We have two friends, both married couples, who use one shared e-mail account. I find this strange, awkward, and unnecessary.
I cannot imagine how many e-mails each person has to trough through in order to read and respond to only those intended for them, or how the day-to-day process works.
So, can anyone with a shared marital e-mail account explain to me “why”?
I’ve encountered two possible reasons for this. 1) It’s a mom-and-pop business email and it doesn’t matter to whom email is addressed. or 2) One half of the couple is technologically disinclined (like my grandparents). My grandma would always check the email, and just let my non-savvy gramps know if anyone sent him a letter.
God I hate that. My aunt and uncle have a shared account. If I write an email and address it to my uncle, most likely my aunt will respond.
To clarify: both are young (40’s), technologically adept (both send and respond to e-mails), and it is a non-business, home account (e.g., using Yahoo or Comcast, etc)
There’s one married couple on my Facebook friends list that shares an account there. It’s in the husband’s name but his wife does most of the posting. It annoys me to no end. With them, I believe it boils down to trust issues on her part.
Funny, I ran into this today. Someone on MyFitnessPal.com was asking in the forum how to have separate accounts for her and her husband if they both share an email address. According to their profile they are in their 40s.
I can see the rationale behind older couples doing it, like my grandparents, where one person won’t even touch the computer.
But if you’re competent enough to be online and have your own accounts on Web sites, you’re competent enough to have your own email address.
Besides…how do you send each other email??
BTW the answer everyone gave on MyFitnessPal to the problem was “get a second email address at one of the many free email places!”
My husband & I use the same. Maybe because our relationship is pre-internet (for us) and I don’t think we’re as integrated socially via technology as many younger people. My husband has signed up for his own but rarely used it. We both use mine which, I suppose, makes it ours.
We tend to use email for information, not as much in a social sense. Keeping track of kid’s activities, ‘funny’ stuff forwarded from people who want to share. We will send an occasional email “how you doing” to long distance relationships but almost inevitably it’s attatched to something like “I’m sending you a package” or “the plane lands at _____”. We both prefer phone contact or in person for socializing/catching up with people.
Neither of us is into online porn or uses it as a way to initiate and maintain out of marriage relationships. If one of us was going to have an affair it’s a lot more likely we’d be picking up someone in a bar - but that’s old school too.
If my husband was more internet social and/or his friends were he’d probably use his own. As far as I’ve seen he doesn’t even check out the news online, preferring TV.
So, I think it has a lot to do with social networking and whether that’s your thing.
You email your shared email address & put in the subject line - Hey, Bob!
Not a problem.
A guy I know does this. I’ve met his wife and she’s a lovely person, but they’re both intelligent, net-savvy, successful people. I’ve never seen any inkling of trust issues in their relationship, so I haven’t a clue why.
What kills me is he is the single biggest serial forwarder of porn/naked texts in our group, and she constantly forwards Christian glurge.
In ye olde days people didn’t have email accounts. Initially some people with office jobs got an email account. Then a few years down the road people at home got connected and their ISP provided them with a free email account, which they kept, along with their separate work email accounts. Hence, a shared account at home and separate accounts at work.
That’s how it went for many people I know.
especially if they do not indicate who is responding!
Why would they (we) need to send each other email? We text each other or call if it requires more conversation.
My wife and I share an account. Actually, we both have separate accounts but they’re mainly for junk and receipts when we buy things online. I’m not sure why we share, it just sort of happened that way. It was my account pre-marriage and people just started sending both of us stuff to that account, and we found it tedious when we were trying to communicate with our siblings and married friends who had separate accounts- which one do you send the email to, or do you send everything to both of them? Ugh.
These days, now that my wife volunteers and is involved in a bunch of different groups for herself and our kids, she has pretty much taken over the account. Hardly anything is sent to me in that account. I have email at work that people use if it’s just for me.
I don’t think most people even realize we share the account; her friends are constantly sending her emails like “OMG, I just need to vent about this, my cramps are killing me today!” or “This morning I went from laughing hysterically to crying my eyes out, why yes, I’m PMS’ing, is it obvious?!?!” and what-not.
You don’t. You either pick up the phone if it’s important or time sensitive, or you wait and tell/show them when they get home if it’s not. Same as if one or both of you doesn’t have the opportunity to diddle around on the net at work.
My parents shared an email account for many years after they got Internet access, and the problems people bring up simply weren’t issues for them, because the way they used their email didn’t lend itself to those problems. If email isn’t your primary tool for communication, you don’t get big wads of stuff in your in box to wade through. If neither of you has web access during the work day and you see each other after work every day, or if you’re both retired, you have no reason to email each other. At that point, making yourself log in and out of two accounts just seems a bit silly. Especially if 90% of your email is information that’s ultimately meant for both of you, like general update notes from family members.
A friend of mine shares an e-mail account with his wife (they’re both in their early 40s, and reasonably tech-savvy). I do suspect that the account dates from the time when multiple e-mail accounts from an ISP weren’t always a given. Despite the fact that the rest of us good-naturedly tease him about the shared account (“get into the 21st Century!”, “you can get another e-mail address now!”), they still share an account. I personally suspect that his wife (who absolutely is the one who wears the pants) wants it that way.
Even more strangely, both of them joined Facebook last year…under a joint account. 
We have a shared account we use to sign up for accounts (PayPal, online banking, etc.) We also use it for correspondence with our kids’ teachers and PTA information, etc. Of course we each have our own personal addresses too.
I know three couples who do this. Aunt/Uncle in their 60s, ex-boss/wife in their 60s, and a friend/husband my age. The reason I am surmising is that they were married before they got email so when they signed up for one they just got the one. Back then, some ISPs only provided one account for the house and there wasn’t anything like gmail around, especially back when I started. I remember it being way cool when AOL started offering multiple accounts per household.
My husband and I email each other every day all day long while we’re at work. Or if it’s urgent and one or both of us can’t have our emails open, we’ll text.
I think some couples got a single email address when having any email address was unusual and it was rarely used, then they just continued the practice.
I have several friends who share. One couple is in the real estate business together, so I guess it makes sense. All correspondence from a client, no matter who it is answered by or sent by, will be in the same email storage.
It wouldn’t be my way of handling it, but it works for some people.
It annoys me, too, and I don’t know why since its none of my business. The shared Facebook page also annoys me. It has a name like AmyandBill Smith, but Amy does everything. Why have Bill on there? I can always mention Bill in a post to Amy if I want. It just makes me picture an insecure couple who distrust technology, or a couple who distrust each other, but Amy and Bill are young professionals who use technology daily (and separately) at work. Whether or not they distrust each other I don’t kow.
God me and my SO e-mail each other back and forth all day long. If it wasn’t for this we’d never talk all day because neither of us like phone conversations and a quick e-mail is way less distruptive to the office and your work than a phone call. You can answer it when you want, for one thing.
I also e-mail him a lot when I want him to read an article or look at something - but at his leisure.
My aunts and cousin also all used to use one e-mail addy and it drove me batty. I could never just talk to one of them. But they’re like that with the phone, too - when you call all three of them get on different extensions AND TALK ALL AT ONCE.
Good, glad I’m not crazy thinking that there is a need to email one’s SO 
The most important thing I imagined was sending cool/interesting/funny links to each other. You can’t do that by picking up the phone!