My husband read my diary

[AuroraJ]

This is my first time of posting on Netmums for quite a few years but I don't know where else to go. Sorry this is sooo long.

For many reasons (which I won't bore anyone with), my DH and I have had a tough few years, and we are a work in progress. I've always kept a diary since I was a teenager. It's just my way of off loading, writing lists or just jumbled up verbal diarrhoea. Once I've written in it, I don't give what I've written another thought. It's my form of therapy.

We had an argument the other night and I turned to my diary. I wrote how I was feeling in that moment and speculated on what it would feel like to leave and how I can't because of the kids. I don't want to leave, but at that moment I was so frustrated and upset. I woke up the next morning, forgetting what I'd even written and carried on.

Tonight, my husband found my diary, read the entry and took a photo of the page. He demanded I explain myself, apologise for not telling him how I had been feeling and for also writing it in the first place. I stood my ground explained why I wrote it and I refused to apologise. He then demanded that I read him a positive entry from it and when I said no, he threatened to put the photo onto our family chat for everyone to tell me I was in the wrong.

He got really nasty about it all. I have stood my ground and explained why I wrote it and how I felt at the time. Why should I apologise for my private thoughts?

He has since sent me a text telling me that he's sorry those thoughts ran through my head but because I haven't apologised for what he read I don't have a thought for how anyone else is feeling apart from myself.

Am I right and what should I do? I can't even look at him at the moment

Thanks in advance.

Why are you badgering the poster.

It's her decision and choice, not yours!

I can't imagine a relationship where I'd be expected to reveal everything I'm thinking and feeling, like a running commentary?
That would be 18 hours of drivel mostly.
On the odd occasion something unprintable !
If you know about twice, guaranteed he's looked more often.
It's an invasion.
You are your own defence.
It sounds a difficult time, grief counselling suggests other factors at play. But they weren't the excuse the first time you caught him (or he outed himself).
There are stages of grief, being a spiteful twunt isn't one I've heard of though.

id tell him, put my page of my private diary on a group chat and see what the reaction is, it might not be what you think it will be - you're being a bully because I confined in my diary about my thoughts. Don't read peoples diaries if you don't want to read stuff you might not like

now fuck off and do what you want with the photograph

He does sound pretty awful OP. How would he like it if you read the notes from him counseling sessions! Yuk.

Personally I'd write in the diary that I was leaving because he can't respect boundaries or privacy and likes to blackmail when things don't go the way he wants.

Leave it open at that page on his pillow.

He's going the right way to make you actually want to leave him.

He's out of order. I get it must have hurt to have read that but it was a thought in the moment and he never should have read it in the first place.

He's a cunt

Everything @Alwaysgothiccups wrote☝️

He should not have read your diary full stop second of all you were expressing yourself while upset. And maybe he didn't like what he read, that's exactly why you dont read your partners diary and maybe the truth hurt his ego. Well tough mate I say. Don't apologise and don't let this control freak win. Stand your ground

This is horrifying. Please have my first LTB.
I leave my diary lying around constantly, if my partner read it (and held it against me) I would go fucking nuts.

He is a fucking lunatic. Prepare very quietly to leave him. You have done nothing wrong.

He’s done wrong, so anything I say after that isn’t minimising that
but I don’t think he literally wants you to share all your thoughts like pp are saying
but I would be absolutely rocked to my core if I found out my dh sometimes thought about leaving me, and only didn’t because of dc. Regardless of how I found out I’d be devastated, I would be worried about the relationship, I would be concerned that I hadn’t spotted that this was a risk before, I’d be hurt that he was only staying for the children not for me or to work on us or because our marriage vows etc. And I would feel like I had lost a partner, because I could no longer rely on him to always be there. I would also be so hurt and angry that my relationship was so rocky and my life could possibly change forever (if you left) and I hadn’t been told it was at that level. How can you fight for something, how can you work on it, if you don’t even have the full picture. So I can completely see why he’s reacted so badly, though the threat to share the photo is beyond spiteful and he’s lashing out in a completely inappropriate way

do you share your feelings with him? Has he turned to your diary in a moment of weakness because it was right in front of him, or desperation to know your feelings because you don’t communicate? That wouldn’t make it right still, but just something to consider.
obv all pps are saying ltb so I don’t know, maybe I’m missing something but to me this feels like a breach of trust in a relationship that’s really struggling, it doesn’t feel like something that can’t be overcome, assuming this is it. Obviously if he’s normally controlling and horrible then thats different.

