Personal cards up at home

[bettybat]

Possibly the most boring title ever!

I can't decide if this is unreasonable or not. Personal cards put up at home...anniversary cards between DH and I, DH's first fathers day card (from me)...all with really personal, sentimental messages written in them.

Fair do's they are up on display on the mantle place, but I felt put out that both PIL picked them up and read them. I don't think I have ever done this to anyone else in my life - read obviously personal cards out in someone's home - so was a bit startled by it. Is it unreasonable to be bit WTF, or am I unreasonable since they are up on display?

YANBU. I would never pick up a card at someone elses home and read the message! I would be really shocked if someone did it at mine.

The FRONT of the card is displayed, not the bloody message!

I would even concider it rude if anybody else picked up my Xmas card the royal mail send every year or the happy birthday from pg tips have a tbag on us card so what if there on my shelf or mantle you look with your eyes not with your hands.
I'm quite firm on the whole 'if it ain't got your name on it don't touch it' I'm even worse with actual normal mail I opperate a 'you open it then you pay the bill in it,if it's not got your name on the enverlope tough shit you shouldn't have opened it' policy

I have never heard people complaing about others reading cards they display before - how odd, if you put cards up in a room you know others will be in then of course people are going to have a look at them. They are hardly top secret documents.

My parents leave cards on the mantlepiece and if I'm staying I always pick them up and read them, and then usually chat to my parents about the contents as they are usually from people that I know too. I'd be less likely with my siblings and wouldn't at my friends houses, but then I don't usually stay for any great length of time so there isn't really the opportunity. We aren't a hugely sentimental family though so there isn't much chance of reading something very private and I wouldn't in any case put something private out for show my children would read them for one thing!)

Does the same apply to other display items like ornaments Being picked up or handled?

I think that if it's not addressed to you then you've got no business reading it! I have got personal cards up in my own home because they make me smile, not because I want other people to go through them and comment

It was our son's 1st birthday recently. DH and I carefully wrote out a heartfelt card and then carefully hid it so my nosey old bag of a mother wouldn't decide she was free to read it. We also deliberately write minimalist anniversary cards to each other if we're staying in someone else's house (our anni is near Xmas) to discourage read-throughs.

I guess different people have different feelings about privacy. My parents were the sort of people who would read through my diary and not understand what my problem was, so that has probably affected me down the line!

YANBU (to me anyway) OP, but YA probably BU for loads of other people :)

My DH writes 'stop nosing" in his cards to me since my mum always reads them

herrena that's exactly the same reason I get shitty about it as well up to my 16 birthday diarys and letters were always read and opened by parents I had no privacy at all

In my family we always look through cards on display. So if it's very personal and DP has written something filthy that would make my mom blush I put it up on my bedside table

My mother is another one who announces she is going to 'read all the cards' and goes through the lot.

In fact recently i have been instructed to deliver the said cards at her house so she can read through them!

She's the ONLY person i know who picks up cards and reads them.

It makes me cross and now i know i'm not alone - so cheers for this thread

Yanbu. I think it's a bit rude too. Ok it's not crime of the century but it's in the region of invading personal space imo. Who wants their mil reading a valentine card to dh?

Mil has a tendency to overstep what I'm comfortable with. She seemed to expect to read dds school report. Not a chance.

I never knew if one is meant to read them, so I don't. I did read all my mom sympathy cards when my 2nd sf died, as I felt they were for family.

I admit I read cards.

I would read all my immediate family's cards. I go to DP's parents for Christmas, and I read the cards they have out. Most of the time you don't even need to pick up them up to read them, you can just see shrug

I wouldn't read cards openly if I wasn't close with the recipient. I might read them by stealth though, as I said before, sometimes you can just see without picking up.

I assume if they are out they are appropriate for general reading.

My MIL once opened a sealed letter and read it, because "it was just lying there on the table so I thought it was for anyone to read."

She also arrived at my SIL's house half an hour earlier than expected just so she could let herself in and have a look at the present and card I had taken for SIL earlier in the day, before we went out. She admitted it and said that because it wasn't SIL's birthday she thought something must be wrong with SIL that was being kept from her so she had to go and look to find out. SIL had actually just been very kind to us recently and I thought she deserved a thank you.

MIL reads diaries, listens to messages, questions friends and snoops through paperwork. Cards on a mantelpiece would definitely be fair game in her eyes but I don't look inside cards at family and friends houses unless someone says "look at the card X sent."

Just remembered. MIL also took BIL and SIL's wedding photos and video while they were on honeymoon and held a party to show them off to friends and neighbours (and that is BIL and SIL's friends and neighbours) before BIL and SIL had even seen them themselves.

And then she stole our wedding video, pretended it was her copy and offered to make us a copy of our own.

She'd think nothing of looking at your cards if she can hijack something like that, twice over.

My mother does this and I think it's rude and I'm not from the North.

I think it's rude and wouldn't do it, I must admit I was a bit annoyed when my mum did it to us recently with our anniversary cards to each other. She said she just wondered who they were from (clue - one said to my wife on the front, the other said to my husband). They didn't have anything smutty or secret in them, just love you lots sort of stuff but I still didn't like it. YANBU.

Christmas cards, not so bad, usually that would just be, that's a nice card, who's it from, but not anniversary, Valentine, etc. We do sometimes leave those upstairs.

fair enough spokennerd and bettybat but i am Northern AND from a small village, does that make me nosey enough

i-live in a posh suburb now

My mil does this and it really irritates me. When you display your cards the pictures are there for all and sundry to see but the messages inside are private.

if they are out in the front room then it is fine to read imo

Sometimes if we have a particularly entertaining batch of birthday cards I'm happy that people read them and have a look to see who they're from as it's often mutual acquaintances and we share the joke.

If I left a bank statement open on the kitchen table I expect people would have a nose though this is the sort of thing I consider incredibly private so am careful to keep hidden away. FWIW your PIL may have felt uncomfortable reading such personal private messages referencing things of which they were unaware. They may well not do it again.

I read them if they are joke ones. Don't bother with others. It never crossed my mind it was rude. Surely thats why you put them up in public areas.

I might have to be a bit more careful now I know

at some people thinking that it's rude not to read other people's cards.

YANBU - I would never pick up cards in someone elses home (inc family) and read the messages inside, imo that is not why they are on display, they are on display for the receiver to look at.

Those saying 'you should put it somewhere private if you don't want people to read it' really?? why should I hide my cards away? Its not as if there is ever anything 'deeply personal' written in them tbh but cards are a private message to someone, and I just think its slightly rude to pick them up and read them.

So all in all, not a majorly big deal, but I wouldn't do it so yanbu

I put cards for valentines, anniversaries etc up in our bedroom because of this. Or hide them if pil are visiting. I have a stupid nickname for dh that I once put in his birthday card. I didn't realise that anyone had read it until fil started referring to my dh by the nickname during a family meal. I was mortified