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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think women who use their husband's email address are submissive stepford wives who don't have a life of their own?

371 replies

Picante · 14/10/2009 08:32

Seriously, is it that hard to work out how to get your own email address?

The ones that share are bad enough e.g. '[email protected]' or whatever, but I've seen quite a few that simply have the man's name as the email address.

Yes I know there are more important things to worry about, but come on ladies, this is 2009!

OP posts:
alwayslookingforanswers · 14/10/2009 16:35

"I don't have secrets from DP but if we've just had words about my spending and I get an email from lovelyhandbags.com entitled 'thank you for your order' then DP will do the math and apply judgement."

or you could have separate email addresses (and inboxes) and just wait until the order arrived and he did the same thing.

I can tell what most of DH's post is about even before it's opened it, bank statements - fairly thick, letters about money owed, fairly thin. Annoying letters from the Council Tax benefit people blatantly obvious by the envelope..

MorrisZapp · 14/10/2009 16:38

Sorry, you've deliberately missed the point I think?

It's not enough to say 'well, if it looks like it's for her I won't open it' if I'd rather DP didn't know that I was being emailed by that person, or on that subject.

You don't have to open an email to get the gist - the subject header will give you that. So the email remaining unopened is an irrelevance - the sender and subject head alone are a communication in themselves.

ChairmumMiaow · 14/10/2009 16:39

We have several email accounts each (work/home/another business etc) but we both have access to all of those accounts as we have set up our office email clients to have access to everything.

Not sure where that fits...

OrmIrian · 14/10/2009 16:41

But morris - you are forgetting that there are old farts about like DH and I for who e-mail simply isn't an important means of communication. It just isn't. I use e-mail for communications with internet shops, utilities providers and the like. None of whom I have personal or intimate relationship with.

UnquietDad · 14/10/2009 16:45

Hello renowned (snort) mumsnetters and others. It bugs me, too, when couples share an inbox. (DW and I don't even use the same provider, let alone the same address.) It's surely like getting all your mail already opened.

We know one couple where they have separate addresses but they are routed to the same inbox. Defeats the object! Sometimes there is Boy Stuff I wish to discuss!

Much as I love my female friends they have no interest, by and large, in receiving emails about the travesties in the rankings of this year's FHM Top 100 Hotties or the idiocy of a bunch of overpaid gits losing 1-0 to Ukraine, or the latest development in my mid-life crisis "tick list".

So I have to do it via Facebook. But there again, Facebook messages sometimes have "alerts" routed to go via email!

stillstanding · 14/10/2009 16:45

But, MorrisZapp, that is fine for you if you feel that this is important to your "absolute right of privacy". I understand what you are saying and it is obviously important to you and your DP to have separate email addresses.

Personally I don't give a fig when it comes to my home email because I just don't use home email in that way. That address is one we share and is for "joint" mail. If DH wants to read my emails he can knock himself out.

To judge me or anyone else as a "submissive stepford wife who doesn't have a life of my own" just because I don't use email in the same way that you do or have the same issues re privacy of that email is just ridiculous.

alwayslookingforanswers · 14/10/2009 16:55

I guess some of you don't even open your regular post in the same room as your OH then - after all - they may spot a glimpse of who it's from .

jasper · 14/10/2009 16:55

stillstanding the point is If morriszapp or me wanted to email you we would want to know it was going to YOU and not you and others in the household with the same address.

alwayslookingforanswers · 14/10/2009 16:57

and if my subject headers on your emails give the gist of what in them I wouldn't even bother opening them.

My "juicy" emails have the juicy stuff in the emails not in the header

alwayslookingforanswers · 14/10/2009 16:58

jasper - that's fair enough - but do you ask those people who you email that apparently have their own email address whether anyone else has access to it? Or do you just assume "oh it's her name she's the only one that will read it".

