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Original poster

Privacy After Death

268 replies

DropCloths · 07/08/2023 12:50

DFIL died last year and DH has been sorting through his papers.

One file was labelled "private" and I was slightly surprised that DH went through it as he had all the others- it contained some slightly personal medical things and some personal diaries from when DFIL had counselling. Nothing earth-shattering but definitely the kind of thing that (in life) you'd think of as private and not want others to read without your permission.

I'm not really looking for views on DH's decision to read it- his father, his decision. (I haven't read it). But it has made me think more broadly about privacy after death. I have all sorts of things I wouldn't want people to read after I am gone- again, nothing earth-shattering but things like diaries where I've written very personal things, or times when I've been letting off steam but what I've written doesn't represent an accurate reflection of my feelings over all (eg I wrote a diary when DC were small where I said a lot about the difficulties of adjusting to motherhood. I absolutely loved being with my DC when they were little but if you only read the diaries you wouldn't get that impression and reading the diaries might be very hurtful and misleading for DC).

Would you treat diaries etc after someone has died as private, as they are in life? Would you chuck them away without reading or would you read them? Are you planning to chuck any of your own private papers away to avoid loved ones seeing them after your death, or does it not bother you?

OP posts:
MollysBrolly · 07/08/2023 14:42

If your DH had just thrown the papers away without going through what if there was important doc in there.
When my mother died I went through everything - found out that if she'd gone to the Drs she'd have known she had a treatable condition. But her stupid 'I don't want to know' mentality is what killed her aged 76

Custardslices · 07/08/2023 14:44

Maybe it's just me but I'd bed down with a nice brew on the go reading pages upon pages of someone's personal thoughts and feelings.

I'd enjoy every second good or bad if I'm honest

PuffDragon12 · 07/08/2023 14:45

When my mother died, there was a box in her bedroom cupboard. There was a label on the outside that asked me to destroy the contents of the box without opening. I followed her wishes. I would do the same with anything I didn’t want my family to read.

Laiste · 07/08/2023 14:45

Custardslices · 07/08/2023 14:44

Maybe it's just me but I'd bed down with a nice brew on the go reading pages upon pages of someone's personal thoughts and feelings.

I'd enjoy every second good or bad if I'm honest

Love your honesty 😀
Same!

BetiYeti · 07/08/2023 14:50

I was a PA and my boss died suddenly. I had to clear her office and found some really private papers in there relating to her divorce. Why they were in her office at work I’ll never know. I believe HR contacted the family and it was agreed that HR would destroy the papers.

Andthereyougo · 07/08/2023 14:58

I have a box containing anything very personal I don’t want to be read which is addressed to a trusted friend. She knows to burn it all and I trust her to.
Knew a family where it caused huge fallout when they emptied their father’s house, read all the letters from another relative he’d kept. It was horrible and very, very sad.

CoinsinaJar · 07/08/2023 14:59

I hear you on this. My mother was an avid diary keeper and wrote something about her day, every day of her later life. I still have piles of diaries going back years which I haven't read.

One reason for not reading them, is that shortly after her death, I did pick one up and opened it randomly. The first couple of entries detailed how she and dad went to Sainsbury's shopping, did some gardening and had fish and chips for tea - all very mundane stuff. But after turning a few pages I noticed the entries becoming longer and more closely written.

Long story short - She had found out that my dad (who pre-deceased her by 2 years) had been having an affair for years. The diaries spoke of her shock and sadness and were truly heartbreaking to read. The chances of me landing on this information randomly were very small, but I did and now I know, I can't unknow ......... the sadness for her and anger with my father (who I adored) still linger many years later.

Willmafrockfit · 07/08/2023 15:00

people should definitely follow the swedish example
what is the point of instructions to burn, they could just do a declutter themselves.

