Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3

Original poster

to think that there's such a thing as being 'too married'?

52 replies

Treeny · 17/09/2008 12:02

Am v happily married to DH but we don't do everything together, and we do have some separate 'space'. But I know a few couples where there don't seem to be any dividing lines at all - they share email addresses and even text messages. While I have no objection to DH reading my email or my texts (though would find it a bit weird if he did it while I wasn't around), I think it's quite reasonable for people to think they are sending a message to one of you, not either/or.

I have a close friend who shares an email address with her DH, and I realised while I was staying with them recently that he opens her emails and reads them out to her! (She is not visually impaired, I hasten to add.) While I'm not sending emails that are rude about him or even especially confidential, I now feel slightly weird and self-conscious about emailing, knowing that this is how she receives them!

Also, same friend's DH thinks nothing of opening new text messages on her phone (yes, she just about manages to have her own mobile phone) - and replying on her behalf! I don't just mean she's in the bath or similar and asks him to do it for her - he does it before she's even seen the message.

AIBU to think this is just going too far? Some people really do seem to think that they and their OH are one and the same - and while I'm all for happy-couple-dom, isn't it OK to think that you can contact a married friend without their OH always being part of the conversation?

OP posts:

hattyyellow · 17/09/2008 12:32

Completely agree with you. I cannot understand why a couple would share an e-mail address, unless they hardly use it.

It's like ringing someone and not being told you're on speakerphone. You just feel a bit silly and self-concious and not sure of your audience.

And with free e-mail addresses galore, why wouldn't people just get their own?

I suppose it depends if your friends are all mutual or not? We have some mutual friends, but largely our friends are from before we knew eachother. They have become friends with both of us, but would still contact the person they originally knew to suggest meeting up/update with their/our news.

snowleopard · 17/09/2008 12:32

I discreetly turned away!

Bluebutterfly · 17/09/2008 12:33

I guess to each their own - afterall who can judge what makes a good marriage tick as they are all different from each other.

Personally though I do value my privacy and have some "rules" that I stick to - own email, no going to the loo in front of one another (serious passion killer), having some time to ourselves with our friends that sort of thing. But I do love to do things together with my dh - he is my best friend, so I would generally decline a weekend offer to go out if he was not included.

bloomingfedup · 17/09/2008 12:33

YANBU

I would be mortified if my DH replied to my texts or emails. He is not me and I am not him. IYSWIM.

PuppyMonkey · 17/09/2008 12:35

We've got a shared email address, but our own phones. We have wees in front of each other but not poos. We're not married, btw. Just been together 14 years.

FluffyMummy123 · 17/09/2008 12:36

Message withdrawn

bobsyouruncle · 17/09/2008 12:38

me & dh share an email address, mainly cos he NEVER gets any emails. But the thing is even if we didn't & you emailed me about your clit thing I'd tell him anyway. But I wouldn't let him reply to you.

ChopsTheDuck · 17/09/2008 12:39

I think it's odd that a person should feel the need for privacy where their partner is concerned.

dp and I do live in each other's pockets, but it suits us. We share similar interests, and we enjoy doing things together. We do have seperate emails, but we know each others passwords for emails, phone codes, internet banking, everything. Whoever gets to the phone or pc first deals with it. We're perfectly happy that way.
Anything I divulge to friends I am not bothered at all if it is shared with their partners.

FluffyMummy123 · 17/09/2008 12:40

Message withdrawn

ChopsTheDuck · 17/09/2008 12:41

why not?

Fimbo · 17/09/2008 12:45

Another friend has her name, followed by her PF&OB's name then the domain name.

Dh wouldn't remember my pin, although it is a shared account.

I open all his mail though which is probably weird - it stems from him being away a lot though. He doesn't mind as sometimes stuff is urgent.

Bluebutterfly · 17/09/2008 12:51

DO:
share bank account
share food
share a landline
share address
share bedroom
open each other's mail (usually bills)

DO NOT:
share email
share mobile telephones
go to the toilet in front of each other
share pin numbers (though would tell him if I needed him to get money for me for some reason - he would never remember it he is crap at that)

However, we tend to be flexible about many of these things.

maidamess · 17/09/2008 12:52

I am always highly suspicious of couples that choose the womans clothes together from the racks in the shops.. And he stands outside the fitting rooms in M&S and she parades out for his comments.

Bluebutterfly · 17/09/2008 12:56

maida - i wish i could get dh to have an opinion about my clothes... he just stands around looking bored and then says "it's fine" about anything (I could be wearing a hessian sack).

There are some things that are much better to do solo or with some girls...

snowleopard · 17/09/2008 12:56

lol maidamess I can never understand why any woman would take her OH clothes shopping. Or how! I would have to manacle and drug DP to make him wait for me in a clothes shop.

hattyyellow · 17/09/2008 12:57

Never quite understood why couples go clothes shopping together for her either.

