My husband received something very strange in the post ...

[OnSilverStars]

In the post today, my husband received a letter. It was hand written with his name and address on the outside. No return info. The writing in the envelope is definitely a woman's

Inside is a copy of an "essay" I googled it and it's by Robert Louise Stevenson. It called "on Marriage"

The gist of it is that marriage has lots of ups and downs and requires communication

There is nothing else. No name, just a folded print out of this essay.

Any explanation, other than my fear? I have no reason other than this to suspect anything.

YABU - don't jump to conclusions

YANBU - he's cheated.

I'm shaking. This feels so surreal. I hope I'm overreacting. He's currently at work.

Ps. We open each other's post. We think nothing of it - usually. It's always junk or bills

It’s a known fact that you can gender handwriting. So ignore that bullshit for a start

Yes, if you know how. You can't just look at an envelope and know its a woman though.
If you looked at mine and DH's handwriting I would guarantee you would get them the wrong way around, unless you got a lucky guess.

The writing in the envelope is definitely a woman's

For fuck's sake.

Was it a woman's envelope too? Was the pen female?

Ps. We open each other's post. We think nothing of it - usually. It's always junk or bills

I'd be furious if DP opened my post as a matter of course. As would he if I opened his. Why are you opening each others post in the first place? Isn't it illegal to open someone else's post?

If it was JWs - sounds like it - it would seem that they’ve recently hit on a new way of making a bloody nuisance of themselves. 🤬

I doubt it's the JW. Not when it's just a photocopy, with no obvious biblical references, and importantly, nothing to show who it's from.

I'd be furious if DP opened my post as a matter of course. As would he if I opened his. Why are you opening each others post in the first place? Isn't it illegal to open someone else's post?

It's only illegal if a man opens a woman's post. If a woman opens a man's post, the law is very different, as the rules around 'reasonable suspicion' apply.

Surely if it is JW sending stuff it would say that somewhere. Bloody ridiculous if not and someone needs telling .

I sent an absolute stink of a reply to our local JW's after they did this recently to half the village.
They even helpfully included an SAE for me to do it.

I pointed out that instead of spamming my bloody home if they should put the £1.50 they had spent per house to some good use such as the local food banks and homeless charities that are crying out for help. Give something back to the community. Rather, they spent several hundred pounds sending pointless letters.

Seems to be the new tactic.

This

I live in Greater London and have received letters from Jehovahs witnesses from Bristol, one was marked as from a church but one wasn’t. The one that wasn’t was about hard work being important and working hard in a marriage was equally important.
No idea if your husbands letter is from them but it could be.

If my husband accused me of cheating based on no more than an essay about marriage posted anonymously through the door he'd be out on the pavement so fast his head would spin.

@gingerbreadfox12

How on earth can you tell it's a woman's handwriting

You can usually tell the age and sex of the owner of handwriting. A uni lecturer told me he can tell the sex of a the author of a computer typed essay within the first paragraphs as well. A friend, who is a write, was reading a piece of a factual book I had and within one paragraph asked if the writer was gay, which he was.

Not only can writing give away gender, it can also give away nationality www.bbc.com/culture/article/20170502-what-your-handwriting-says-about-you

Why would an OW send him a letter to help his marriage?

This is what arrived.

This is the first paragraph

Hope, they say, deserts us at no period of our existence. From first to last, and in the face of smarting disillusions, we continue to expect good fortune, better health, and better conduct; and that so confidently, that we judge it needless to deserve them. I think it improbable that I shall ever write like Shakespeare, conduct an army like Hannibal, or distinguish myself like Marcus Aurelius in the paths of virtue; and yet I have my by-days, hope prompting, when I am very ready to believe that I shall combine all these various excellences in my own person, and go marching down to posterity with divine honours. There is nothing so monstrous but we can believe it of ourselves. About ourselves, about our aspirations and delinquencies, we have dwelt by choice in a delicious vagueness from our boyhood up. No one will have forgotten Tom Sawyer’s aspiration: “Ah, if he could only die temporarily!”

@Bluesheep8

Ps. We open each other's post. We think nothing of it - usually. It's always junk or bills

I'd be furious if DP opened my post as a matter of course. As would he if I opened his. Why are you opening each others post in the first place? Isn't it illegal to open someone else's post?

It's only illegal if there is intention to cause harm to the recipient. Opening something, as I have done this morning, that is addressed to someone else with the intention to return to sender for example, is perfectly legal.

@jamesfailedmarshmallows

According to Criminal Minds, hand writing is gendered. Just saying.

No need to watch Criminal Minds. Anyone who's seen a few people's handwriting knows this. I'm really surprised at the doubts about it. Of course, there may be some who don't conform, but for most people you can tell easily. Same with age as people learn different styles.

According to the Postal Services Act 2000, it is illegal to open mail that is not addressed to you, unless you can show reasonable excuse.

There we are. It's illegal. Unless a woman's handwriting on the envelope is a reasonable excuse

FFS to all those people claiming handwriting is non-gendered! Have you ever heard of fonts? Have you looked at logos, adverts, brands and innately understood what messages are being sent? There is HUGE amount of information in the shapes and ligatures of letters, regardless of whether it's digital or script (handwritten).

Handwriting is a font and there are often subtle differences that many people innately understand. Handwriting fonts fall on a spectrum with very obviously feminine on one side and most likely masculine on the other. Of course there is a small percentage in the middle where it would be hard to tell, and many people do write in a unisex style.

However to say ALL handwriting is not gendered means you are deliberately being obtuse or actually extremely poor at understanding typographical structures.

I'd be furious if DP opened my post as a matter of course. As would he if I opened his. Why are you opening each others post in the first place?

And wouldn't the world be a boring place if we all acted the same, and everyone's relationships were the same!

@Needahug72

Could be a letter from Jehovah Witnesses we got one last week about the meek possessing the earth.

They seem to be sending letters to random addresses as my mum received one a couple of months ago addressed to her my dad (dad had died a month earlier)

This.

They're. Or able to do door to door at the moment so this could be a strong possibility

"It isn't woke to make a point of not being sexist, it's just basic rational behaviour and decency."

It is when you're wrong!

I have my husband's permission to open his post indefinitely. He has mine.

According to the Postal Services Act 2000, it is illegal to open mail that is not addressed to you, unless you can show reasonable excuse

It's my house and I can do what I like in it is a reasonable excuse.

Please show us the last time someone was prosecuted for opening post that came to their house, addressed to a member of their family?

Me and dh open each others post/parcels all the time. We don't give 2 shits about it either, don't understand why people would be 'furious'. Me and dh really don't get anything that exciting