UnctuousUnicorns · 07/08/2023 15:06

Babdoc · 07/08/2023 14:16

Future social historians and biographers are already going to be struggling for source material, as people nowadays don’t write letters, but just send texts.
If you also burn diaries and any other documents, you are destroying irreplaceable material.
We have archives of wonderful letters and diaries from previous centuries, often found in attics, with all kinds of fascinating detail. Imagine if the Pepys family had burned all his diaries!
Please don’t deny future generations the chance to learn about us or your parents’ generations, too.

They'll cope. Future generations have no automatic "right" to access material that previous ones have seen fit to destroy. If they choose not to preserve it for posterity, then so be it. 🤷‍♀️

HelloDaisy · 07/08/2023 15:06

RoadSignFool · 07/08/2023 12:55

It’s a good question. My mother died suddenly and there were some sex toys in her bedside cabinet that I will never unsee.

That’s exactly what happened with us when my mum died! I will never unsee them…

I went through her emails too, some I read through my fingers as wasn’t sure what I’d find. However I did it as she died in an accident and I needed to make sure that I had dealt with everything and also to ensure that everyone she knew was told.

We were very close so I am sure she wouldn’t mind me reading the emails and knowing everything. She would have laughed at what I found in her bedside drawer!

FormerlySpeckledyHen · 07/08/2023 15:06

mowly77 · 07/08/2023 13:36

Indeed! I’m on several groups. Yet to do the clearing though

Show quote history

I would be interested in the groups if you wouldn’t mind sharing please?

EvilElsa · 07/08/2023 15:07

ViewFromAfar · 07/08/2023 13:03

My uncle died unexpectedly and we found a gay porn magazine in his belongings when we were clearing things out. I've never told my aunt but it makes you think about what you leave behind!

This happened to us too when my friend and I visited her late grandads holiday home years ago. We had gone on a short holiday with friends mum and were looking through the cupboards for a Frisbee or crab lines to use on the pier (we were about 11/12 years old). We came across a stack of hard-core porn mags/gay porn. We shoved them back in the cupboard and never told friends mum as it was far too embarrassing. She obviously must have found them at some point in the future while clearing out as they sold the place a few years later.

Itsnotrightbutitsok · 07/08/2023 15:17

If it said private I’d have 100% opened it to check it was nothing to do with the will or anything.
But as soon as I saw that it was personal stuff I would get rid of it and not read it.

Posters are saying if there are things you don’t want people seeing then get rid of them - but surely it doesn’t work like that.

I don’t keep a diary but I do have lots of information from when I was going through PND and psychosis, which I keep in case I ever feel myself go there again.

I also have my sexts, naked photos, sex videos and sex toys that I’d be mortified if anyone saw.
I’d be literally turning in my grave!

This thread has given me food for thought and unless you’re elderly or terminally ill, you don’t really think about these things.

M4J4 · 07/08/2023 15:19

Most of my personal stuff is locked electronically.

I hope my family don't try and get them hacked Shock

Itsnotrightbutitsok · 07/08/2023 15:19

I wonder how Anne frank must feel lol

Zanatdy · 07/08/2023 15:21

I think you have to assume people will read them. I felt awful going through my dad’s bedside cabinet, as he liked his privacy. You are going to have to dispose of them if you don’t want people reading them, as most would

Blossomtoes · 07/08/2023 15:21

Custardslices · 07/08/2023 14:44

Maybe it's just me but I'd bed down with a nice brew on the go reading pages upon pages of someone's personal thoughts and feelings.

I'd enjoy every second good or bad if I'm honest

I’m the same. I read everything when I cleared my parents’ house. I’m an open book so everything’s there to be read. And I’ve never owned a sex toy in my life!

Zanatdy · 07/08/2023 15:23

CoinsinaJar · 07/08/2023 14:59

I hear you on this. My mother was an avid diary keeper and wrote something about her day, every day of her later life. I still have piles of diaries going back years which I haven't read.

