Do you have a joint email address with your spouse/partner?

[unlikelychump]

We've had one for 15 years now but it seems to have turned into a hindrance rather than a help. Part of a wider issue of course, but it has turned into just another inbox for me to manage with my DH having opportunity to read stuff (and not take action.)

If you have one how do you manage it, if you don't have one how do you manage admin stuff between you - just forwarding emails over?

(3 kids so lots of school stuff etc)

My parents use a joint account as a primary account. I dislike it, can never send anything specifically directed at my mum as I don’t know which one of them will pick it up.

DH and I did set up a joint email specifically for our wedding planning, which worked well, especially because we were living long distance while planning. I can see it would be useful for utilities etc as long as you know who is picking up which email so they don’t get missed, but I do think it’s very odd if it’s your primary account.

No. Ours have always been separate - why would I want to read his emails? Or he, mine? After all, we wouldn't dream of reading each other's paper mail. Just seems very odd to me.

Same in our household…except 2 kids and they’re adults now…it’s like these couples who have joint SM profiles-just no!

Like other posters, we have one we set up for our wedding and kept. We only use it for a few joint things like utilities and life insurance, things we would both need easy access to should the other be run over by a bus!

Yes, DH and I have a joint email as well as our own separate personal accounts and work accounts.

It is for joint bills, house stuff, some clubs we belong to, and kid stuff. Realistically, I deal with most of it. But it also means he can’t complain that he didn’t know about the upcoming electrical inspection or changes to swimming lesson times etc.

Definitely not used for personal correspondence. That would just be weird!

We do- set it up when we got married 15 years ago as we were moving overseas and it was easy for people who wanted to email both of us. Use it mostly for school, kids activities, house stuff and bills as other posters have said. We both also have our own private emails for stuff unrelated.
the joint calendar is useful as well. We’re not elderly and are both pretty tech savvy but it just saves having to forward important stuff.

We have a joint one that's used for utility bills, and subscriptions and things. It's not for personal things

We have individual emails for everything else

Couldn't do it me. I've multiple for different uses. The ones I use for specific things like SM ive changed the primary user to stop hackers so can't really use them for other stuff. Sharing with husband would do my head in. Emails are personal.

We’ve got one! Only a recent development and not because we’ve entered our dotage. It’s for Netflix, Disney + etc and I’m going to put utilities and other memberships on it.

It saves me forwarding stuff or asking for stuff. It’s worked well so far

PIL do, and now FIL has died so it's even worse, you still have to email [email protected] (*names changed) even though Bob is no longer with us!

Ah no... there's no right or wrong way but he's a read and delete person and I'm a flag and keep person.. he doesn't delete after putting in a calendar or whatever, just trusts memory.. I do NOT like that 🤣 🤣

I’m in the old category. I set one up about 20 years ago and I don’t think he has ever looked at it and wouldn’t be able to access it. That was in the early optimistic days of thinking he would be interesting in organising things together. Now I use it as my shopping etc email and my very old personal one as my personal email.

I don't have a shared email address with my partner, but would imagine it's problematic with senders being unsure of which address to use.

But I can see it being of use for shared utilities etc.

We forward emails, and send shares to our personal calendar, Photo Albums and folders when we need to collaborate.

I suspect many people don't realise how easy it is to do, especially if you're on then same platform, (E.G. Apple)

Slightly of topic, but the best advise I can give around email addresses is to registered your own domain. then you actually own it.

God no! My email I had for years before I got married and his was mainly work. We rarely had to pass emails to each other (personal ones yes), he handled all the bills/insurance/house admin.
Also do not want, nor did he, to have to wade thru all the minutiae of each other's communications with whatever or whomever. And when I email friends I don't like the idea that their partner might read it!

Our Ocado account is also in the name of our cat. We once had an issue with something on a delivery and I was messaging them on twitter - as I was messaging them from a social media account in my name rather than the cat's, the CS rep asked me if I had the permission of the account holder to be speaking to them. I explained that the account was in my cat's name and he still insisted I confirm he had given me permission to speak to them. I told him he hadn't raised any objections...

On the actual question of the thread, we have a joint account. Set it up when we were getting married for wedding related emails, still have it for bills and joint stuff. We know who deals with what but just means we can easily access things if we need to (holiday and flight bookings, council tax statement or whatever).

No! I never understand why people do. I have friends who have joint Facebook accounts too!
Bizarre. I am me and my DH is someone completely separate.
It's very easy for any friends or businesses or whatever to send an email to you both at the same time.

It is announcing, ‘We have no secrets from each other’ which is seriously weird and unhealthy.

Well it might be if it was used for personal stuff but how on earth is it doing that if it's for utilities, holidays etc.?

DH has this problem. He has to email his deceased father every time he wants to contact his mum. It does irk.

We have a historic one that is still open. But these days there are so many ways to communicate together that it’s become unused.

Yep, but like the joint account it is only for things that are joint e.g it's the email address that is used to sign up to utilities, for our mortgage, for insurance etc. We also use it when we book holidays or tickets. Basically only things that we both need access to

Def not. But where possible DH gets added to the contacts list as he hated the way it turned out that only I got messages.

we do, both have personal emails too, but have a joint one for bills and various accounts.

We do, because otherwise it was just me who got all the emails and notifications from school and it was overwhelming. We use it just for kids stuff, anything else we use personal email addresses.

Thankfully DH does his bit so it’s actually useful to have him have access to the information, and that way we’re not constantly forwarding stuff to each other.

Our kids are at two different schools, we simply gave them both email addresses so we both get the emails. It's the same for everything else - e.g. The solicitors and estate agents when we bought a house etc.
Anyway, if it works for you then that's good.

I don't see what is bizarre about having a joint email account in addition to your personal email? Is having a joint bank account as well as personal ones bizarre too?

Yes you can forward/screenshot etc but it is far easier not to have to bother.