MusterMix · 14/10/2009 17:00

AGREE
GET OYUR OWN FUCKIGN EMAIL ADRESS

this drives me demented

spec when its [email protected]

MusterMix · 14/10/2009 17:01

I also hate it when its OBVIOUS the bloke reads hte womans mail and comments back to you abotu it

fukc right off

MorrisZapp · 14/10/2009 17:05

Fair enough, it wasn't me who said the stepford wife stuff. If people want to have shared email for whatever reason, they certainly don't owe me an explanation. I'm sure in most cases stepford wife-dom has no part of it.

But I wouldn't email anybody with a joint address, and if any of my friends told me they had a shared email addy I'd be like 'wtf!'. And I'd think them very weird.

stillstanding · 14/10/2009 17:06

I understand what you are saying, Jasper, but it's not really your call to say how I organise my email or want to use it.

I have different emails for different purposes and if I give you the home email one that that is the one to use. If you feel uncomfortable that someone else may read it than I guess you have to use another way of communicating with me on that occasion.

Incidentally the email address which is in my own name is far more likely to be read by someone else, ie my PA, than my home email so I am not sure that that logic applies. You don't know who has access to an inbox regardless of what the name of the email address is.

MorrisZapp · 14/10/2009 17:08

Oh god muster I know what you mean.

Smuggity McSmugness.

fluffles · 14/10/2009 17:11

To: [email protected]
From: fluffles

Dear friend's husband,

Friend and i haven't had a girly gossip for ages, ask her if she'd like to come round for wine and nibbles sometime soon. and how is her pilates class going? i saw that there's a new one.... my pelvic floor is..

oh, no sorry you don't want to know that do you? unless you're actually friend and not friendshusband afterall? who am i talking to?????

[addled brain emoticon]

jasper · 14/10/2009 17:13

always, good question.
I guess I tend only to bond with women who do not appear to be joined at the hip to their husband , and yes I would assume that only the intended recipient would read anything I sent

Stillstanding re your comment about it not being my call how you organise your email see morriszapp's most recent comment

MusterMix · 14/10/2009 17:13

its like ringing someone adn them putting you on speaker phone.

OrmIrian · 14/10/2009 17:14

Fuck me there are some very unpleasant attitudes on here.

MrsJamin · 14/10/2009 17:14

Picante you are a bit of a numpty starting a thread like this (I can call her that, she's my sister) as of course you'd be YABU'ed. Email I don't really care about, what is DEEPLY sad is when couples share the same facebook account. Like Tomandsarah Smith- How would you know which one of them was writing anything. Plus if you only knew one of them it would be weird to get updates from your old schoolfriend's husband. Very odd.

jasper · 14/10/2009 17:14

should be second last comment.

ie anyone can organise their email any way they want but some of us won't be communicating via a joint address

MusterMix · 14/10/2009 17:15

OI
i hope we arent disagreeing
i ALWAYS agree with you.

sayithowitis · 14/10/2009 17:15

We have an e-mail address with a generic name, that we both use and I have one of my own which I only ever use if I order anything for DH via the www. I don't see a problem with only opening e-mails that are cleary for me. I have just checked and there are about 35 unopened e-mails in the inbox, all from Dh's friend to DH. I wouldn't dream of opening them, just as he never opens any from my friends. I don't see why I would need to use another e-mail, other than for things I buy him. We don't keep secrets from each other. Frankly, if you can'te-mail your friends because you don't want their partners to see it, I think that says more about you than them and their relationship!

MusterMix · 14/10/2009 17:17

i htink being an individual and having secrets are getting confused here.

WOmen have fought for years not to be appendages to a spouse and I think its important to be a person in your own right, not just in your realtionship to your kids or husband.

Imaghine if you shared an email with you son or dd? would you think that was normal?

MorrisZapp · 14/10/2009 17:19

So when you ring up your pal, you're happy for her husband to pick up the extension and listen silently?

It's not about having secrets (though god knows why we shouldn't), it's about communication being on a one to one basis, like how it is on phones, by post or in RL when you choose to direct your convo to one person.