One reason for not reading them, is that shortly after her death, I did pick one up and opened it randomly. The first couple of entries detailed how she and dad went to Sainsbury's shopping, did some gardening and had fish and chips for tea - all very mundane stuff. But after turning a few pages I noticed the entries becoming longer and more closely written.

Long story short - She had found out that my dad (who pre-deceased her by 2 years) had been having an affair for years. The diaries spoke of her shock and sadness and were truly heartbreaking to read. The chances of me landing on this information randomly were very small, but I did and now I know, I can't unknow ......... the sadness for her and anger with my father (who I adored) still linger many years later.

That’s the thing. When you read stuff not meant for your eyes originally you need to be prepared for what you might read, as you can’t unread it. That’s really sad, I don’t blame you for reading anymore of them.

Zanatdy · 07/08/2023 15:26

PuffDragon12 · 07/08/2023 14:45

When my mother died, there was a box in her bedroom cupboard. There was a label on the outside that asked me to destroy the contents of the box without opening. I followed her wishes. I would do the same with anything I didn’t want my family to read.

I’d 100% follow the wishes if it said to dispose of. My sex toys are in a locked metal container, I guess you could smash the lock. My ex knows the code, though doubt he would remember!

JusthereforXmas · 07/08/2023 15:27

I think this is really sad actually.

Many historic diaries are classed as national tresures and they are esentually a memoir of someones life or a important chapter of it. Irradiating it is like irradicating their story which was important enough to them be written down and memorialized on paper.

Who says its a 'secret'? people dont tend to keep their secrets lying around in written form for anyone to find.

I have written parts of my life story down, I plan to get it writen up into a proper book along with one for my now deaceased mother and hopefully make it a family tradition. I would be devastated if my kids told me they plan to burn it all upon my death in case its 'embarrassing' to them. Way to minimize our existence.

MitchellMummy · 07/08/2023 15:27

For future you could always put stuff in box marked with 'burn immediately' or something. Whereas private papers, bank stuff etc, may be needed by relatives.

JusthereforXmas · 07/08/2023 15:28

Also a diary is not the same as a sex toy... diaries have legit historical value and document life but sex toys are just a private sexual thing.

porridgeisbae · 07/08/2023 15:29

One file was labelled "private" and I was slightly surprised that DH went through it as he had all the others- it contained some slightly personal medical things

Until the family open a thing they don't know what's in it. It could be something they need to know.

honeylulu · 07/08/2023 15:31

I would say unless the departed person had told you could look after their death if you wanted, or if there is some sort of shared knowledge already. My mother and I had the same godmother (she was one of my grandmother's childhood friends) and she died when I was about 25. My mum was her executor and cleared the house and found she had saved every single letter the three of us has ever sent her and it was really lovely reading through them.

There weren't any diaries but if there had been we wouldn't have read those. I kept diaries for many years in my youth and I've enjoyed re-reading from time to time. I found it very useful to remind myself what it was like inside the mind of an adolescent once i had one myself and the difficult phases started! But I cringe at the idea of my children reading about my heartbreak and passion over previous boyfriends etc. I probably will sling them out in the next decade and hope I don't kick the bucket first!

thelionthewitchtheaudacityofTHISbitch · 07/08/2023 15:39

Speedweed · 07/08/2023 13:24

I think it's about considering the effect those things might have on those left behind who see them without context. So for example, you might keep your first boyfriend's poems and pictures as a sweet reminder of a specific time in your life and no more. But your children of the husband you were married to for forty years, stumbling upon them after your death, might decide that you keeping them meant the first boyfriend was the great love of your life and not their dad.

I and many of my friends are in our 50's. Some single, divorced, married once, married many times. We have nearly all decided (probably over covid times) to destroy old love letters particularly. My much married friend - more than once to the same person - even decided to destroy the love letters from the 1st time round, as she so sensibly put it "we are different people now". And my DC didnt ever know the people concerned so no interest to them. Better for me to make that decision.

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