Spinoff: Spouses and phones

amother

Wed, Dec 04 2013, 2:11 am

Black sheep forgive me for quoting you here, but I wanted to play off something you said.

black sheep wrote:

married couples should not need passwords on their phones. they should each feel comfortable saying to each other, "oh, it sounds like I got a text, my hands are full here with the dishes, can you please check who that is for me?"

Does everyone really allow their DH to check their phones? My DH knows he can answer my phone, look @ my texts etc anytime he wants but I sometimes get very private messages/ FB mssgs/ whatsapps etc from friends relating to THEIR private lives that I know they rather my DH not know about. I do not password my phone at all, but their can still be some line of privacy in a marriage, no? My DH gets very offended if I tell him he is not to read something, btw, which I think is also a problem.

This is NOT directed or about the OP of that thread btw. Her DH sounded like very bad news to me. Just a general wondering of what is and is not acceptable levels of privacy in a marriage.

Frumdoc

Wed, Dec 04 2013, 3:57 am

I do, but wouldn't generally ask him to check a text message, just answer the phone if I'm busy. But he can look at the messages if he wants.

In terms of privacy, I know that he wouldn't look at a text message from one of my friends or sisters unless there was a reason to, he doesn't snoop around and is not at all interested in my silly texts. If I asked him to and explained why, he would be on the other side of the room quivering with fear at the idea of knowing something private about anyone, he is that type of guy!

So yes he can look, but no he doesn't generally. And if he did, well I trust him enough to know he would never pass on information or even act on it, discuss it with me or acknowledge he knew something if it wasn't appropriate.

AlwaysThinking

Wed, Dec 04 2013, 4:13 am

I personally tell my close friends and family that I am very open with my DH and anything they tell me, I may discuss with my DH.

DH and I share pretty much everything. Most of my friends are fine with it and share that they do the same thing, they just don't tell their friends they do it. It also happens to be that my DH is a very private person, and anything I say to him stays between us. If a friend told me about a personal problem she had and I wanted to talk it through, I would talk it through with my DH. Before I was married, I would do the same thing with my mom. I've always had someone who I can share 'everything' with, and that's what I'm used to.

Maybe if my friends had different problems that obviously needed privacy and weren't suitable for my DH to know, then I wouldn't tell. Once, a friend asked my not to tell anyone, even my DH. People usually specify when something is that private. I don't tell anyone else except my DH about anything even remotely private though.

zaq

Wed, Dec 04 2013, 12:01 pm

I would fervently hope that those who give their dhs free access to their email and phone messages so inform their friends, and perhaps remind them periodically. Those who are completely open with their dhs about everything told to them should also so inform friends. I would be mortified and furious, if I confided to a friend about something, and she shared this with her dh without my knowledge or consent.

I do have a friend who says "Don't tell me anything you don't want my dh to know." I don't tell her anything, period.

black sheep

Wed, Dec 04 2013, 12:31 pm

I don't think you have to tell your husband EVERYTHING your friends ever tell you in order to have transparency. of course my friends and I discuss girly things, and of course friends will confide in me private things which I don't need to run back and report to DH, and of course I confide in friends knowing that they (I hope) are not repeating every word back to their husbands. but at the same time, there should be no secrecy. the phones certainly should not be password protected!!! actually, my DH does have a password on his phone, but I know the password, and in fact he does ask me to check if he hears a text come in and he is too busy to answer it. and he returns the "favor" for me when my phone beeps and my hands are busy with kids or dishes Smile

I would like to think that most texts are not so private that your spouse cannot see it. once, when a friend was getting divorced, he would just pass me the phone without checking it because every beep could likely be her venting and that would be private. but otherwise, who gets such private texts on a daily basis that they need to keep their phones away from their spouse? as I see it, only someone engaged in elicit activity...

black sheep

Wed, Dec 04 2013, 12:40 pm

and zaq, feeling free to look at each others phones is not the same as reading through every text and email. I would consider reading through each others conversations to be the same as eavesdropping on each others conversations. if you wouldn't put your ear to the door to listen while you DH talks to his friend/brother/mother, then you shouldn't read through his emails or texts either. it is just really bad manners, in addition to being controlling.

but of course, that only applies if your dh is trustworthy. which brings us back to the catch-22 I mentioned in another thread on this topic. you SHOULD trust your husband, but he should be worthy of trust, and you SHOULDN'T trust a man who is not worthy of trust. so until you have reason to believe otherwise, you should feel you don't need to go through his phone, but then, how can you find reason to believe otherwise? I have no answer to that question. except there should be transparency, and to me, if my husband would password protect his phone from me, that would raise a red flag for me, and it would be the end of his right to privacy, as far as I'm concerned. I know that is ironic, grant him privacy until he requests privacy, but that's the way it is.

and really think about it, what can possibly be so private in a text that he needs to keep it from me? if anyone is sending such sensitive information in texts, well maybe they should watch the news now and then to see just how "private" texting really is.

amother

Wed, Dec 04 2013, 1:29 pm

I recently lost a friend whom I was with since school due to her husband looking all msgs a sent to her. I didnt wrote any specific private msgs but enough for her husband to read and get tuned on. Also he was thinking his wife is too envolved in my life because I shared everything going on in the house like cooking, kids and statuses. I had wrote like 5 to 20 messages a day to her.