Should we exchange passwords???

I think it's great if it works for you guys. I agree that marriage can be whatever the couple makes it to be. The problem with us is that both me and him are very old fashioned and we always talked about how when we get married he wants me to have his last name and I didn't want it another way either. We wanted a joint bank account and so on. I feel like having access to each other's everything is a part of that too. I feel like he chooses where he wants it to be old fashioned and where not. Like he wants his cake and eat it too.

I'm bowing out

This is the exact disconnect. You think that the only reason he might not want to give you his passwords is because he doesn't trust you. He thinks that passwords (and the accounts they connect to) are private and personal and have no business being shared or put to paper. It has nothing to do with trust. He probably trusts you implicitly, but wouldn't consider giving up his privacy to anyone. He's still a person, as are you, even after the marriage.

Yeah, forward progress seems to have pretty much stopped.

I seriously doubt that. I think there's more to this story than our girl is letting us in on and that's fine, her perogative, but a few pages back, when she wrote about "innocently" looking into his school folder, out of boredom, that's when the alarms went off in my head. IMO, she's a snoop and he knows it and although he may love her, it's clear that he's struggling to hold onto some semblance of privacy, which everyone deserves.

Good luck in your marriage, young lady. You're gonna need it.

What did I say now that all of you are so upset over?
I admit, I do not know where privacy starts because there is no such thing for me. The only private thing for me is my diary, because I was raised to believe that a diary is something nobody should have access to but the person writing in it. That's it. Nothing else was ever 'private', especially not some school papers or anything on a computer that we share for that matter.
I'm not trying to defend myself, I'm just giving you the information to have a whole story. There is also nothing I'm not saying. Not that I know of anyway.

no more comments? did you guys give up on me?

Pretty much. :-)

I'm not upset, isitok, it's just that for a while there you seemed to be listening to what we said and reacting -- now you're just kind of going back to your same established grooves of thinking. Not sure we can do more. You've already identified counseling as something you could afford and something that would help, I think that's great and I encourage you to go ahead with it.

Would love to get updates from you.

I am still listening to you guys though My husband always says the same thing too (that I don't listen to him) but I don't see how I'm not... Shoot, I think there is something seriously wrong with me

isitok, you seem to get these ideas and convince yourself that you are right, and then nothing seems to really make a dent.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say "seriously wrong," though. You're young. (Five years younger than your husband, right?) You aren't experienced at this marriage thing. You seem to want to learn, which is good.

I think you're going to have to let go of some notions that you're currently clinging to, though, and that might be tough for you. Counseling should help.

Me and him are actually the same age. We're both 25 (well, he's 26 now but I will be too in a few months).
You know, this is the most frustrating thing about it all - I mean well. I always do. I never do anything to upset him. I may just be really naive a lot of the time. It seems like he thinks I always have some hidden mission going on. Sometimes I think he's more like a girl than I am
I do want to learn (I'm still going to try counseling) - that's why I enjoy reading your comments so much.

By the way, I do identify/ sympathize with what you're going through. I met my husband when I was 21 (you were 20 when you met yours, right?) I'd had one very serious relationship already (living together, etc.) that had ended due to that person's infidelity, and while I tried not to be I was pretty worried about that. Luckily my husband was in a similar position (he'd also had a serious relationship that had also ended due to the other person's infidelity) so we got each other and were understanding of each other's quirks.

That faded after a couple of years -- we knew each other well, we trusted each other, we weren't actually worried. But then, I graduated and had a terrible time finding a job. I was spending a lot of time mooching around at home. I'd imagine what he was doing at that moment. I imagined which of his colleagues might be coming on to him. This went on and on and reached a fever pitch when I was idly looking through an antique notepad we had and saw a note from his old girlfriend in it. They hadn't seen each other for three years at that point, he didn't know the note was in there, but it sent me into a fury.

It was at that point that I realized things were NOT OK and I got myself busy. Started volunteering. Volunteering led to a job. And I've kept myself away from that mindset since (that was about a dozen years ago).

I bring it up because of eoe's post, and the place that "boredom" has in it. Counseling is good, and will help you get at some core issues. If you realize you have some core issues, though, but can't quite deal with them yet, one other piece of advice I have is to keep yourself busy, keep your mind occupied, be a complete person who can be a good teammate.

