Yeah, I dunno. My parents are in their late 40s and obviously technologically adept but they use one email account for the two of them. It is, however, not in anyone’s name as such, but just the family last name. My mom is the gatekeeper, as it were, reading all the emails and replying to them, passing along things that my dad needs to know about. It’s never bothered me because that’s how they’ve always done it and I’ve never needed to email one parent about something I didn’t want the other to know about.
Oddly, we don’t have a shared bank account, but we did have one shared email account for a long time. We don’t anymore, because we ran into an odd problem.
A guy I know, but not very well, sent ME an email espousing a radically liberal idea of some kind. Now, I’m not radically liberal, in fact I’m radically apathetic, but hey. He sent it to everybody.
My husband, not recognizing his name, assumed it was some kind of spam and wrote back something to the effect of “You, sir, are illiterate! Take me off your mailing list!”
About this time I woke up and went to check my email, and there was a letter from the guy saying, essentially, “I think I know whose account this is, but I could be wrong. Please respond and let me know who I sent this to.”
Since the previous exchange had been deleted, I sent him a very facetious email saying something like, “I know who you are, but not who you think you are”–or something like that. So he wrote back saying, “Hey, now I’m really confused…”
Eventually we sorted it out. I got be be outraged because my husband insulted a friend of mine, my husband got to mutter about my illiterate liberal friends (interestingly, this guy is an English professor; he’s not illiterate, but he is awfully, awfully liberal)
Shortly after that, we had some other issues–I accessed the thing remotely and accidentally deleted a whole bunch of messages, some of which were important, and we decided it might be a good idea to send certain things to separate emails. So, one email address for family stuff, bills, Netflix–things it doesn’t matter which one of us reads it first–and another for liberal stuff (me) and religious stuff (him) so that each of us can save what we want and delete what offends us.
This would not surprise me for older couples. I almost thought my grandparents were doing this but then I realized that actually they had slightly different emails (let’s call them Roger and Tina) - rtdavinci@whatever.com for grandpa and trdavinci@whatever.com for grandma.
I can see a couple having two personal accounts and one shared account for logistical things, but not generally only a shared account.
But don’t you/they ever need to e-mail a link to a web page? Send it from a smartphone, and expect the spouse to read it on his/her phone?
It seems odd to me, but I’m not at all surprised. I could never imagine using a joint email account by default, but that’s because a LOT of my life is in email, including confidences from friends who I don’t automatically want to spread to my SO, bundles of email notifications about stuff of zero relevance to my SO, etc,etc.
But I could easily imagine letting my SO open my post. In principle I want my post to be private. But in reality, my post consists entirely of: commercial stuff (bills, statements, etc) which I don’t care if she knows about; spam and random promotions; occasional postcards and greetings cards; mail order stuff. I think in the last ten years got something personal and private in the post, like, once. So I wouldn’t advocate letting SOs share post by default, but if it started happening, I wouldn’t care about it.
I infer some people are like that about email. If, for whatever reason, most of your email is personal stuff or commercial stuff that applies to both of you, then you can see why it’s convenient to share.
they are…
My wife and I are neither kids nor old fogies but we’ve had a shared e-mail account for years. We do each have our own Yahoo address as well, but we tend to use those mostly when registering at websites and stuff like that to attract the spam.
The shared account is the one we use most to communicate with family and friends. We don’t have trust issues but we’re not joined at the hip either. It just makes sense to me that we can both see and send e-mails that concern both of us. Lots of our friends and relatives have “couple” accounts too. I don’t find it weird and don’t really get all the hate.
Bad assumption. My ex is batshit crazy jealous. I gave her no reason to be. We had separate accounts but I never kept my password a secret from her. I did not try to have a secret account. She still read my emails and I found out she deleted some when she didn’t like where they came from. I know I could have insisted on changing my passwords. But I was trying to make things work so I had to work within her issues. Some people may try sneak around their joint account. Others will just take it as the cost of the relationship.
We share an email account.
I am stunned to learn we are being harshly judged for it, but I could care less. We have no trust issues and anyone who knows us, knows we share everything, so it’s not a big deal. It works for us.
I used to set up an account for the Mr, but he wouldn’t use it, or check it, so no one could reach him. So if they wanted to send him something he really needed, he’d have it sent to me. And from there, we just ended up with the one account.
The best way I can describe it is, it would be like getting two answering machines. Yes, we are two separate people, who get private calls, but who could be bothered?
One answering machine, one email address. It seems to work just fine. Our next, new computer I may set him up again, and see if it ‘takes’ this time, but we’ll see.
(Email each other several times throughout the day? Astounding to learn, amazing to contemplate. Truly a new world. Such a thing would never occur to me, I love when that happens!)
I’ve known two sets of people that did this. One is my mother and aunt and the other was an ex and his now wife. In both cases, it is / was definitely trust issues. The ones that control the account are relatively tech savvy. The ones who want to only maintain one account don’t believe the other will do anything untoward outside of said one account.
Hell, in both cases, I don’t think the possibility has ever even crossed their minds that you can get accounts elsewhere or how that would be accomplished. These folks are that low tech. So, just another data point.