Great if they both enjoy it. But seeing miserable bored senseless boyfriends/husbands slumped outside clothes store fitting rooms always puzzles me.

Bluebutterfly · 17/09/2008 13:00

I am generally in favour of dh watching ds (on the other side of town) while I go clothes shopping...

OrmIrian · 17/09/2008 13:01

Agree hatty. Just because one partner loves clothes and shopping, it doesn't mean the other does. DH likes football, occasionally I go with him but mostly not. I love running, DH doesn't - why does he have to go. Things can be enjoyable without your partner. And it's unfair to expect one to give up their interests just because the other doesn't share them

hughjarssss · 17/09/2008 13:05

We share everything.

We have our own phones but he will send txt messages back if its easier for him to do so and I will do the same. For example We are both on annual leave this week, his phone went off, I read the txt from his friend asking what time they are meeting down the pub later and I txt back the time I knew dp wanted to go out. Seemed easiest thing to do.

I know all his passwords and he knows all mine. I can read his email but choose not to, tis very boring. If its a funny one he'll show me it anyway.
I never log out of sites (eg MN) so he could always see what I have written but I have nothing to hide and no secrets so its not an issue. Although Im pretty sure he couldnt be bothered to do this.

We both know all the pins to all our accounts, including the ones that arent shared.

We open each others mail if it looks important and the other one isnt about.

There is no dividing line. We have our own space and time to see our own friends but we are complelty open with each other.

Been together 9 years and got married on Saturday so it obv. works for us.

But we do not go to the toilet in front of each other.

fruitstick · 17/09/2008 13:13

We had exactly the same conversation with our best friends last week over dinner.

They were laughing at us as we have been together for over 13 years and have never been to the loo in front of each other, neither do we read eachothers emails or text messages.

They on the other hand, quite often do and even take only one toothbrush away with them!

Each to their own but I think the problem comes when this is confused with closeness or security in a relationship.

and to be honest, after having children I feel that so much of myself has been stripped away that sometimes having a shit by myself is about all I have left!

laweaselmys · 17/09/2008 13:25

I would not like it if I found out that when I emailed a particular friend their DP read it first or replied on their behalf.

On the other hand, if I knew, I would probably just never tell them anything interesting, and would not be that put out by it.

There are plenty of things that while I wouldn't mind if they told their DP about - that isn't the same as letting their DP read it first because my friend isn't the person choosing to decide whether or not it's appropriate to pass the message on to their DP!

DP and I are not secretive but we do have everything separate, and would not read each other's emails or txts unless the other asks us to, IYSWIM. So I might happily tell my DP to answer a new message I haven't read, when I know it's just arrangements for an event or something! But otherwise would never ask him to/would be unhappy if he did. Different strokes I s'pose.

Bobbiewickham · 17/09/2008 13:25

It's symbiosis, innit?

Healthy relationships move out of symbiosis after a while.

When you first get together, it's in the couple's interests to do everything together, share opinions, interests, etc etc.

But then if the relationship and the people in it are to grow and develop healthily, you have to come out of symbiosis, so you have your own lives as well as your shared life.

Lots of couples separate at the "coming out of symbiosis" stage, as one of them might feel threatened. It has to be managed very carefully, and understood. How many times have you heard "we just grew apart" ? It doesn't have to be like that.

ImnotMamaGbutsheLovesMe · 17/09/2008 13:26

I don't see why it would bother you really.

Original poster

Treeny · 17/09/2008 13:27

Yuk yuk re shared toothbrush! And as for going to the toilet in front of each other - unimaginable.

I was thinking about whether there is really a difference between telling one's OH something a friend has told us, and him reading it for himself by text or email. Because of course, if a friend tells me something interesting, I always share it with DH - can't imagine not doing that. But if he picked up my phone, read a text from a friend and replied to it, I think I would mind - unless I was in labour or something of that significance! Similarly, I expect that my friends will pass on stuff to their DHs - but it makes me feel weirdly self-conscious to think that the DH reads it first. I can't totally work out why this is the case - but it is. Perhaps because, as someone said earlier, I feel like I've been on speakerphone without realising it.

DH and I are each other's best friend - but we are separate, not interchangeable. Maybe that's what I'm trying to get at.

OP posts:

NinaInCognito · 17/09/2008 13:30

I know what you mean about the email thing.

I had a sticky situation with a good friend of mine. We have been friends for over 20 years and so know each other fairly well I think. She recently started dropping off contact and I wrote a fairly blunt email to her (which I realise now was wrong), however the response I got was obviously not from her but written by her dh and that was just plain weird. It was language that she would never use and quoting a few Bible verses at me which is something that she would never do. I don't care if people want to share email addresses, but at least repond to your own emails!

Flip

1 2 3