell me anything that I can’t repeat to my husband. I’d simply rather not know.