I wonder whether the people who think it’s weird when a married couple shares an e-mail account and the people who think it’s weird when a couple has separate bank accounts are the same people. 
FTR, Mr. S and I have separate e-mail AND bank accounts. But we each have complete access to both, in case it’s ever needed.
My wife was rather upset with me when she found out i had separate email. I’m sure its a trust issue. Really the only things that come to that box are porn spam. So its ok that my wife doesn’t see that. I also use it for Craigslist ads if I’m buying or selling. Don’t want people to see my first and last name til I’m ready to tell them. If I’m selling a car the last thing I need is for someone to stop by and pound on my door before I’m ready.
My wife also didn’t want my Facebook account directed towards my private email account. Whatever makes her feel better. I don’t have anything to hide.
We’re the same way. Conveniently, we both have the same first initial, so the X_Lastname address applies to either of us. It’s a convenient way to share messages, mostly from mutual friends and family or household business such as bills, school, etc. We both have (multiple) individual accounts; if friends are addressing just one of us, they use those addresses.
To me, it’s a lot cleaner than needing to forward every message of mutual interest, of which there are many. We’d both like to know about and access details of an upcoming school event, hear about a niece or nephew, be able to pay an upcoming bill, or access an old electronic receipt. Really, it’s not that different from a physical mailbox with letter to the Lastname household.
You’re the second person to bring this up, and I have to wonder: What are all these links people need to email to their spouses? I mean, we occasionally send each other links to stuff, but it’s stuff like craft ideas or guitar mods or articles related to some random subject we were discussing yesterday. Sometimes it’s even more trivial than that. Waiting til we get home and saying “Hey, look at this” would quite honestly work every bit as well. Sending them now while we happen to be thinking about it is a bit more convenient, but not remotely a big enough deal that it would be worth setting up separate accounts if a shared one was otherwise working for us.
Seriously, inquiring minds want to know. What kind of urgent, must be seen NOW links are you guys sending back and forth that not having the ability to it is so boggling?
(Also, if a couple uses email little enough that a shared account is practical for them, what are the odds they both have smart phones?)
It’s exactly the opposite of that - they are not urgent, must be seen NOW links. Like, last month he sent me a link on an interesting article about Mother Theresa for me to read at my leisure. Once I sent him an article on D&D.
I work in a heavily commercial area, and many times he’s asked me to pick something up at one of the many stores, and sometimes he’ll send me a link to a page with a picture and a description if I am unsure of what I am buying (like a tool or something).
To wait until we get home and say “Hey look at this” makes no sense to me. I think that Mother Theresa article was four pages; the D&D article; three. I could insist he stand there right that moment and read it…that makes no sense to me? Or I could just e-mail it with a little note and say “Hey, interesting article, read at your leisure”.
That doesn’t even count all the times we have
- decided to take out and e-mailed our order to whomever was calling/picking it up
- e-mailed something as a reminder (call your mom and ask her X!)
- just wanted to say something over e-mail that we don’t want to say at work (neither of us have private offices)
- finalized some plans over e-mail before we left work (Ok, I’ll meet you at the mall - make sure you have your cell phone)
But really having joint e-mail accounts has many possibilities:
- Trust issues
- Disinterest on behalf of one party
- Luddites
- Just happy with the status quo and don’t care
It could even be a combination of all of those or none of the above! I do find it a bit odd when I never know who in the relationship is going to answer my e-mail, but I don’t really mind, and it doesn’t bother me anywhere near as much as e-mails like “firstprincess@yahoo.com” or “xxhottie@gmail.com”.
ETA: I would be annoyed if it was my dad, though, and my stepmom always answered the e-mails. Ugh. Even if I had a good relationship with her! But my dad claims he doesn’t know how to turn the laptop on (possible) so that’s moot.
I think there is a difference of cultures here. Personally, I would never share an email account with an SO or anyone else, and frankly, the very idea just seems bizarre to me. The reason is simple: I use my email for all kinds of crap that my hypothetical SO couldn’t possibly give a damn about, like password recovery, files that I’m emailing to myself for backup or whatever, weird newsletters from strange websites, stupid conversations with friends, etc., etc… I can’t imagine any SO that would want to wade through all my weird stuff in order to find *her *weird stuff. And, of course, vice versa - I don’t want my incoming email to blink and realize that it’s just because my wife has recovered her forgotten Steam password or whatever.
It’s just such a personal space. Messy, slightly smelly and sort of an extension of the body. It would be like sharing underwear. 
And it’s also one of those things that… well, it’s like going to the bathroom. Even though I’m not doing anything *wrong *in there, I certainly don’t want anyone watching while I’m there.
I don’t understand why people would find it odd that a married couple would share an e-mail address. Do you people also maintain seperate PO Boxes or mailing addresses for snail mail? It is the same thing, only electronic. My wife and I are both competent enough to know what stuff is mine, hers or family business.
Do you eat the same foods? Watch the same TV shows? Read the same books? Drive the same car (both at once)? Have the same hobbies?
Then, let me ask you this. If a letter shows up in your (snail) mailbox, addressed to your wife, do you open it? With e-mail, it may be harder to tell whether a particular e-mail is intended for you or her.