[continuing hijack]My parents have that pinball game![/hijack]
The one thing that is nagging me about this Indy is that you say that trust has been solid in the relationship up until this point. Neither of you has had any reason to be suspicious of the other. Then out of the blue your fiance’ snoops into your e-mail. Now, either he’s developed some irrational insecurity or you’ve done something to make him feel as though things are not as tight in the relationship as he once thought. It was wrong for him to snoop, but rather than getting on a high horse and being so hurt and pissed and talking about leaving him because of it (unless you are looking for a way out and this is a convenient exit door for you) then you need to understand why he did it. What was he afraid of. Maybe you didn’t mean to seem shady in your conversations with the boy from Japan but perhaps unintentionally the chain of events left no other conclusion.
I’m basing this off of experience but something tells me you both fucked up on this one and you both need to talk and figure out the “whys” “whats” and “hows” and what you BOTH are going to do to fix it.
The same thing happened to a friend of mine in college – she e-mailed racy pictures to a male friend, her boyfriend “hacked” her e-mail and found out. It looks like many people here have been in or heard of similar situations, so it seems to be common enough.
What I don’t understand is how so many boyfriends (and girlfriends) are capable of “hacking” their SO’s e-mail. Are there a lot of people dating evil computer geniuses out there, or are people simply using “hacked my e-mail” to mean “used my password to access my e-mail”? Perhaps the latter could fairly be described as “hacking”, but if that’s the situation then I think people need to spend a little time reflecting on how their SO got their password in the first place.
Did you give your SO your password? If so, you have no room to complain when she or he uses that password. Giving them the password was giving them permission. Do you have a password so obvious that anyone who knows you could guess it? If so, you have missed the whole point of passwords. It’s supposed to be something that other people wouldn’t be able to guess. This doesn’t excuse a snooping SO, but if your SO could guess it then there are probably a lot of other people who could too. This is a situation best avoided by choosing a password that isn’t your dog’s name.
I don’t agree with this at all. I set up my SO’s password for her when I was setting up our mail server. I could show her how to change it, but so far neither one of us has bothered. Does that mean she has given me permission to read her email?
Yeah, that’s kind of what happened. He didn’t “hack” it, per se, but that sounded more dramatic than, “I had given him the password to fix something and happened to mention that I use the same password for a lot of things.”
I never even gave it a second thought to mention that. I trusted him, and you know what? I still do. We all fuck up. I love this man, and I know him very well. Despite that he went behind my back this time, I can believe that he won’t do it again. I could be wrong, but it’s a chance I’m willing to take.
In the grand scheme of things, he and I both realized that there are far worse transgressions than what either of us did. We are committed to working this out, and I am so happy about that. I really really love him, and even if we never get married, I want to spend my life with him.
In this particular case, it sounds like she didn’t give you her password. You made a password for her and have thus far neglected to tell her how to change it. You’ve given her no choice in the matter. I’ll take your word for it that it’s sheer laziness keeping you from explaining this crucial bit of security information to your SO, but I think it’s inconsiderate of you to put her in a position where she can’t have a truly private password unless she asks you for it.
I see the whole privacy piece from an angle already expressed by several other posters.
As Inigo says, you probably will end up losing a lot of privacy when living with anyone else. When you’re living with a significant other, you can just about double that. On the flipside, there is a great deal of difference between, say, using a computer and finding your SO’s email account still open and what Indygrrl’s fiance did. One is a fluke accident where curiosity might take over and one is a premeditated act to invade personal space without consent. Whether or not he had her password is irrelevant to the intent behind the action.
He abused her privacy, knowing that she would not approve, in an attempt to… what? assuage his fears? build up his fragile ego? Not cool at all.
Priceguy, I realize this may be coming across a bit harsher than I intend, but I want you to know that I mean the above literally. I’m not accusing you have setting up some scheme to have your SO’s password, I believe you really had no ill intent and have just put off telling her how to change it because it doesn’t seem important. But it is an important thing for her to know how to do, and it sounds like you’ve put her in a position where she might feel that she couldn’t ask you about it without sounding like she didn’t trust you.
I think you are being a little harsh. Privacy standards are completely arbitrary and have to be hashed out between couples: my god, the first thing you have to do when you move beyond dating is negotiate bathroom privacy rules, of which there are 3000 different versions (there is an IMHO poll!).
I do all the bill paying in my household: I honestly don’t think my husband knows how much he makes, because he never even looks at his paychecks. I open anything that comes in the mail with his name on it, unless it is from a family member. Am I unjustly invading his privacy? No, because this is the system we’ve worked out. I know a person who asks he SO to knock on the dor of their bedroom before he walks in becuase that is the privacy level she needs. I would never do this: my husband and I burst in on each other all the time. Who is right and normal? I’d say all of us, because we’ve all worked things out according to what each is comfortable.
It doesn’t matter whether or not he ever does this again: it’s like thinking you’ve cured a brain tumor becuase you’ve made the headaches go away. The problem is that the intimacy level you need in third party relationships is an intimacy that makes him uncomfortable. This has nothing to do with your email, this has nothing to do with this guy in Japan. You are going to continue to form relationships that are more intimate than he is comfortable with. That is what you have to address. That is where you must find a way to compromise.
Honestly, it’s love that will keep you from working this out. It’s your love of each other, your fear of the possibility that there is no real compomise, that will keep you both from facing the issue head on. Quit being committed to working this out, and work this out: work this out when it isn’t any specific relationship, but is a matter of general principal.
my girlfriend just happens to use the same pasword for EVERYHTING, and i set up most of her computer stuff, so i know the password. never felt the need to use it, though. and she’s got her little internet chat buddies, but i’m not the jealous type. i think she plays it up and wants me to get jealous, but i trust her. so sometimes i act like it nominally bothers me, just to keep her happy.
Manda Jo, it’s not that I don’t appreciate your armchair psychology, but I’m saying things are going to be ok and that we’re working it out. You don’t know me, but I’m going to have to ask you to believe that. I’m a pretty smart gal, and I know how to handle problems and such. My guy is truly a good person, and I know when to forgive and when to give up. I can’t outline every detail of how we’re working this out, but we are. Neither of us wants to give up, and I think that’s a vital part of what I’m saying.
Every relationship has it’s problems, and I’m not putting a band aid on the situation. We’re dealing with it.
That’s just it. Once he realized that the friendship wasn’t really that deep, he ceased to be mad about it. I don’t require “intimate” relationships outside of the realtionship, but I do like to have friends. He knows this, and I think he gets it more now that he’s snooped. Unfortunately he felt he needed to do that, but at least he knows that I never lied to him about things, and that he can take me at my word.
And yes, we are going to work it out.