Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
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:
jasper · 14/10/2009 17:23

It's nothing to do with secrets.

It's about communicating with your friend and not friend + partner

"Frankly, if you can't e-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"

I can't even begin to fathom the logic of that statement

halfcut · 14/10/2009 17:24

My dp is the computer illiterate one I set up his email accounts ..no way is he sharing mine

Podrick · 14/10/2009 17:24

Yanbu
I find shared emails disturbing and could never be friends with anyone who does this. I also find opening your partner's post to be fundamentally shocking although I know there are people on mumsnet who do this and think it to be normal and reasonable. I think everyone should have some fundamental rights of privacy from their partner and that you wave these rights at your peril.

jasper · 14/10/2009 17:24

And what's wrong with keeping secrets?
If I tell a friend something in confidence I would not expect her to tell her partner.

They might not have secrets from each other but it's MY secret

sayithowitis · 14/10/2009 17:25

I don't consider my self to be an appendage to my DH. He and i are very happy with the one he was born with thank you very much .

I am a person in my own right, have my own bank account etc and am not just defined as 'dc's mum' or 'dh's wife' I am very much 'me'. But we choose to share an e-mail address. It is a generic name that could be either one of us. it never occurs to me to tell anybody that this is shred when I tell them the address. If i wasn't happy for the e-mail to go into a shared address, i would not be giving it to them. And, frankly, I don't really see why it is anybody else's business how DH and I choose to operate our e-mail address.

fluffles · 14/10/2009 17:28

"I don't really see why it is anybody else's business how DH and I choose to operate our e-mail address"

ok so it's none of our business but it is the business of anybody who communicates with you in this way.

to me it would be like phoning a friend's husband and asking him to relay my conversation to her...

TennisFan · 14/10/2009 17:30

YANBU - I agree it is totally weird. I was emailing the minutes of a meeting recently and couldn't believe that 2 girls has listed their emails as their husband's work emails.
There is absolutley no excuse for it - its easy to set up and log-on regularly to lots of free email accounts.

OrmIrian · 14/10/2009 17:32

muster - I do! We have a family e-mail address.

I totally agree about the freedom not to be a chattel and an appendage. I am not. But e-mail isn't an essential component to many peoples' lives - incl mine! So it doesn't matter to me. I suspect we will have to do somethign bout the situation eventually - but only because my children will want their own. For their generation it's an essential.

I could just do without the smug comment and the stepford wife bollocks TBH

Sorry - not in good mood.

morris - I'm sure we agree in spirit

alwayslookingforanswers · 14/10/2009 17:36

Morris you're assuming that people actually read each others emails if you think it's the same as the husband picking up another phone in the house and listening in.

To be an invasion of privacy they have to SEE the contents of the email - that only happens if they CLICK on the email.

I'm not in the habit of telling my friends that "oh btw I know it's only my name on my email address - but DH has access to it as well"......and they certainly don't ask.

Podrick - I have reasons for opening DH's post atm, I don't have reasons to open his emails - so I don't.

MorrisZapp · 14/10/2009 17:38

We always do OrmIrian

sayithowitis · 14/10/2009 17:50

Sorry Fluffles, but I disagree. I don't think it is anybody else's business how we operate our e-mail account. I trust my DH not to open e-mails that are clearly for me, just as I do not open those that are clearly for him. In the same way, we do not open each others post. I do not pick up letters he has opened and read them because they are not my business. And I trust him to have the same level of respect for me and my post. I guess people who know me know that they can trust both of us to respect each other's privacy. There are some friends who don't have e-mail addresses and if they need to give one, they often give mine. I don't read their stuff either. I just log on so they can read it themselves and print it . Then I delete them. Maybe we are odd, but I think it a greater sign of respect NOT to open and read something that you can see that to keep it hidden in the first place!

Othersideofthechannel · 14/10/2009 17:51

Oh dear, another thing to be 'judged' on. I hadn't given it the slightest thought.

We have a joint email address. At work everyone can see everyones emails (to be sure everything gets dealt with).

But I never send or receive personal stuff by email.

Original poster
Picante · 14/10/2009 17:57

MrsJamin I am no numpty... I think you'll find many peeps are agreeing with me!

OP posts:
Zooropa · 14/10/2009 18:06

Fgs. We choose to have a joint email. If any of my friends feel they can't be friends with me any more because of this (like Podrick said @ 17.24) then frankly I don't care - they can sod off. What a ridiculous thing to judge people on!
Grrr.

