Husband opens my mail

[allaboutperspective]

Just a sense check. AIBU? My husband opens my mail, including professional magazine subscriptions, and bins it/puts in recycling before I have seen it. I’ve explained this feels controlling and asked him not to do this. He said I was being negative and critical, and he does it to avoid mess. I have asked him not to do this before.
We both work full time, house is minor messy, pretty tidy considering we have kids, we also have a cleaner once a week.

YABU: He has the right to open and chuck it.

YANBU: He should leave the mail alone if addressed to his wife.

Do the same to him....he will soon stop

Absolutely ridiculous. He has no right to open any of your mail. I would be furious!

Controlling behavior that shows an absolute lack of respect to you. What is he like in other areas?

Be firm on the fact he should not be opening your mail. However if he has a high need for tidyness you could get a mail rack / magazine tidy where it is put away neatly until you can look at it.

How bloody weird. Why does he consider your stuff mess?

Do the same to him. Or get a mailbox on the front of your house and dont give him a key.

Tell him you plan to do the same with his mail. See what he says.

oh come on you fucking well know the answer to this. Stop explaining to him he knows damn well he shouldn't do. Where is your anger op?

Of course it’s controlling behaviour. How fucking dare he

Is he controlling in other ways?

I open my husband’s mail because if it was up to him it would sit on the side for a month. I only chuck junk though everything else goes opened on his desk for him to sort.

We open each other’s mail, well it’s mostly me as I’m the one at home before DH. Neither of us minds and we don’t open anything like eg birthday cards. I might not show him everything, eg if the sky bill is increasing or we get some bank T&Cs in the post. I would probably just mention anything like that later. DH also gets a subscription magazine and I definitely wouldn’t throw it away.

This is something you both have to be happy about, and you're not, which is fair enough.

My dh doesn't open mail ( including his own ) so I do it . I'll say you've got a magazine / leaflet from xxx company or xxx has a sale on and he might say bin it without seeing it . But everything else I put to the side for him to go through .
He jokes he does the bins and I do the admin , our job distribution !

I would lose my shit how dare he. My husband and I both have wardrobes and filing cabinets I don’t touch his and he doesn’t touch mine!

Come on open the can what else does he do? There must be more no way does he just act like a twat on this ....and his reply shows hes got other controlling habits....negativley get his things and bin them to cut down on mess.

Opening someone else's mail, without permission, is a criminal offence

Are there any other issues with him?

Has he started doing it recently or has it been going on for some time?

He should leave it alone, especially as you’ve already told him before. My ex Fil is like this to mil, he also controls everything they do, probably more severe but this reminds me of that.

No it isn’t

Out of curiosity - is he in the same profession as you? I'm wondering why he thinks he can decide that you do or do not need to read your professional magazines. For all he knows they contain information that would be really useful to you.

But anyway it's totally up to you alone what should happen with all of your post.

It is see Postal services act 2000....unless you have the power of attorney.

He doesn't have the right to open your mail. However, he does have the right to be cross if you leave your unopened mail strewn around and leave the house a mess. Simple solution would be a folder (stored neatly away) that your mail could be put into until you look at it (with the caveat that it's reasonable to expect you to deal with it (action/file/bin) within a couple of days).

I don't ever think that mail opening is OK, but neither is leaving clutter like unopened mail strewn around.

Still not a criminal offence unless you have malicious intent ie to defraud.

Pretty sure it’s illegal to open other peoples post….

It only becomes an offence if you then go on to use the contents to defraud etc.