@Pumpkindoodles of course you would feel all of those things, that would be completely reasonable, to be devastated, worried, wonder why you hadn't picked up that someone you were supposed to be close to was feeling this distressed... but it's what he does next that is the issue.

Taking a photo of her journal and sharing it? Why not go the whole hog and strip her naked and parade her through the streets just to really hammer the disgrace home and send the message that she belongs to him and she's going nowhere? The reasonable reaction to finding out that your partner has been on rightmove looking for flats nearby the kids school, would be to be upset and talk to them to try to identify what has led to this happening, what your part is in it, and how you can lean in and work things out to improve the relationship together. Not go ballistic and post a screenshot of the property on Facebook with a message telling everyone what he's been up to and what a secretive shit he is. It's "look how disobedient your daughter is" and it's gross.

I think you maybe are missing something, someone who wants to shame and disgrace their partner as a result of their own hurt feelings is not behaving in a reasonable or heatlthy way. You do not own the rights to the contents of anothers mind, nor what is written in a private journal, to think you do and could share that to control an outcome is disturbing. I hope that his reaction has galvanised any feelings of leaving she might have been having.

But he didn’t actually do that did he? I read it that he threatened to share it with the family, not that he had. I said in my post that was spiteful and absolutely out of line, but a threat isn’t the same as doing
some people childishly lash out and say things they don’t mean in arguments, only the op knows what her relationship is normally like for that sort of thing.
it wouldn’t be what I want, or how I’d like my relationship to operate ofc.

Yes, he made a threat to do it. It's not what you, or I would want in a relationship, because it's completely unreasonable behaviour.

Never ever EVER stay in a relationship for the sake of the kids. Ever.

It benefits no one - not the kids or the 2 of you.

You need to have a really hard think about what you want.

I left my toxic ex after 22 years and 3 children - that was 3 years ago and now I'm the happiest I've ever been.

My view is that you need to be able to share all your thoughts with your husband.
It’s not great that he looked at your diary but at the same time it looks like you both have a lack of communication and that was his way of finding out what’s going on. It’s not the right way to go about it plus threatening to put it on a group chat is way out of line. That’s just blackmail and I’d be livid if my husband tried to do that to me.
You both need to sit down and have an open conversation and tell him how you feel and what you need to work on to make things better. I’ve had thoughts like yours but I’ll always tell my husband to his face if anything is a deal breaker. He’s allowed to know how I feel otherwise how can he fix it? This is how relationships break down and no one is prepared to compromise.

I was always brought up to believe that you never, EVER read someone else's diary. So reading this, I'm kind of shaking with rage on your behalf. To recap, he read your diary, he took a photo of your innermost thoughts, he made it all about him and he demanded an apology from you for feeling certain emotions in the heat of the moment.
This is abuse. I'm sorry but he sounds vile. I suspect if he did carry out his threat and post the photo, it would backfire and people would side with you. But really I think you need to leave and live your life without being ordered how to feel.

Well who wants to have a relationship with someone who childishly lashes out? Not me, that’s for sure.

and I guess that childish lashing out is a regular feature of his communication style, hence why people don’t include him in their deepest feelings- because other people having feelings or thoughts he has no control over is overwhelming to him. So he is emotionally mollycoddled, because although he is chronologically a man, emotionally he’s a toddler.

Exactly! A diary is a private, personal space for your own thoughts. A phone is a communication tool with other people.

My view is that you need to be able to share all your thoughts with your husband.

My view is only in some dystopian Gilead type society would someone expect to have to share 'all their thoughts' with their husband.

I suspect if you were to go through something private of his i.e. his phone you would find things he is keeping to himself.

I don’t like to suggest that he is unfaithful because it’s pouring salt on your wound, but to me it seems like the deflecting behaviour of someone who wants to make a big deal of something you’ve done to draw attention away from his behaviour and if it did turn out that he is cheating this will be how he paints you as the bad guy to excuse it

You wrote that you were thinking of leaving him but couldn't because of the kids - what did you expect him to do jump for joy?

How would you feel if he'd written similar about you?

Leave it a while then write about how you won the lottery and are planning your escape. That should give him a quandary.

No she didn't, she said IF she were, not I'm thinking of leaving, big difference writing thoughts and musings in a private diary, to writing down plans and to do lists.

He shouldn't have been reading it anyway!