It's not like we are feeding our children fruit shoots... ;)

jasper · 14/10/2009 18:08

zoo, but you are being just as judgy

Morloth · 14/10/2009 18:15

I sometimes use DH's email account, cause I have wandered in to catch up on his goss and can't be arsed opening mine. Or sometimes when I click a link to send someone an email it will use his (cause his name comes up before mine in the alphabetical list).

I don't care, am lazy lazy lazy.

traceybath · 14/10/2009 18:17

So am i right in thinking its more of an issue for those of us who like to send chatty emails to our friends than for those who just don't really 'do' email?

I have some friends who I email frequently all types of inconsequential fluff which I just wouldn't if I thought the husband was also reading.

And without meaning to be offensive - are those who have shared emails a little more mature/older? It just wouldn't occur to me to have a shared email but then I also come from an IT background.

stillstanding · 14/10/2009 19:23

There are some spectacularly silly comments on here. Seriously.

I am hoping that most of this is down to a misunderstanding of the different ways we use email ...

Some people do use email in a way that it would be private correspondence and I can see why they wouldn't send such an email to a joint address. Others do not. As I have said before, my home email account simply isn't for that purpose. This is not because I am backwards or weird. It is because it is practical and convenient for me.

I think some posters here are so entrenched in the way that they use email that they can't conceive that to others it simply isn't such a big, private issue.

To say that you couldn't be friends with a person who has a shared email address is so stupid as to beggar belief.

LadyoftheBathtub · 14/10/2009 19:34

But for me it's not just a practical issue or about how you use email. It's also the message that you're giving out to everyone - that you're not an individual, you're melded into one - or, if you only use your husband's email, that you're just some kind of sub-compartment of him.

That may not be the truth of it but it's how it looks when you get emails from sam&kate@... or from your friend's bloke - and then have to send your reply to both of them. Just as I talk to my friend on her own when we are having a chat in RL or on the phone, I would like to be able to email just her.

hazeyjane · 14/10/2009 19:34

I agree that it all depends on how you use e-mail. Dh and I are 40, so that would put us in the 'older' bracket i suppose (as in; when i went to school, I remember the excitement when it had 2 computers!). I think this influences the way we use the computer. Dh barely does e-mail, I do a little bit for schooly stuff and to e-mail photos to friends. It is the same with facebook, we have 10 friends (half mine, half dh's) they are people who we don't see/speak to very often, and use it for photos and to say hello.

I very much don't feel like an appendage to my dh (nor he to me). I feel like we are friends, a partnership and a family, we share a house, kids, a cat, friends money etc, but I still have private conversations with friends and family, as does he.

alwayslookingforanswers · 14/10/2009 19:40

DH and I are early 30's - DH worked in IT for many years.

I still wonder how you know that an email with just one persons name in it is just for them to see and no-one else. I certainly wouldn't consider asking my friends if their DH's/DC use their email address as well even though it's just my friends name on it!

stillstanding · 14/10/2009 19:42

Lady, I'm almost with you on your point re using the husband's email address. I think I find that a bit odd too but I don't know what the circumstances are for a particular woman and if that was the email she told me to use then far be it from me to make assumptions and do a detailed analysis of her stepfordness.

I don't agree with you on the "family" address though. It's not saying that you are "melded into one" - it's saying that you are a family and this is a family address.

inveteratenamechanger · 14/10/2009 19:48

LOL at [email protected]

I agree with Morris about the right to privacy within a relationship. XP could easily have guessed my email password, but I know he never would have hacked into my email - and vice versa. I wouldn't even look at his email inbox over his shoulder. Not that either of us had anything to hide, but for me even within a relationship there should be some privacy.

I also loathe it when friends' partners refer to something I have written in an email to their wife/partner. Makes my skin crawl.

alwayslookingforanswers · 14/10/2009 19:53

honestl - what is the differene between looking at a pile of letters on the table, and looking at a load of unopen emails in an inbox???

The details - you know - the private bit is surely inside the email.

inveteratenamechanger · 14/10/2009 20:10

I think the difference is:

a. an email can be read and then marked 'unread' - so somebody's dh/p could be reading the emails without them knowing

b. lots of people DO read their partner's email, and then comment on it. Obviously their partners are fine with that - but I am not! Hence not sending personal emails to people with joint addresses or dh access.

Swipe left for the next trending thread