I liked your story. I totally agree with keeping yourself busy. I am busy all the time The day I was bored at the computer - it was the same boredom that my husband had when he went to hotornot. He said he did it cause he was bored. He is a full time student and full time worker - he is always busy. But I guess that morning for those 5 minutes he was bored. I don't know if it makes any sense. When I decided to read his school paper it was the same thing to me. I can honestly say that it was as simple as that - I wasn't looking for anything but a school paper to read. I love to read what he writes and it makes me feel closer to him somehow. I guess that's one thing I don't understand about snooping. I don't ever 'snoop' looking for anything or because I think he's up to something. Usually there is a very simple and innocent reason for that and I don't even see it as snooping because snooping to me is when somebody thinks they'll find something bad about the other person. Is it wrong to see it that?
That's why I am not a private person at all. Cause there is really nothing special in my emails, cell phone, anything but my diary. I could show him any of that at any time - even if there are things there he might not like or I'd be embarrassed about. But it wouldn't really make any difference to me. It's just so unimportant. Maybe I'm just weird that way.
I'm thinking about it right now and I probably did mess it up a lot over the years (We've been together since I was 22) simply because I didn't know WHAT privacy IS and where it starts. I was like a kid, especially in the beginning coming from where I was coming from, I would take his wallet to put a picture of us in there or take his cell phone when he was in the shower to tell him who just called. Him being a private person he was probably always disturbed by that while to me it was nothing. And over the years he probably built up a whole defense mechanism protecting himself against my 'snooping' that I wasn't even aware of. So I think all I can really do now that I am more aware of it is just completely stay away from all of his things, even if I know that he doesn't mind me looking at them. Maybe someday he'll see that I'm not as evil as he thinks I am.

I hadn't seen your post at the top of this page, sorry I got your ages wrong -- might have confused you with another poster.



Why isn't it enough that HE doesn't want you to do those things?

"Snooping" does not only mean somebody thinks they'll find something bad about another person. It's about transgressing boundaries. Failing to respect boundaries. You get that with your diary, why not with anything else? If he started reading your diary -- or if your mom did, or if someone scanned it and posted it online for anyone to read -- how would you feel?

I understand it now. Now that you guys told me :wink: I never really realized it before though. He didn't really ever said anything about those things but I could tell he wasn't happy about it. He just never explained anything, and since I didn't know I was doing anything wrong - I didn't know there was a problem. Does it make any sense?
I do understand it now and like I said since I have a hard time realizing what's snooping and what's not I'll just stay away from his stuff all together. Hope it'll help.

Yay!

Might help if you tell him that, too. Especially if you follow through with it.

Btw, sorry to keep hammering you, but I think you DID know it was a problem (you knew he wasn't happy about it), but it just wasn't something you wanted to deal with until now. Dealing is good.

Yeah I'm sure I did know it was something he didn't like but I didn't realize it was a big deal. You know?
It's not easy when everybody in your life (except for him) is the same way you are. All my friends, and my family are the way I am. Privacy what? So it was hard to see his side. I guess I have no choice but see it now.
I don't know about telling him about my decision to change yet. He is so bitter right now after all the bickering we've been doing the last few days that he probably will say something stupid back like 'Yeah right' or 'I know you better' and will piss me off. I may wait until next time he'd expect me to 'snoop' and I won't. Maybe then I could tell him about my plan and actually be taken seriously.

I don't know -- I think it could really help if you said something like, "I've been thinking about this and getting some feedback and I've decided you're right. I don't need your email password, sorry I made a big deal out of it. I get that my ideas about privacy are different from yours, and sorry I haven't been respecting your privacy. I will make a real effort to change. I know I've said things like this before [have you? why else wouldn't he believe you?] so if you don't believe me, I understand. I hope to show you with my actions, though."

If he's skeptical, you may just need to accept that and not react defensively. Let your actions bolster your words.

Then follow through! Saying this stuff and failing to follow through will cause larger problems.

But if things are tense now, I think it's better to take the opportunity ASAP instead of waiting for some vague "see-I'm-not-snooping!" moment.

That sounds good. I'll give it a good thought. Thank you!

Just caught up with all the posts...
Now my head is buzzing, but I'm happy, that everybody seems to be happy!

By the way sozobe, I wasn't upset about the 'rethorical' question.
Just thought you might have missed, that I already answered it...