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.

He goes to therapy but doesn't understand that your diary is your safe space to vent at the end of the day? And doesn't understand that him reading it is a huge breach of trust? Id ask him how he would feel if your ready his therapists notes or went through his phone. And get a combination lock box for your diary

Honestly, I'd photograph it, and post the bloody thing in the family chat group myself, with today's addition of "today my husband read my private diary, and threatened to post it in the chathroup, so I've decided that as I can't trust him to respect my privacy, and blackmail is a prime, I am leaving him without further ado"
Problem solved.

It's NOT different to "snooping" through a partners phone. I would happily answer my partners phone, and would be perfectly happy for him to answer mine, but neither of us would have dreamed of "snooping" on each other. Its simple respect.

The type of person who reads the private diary of another, will very rarely read anything nice about themselves.

Well, it appears he had finally reached the "find out" portion of the programme after his first two "fuck arounds" of reading your diary!

He should think on the old maxim that eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves and take it as a lesson learnt!

If I found that my husband was keeping a diary, would I be very curious to read it? Possibly. Would I do so? Absolutely not. Partly because I respect him and his right to have private thoughts and feelings and partly, to quote Bridget Jones, because " everyone knows that diaries are just full of crap"!

That said, and although entirely his own fault, he's probably feeling very insecure and fearful that you are either about to leave him or don't live him anymore and are only staying for the children, and he'll be particularly sensitive on that score if he's recently bereaved.

I wonder if writing him a letter seeing it all out may help him 'hear' you better. I think a line had to be drawn here, though - this diary is for your own personal mental health and reading it is a betrayal akin to you secretly recording his therapy sessions. If he can't grasp that, and if he ever does it again, it's over.

Lots of people journal as a way to process their thoughts and emotions. If I were feeling unkind I'd point out that perhaps he wouldn't need therapy if he had a similar reflective practice (NOT that there's anything wrong with having therapy)

A diary is such an obviously private thing to snoop on.

What a pathetic and tiny minded man if he can't even allow you your private thoughts.

Those arguing that it's fair game to read someone's diary, because you are entitled to all their private thoughts and feelings - NO. Absolutely not.

It is a violation. Of privacy, of personal space, of trust. You don't have consent. It is rapey. You'd be straight out the door.

That said, the threat to share the picture on the group chat is disgusting and I would call his bluff immediately, and tell him to do it because I will NOT be blackmailed and he is likely to find that people who receive it think it says ten times more about him - none of it good - than it ever would about me.

I would actually stand over him and tell him to send it right now. If he doesn't, I'd suggest I send it to everyone myself and explain in the caption that I am pre-empting my husband's threat to do so. If he didn't like that idea, I'd expect an explanation as to why he was making idle threats to try to scare me and why he wouldn't want me to do exactly what he's threatened and bring it all out into the cold light of day. Is it because he would look like a bullying twunt?

A fulsome apology and understanding of his own gross behaviour is in order there if you are to move on together.

@Dadjoke007 this.

Neither is good, both are an invasion of privacy. But they are different. They are for different things.

I keep my thoughts in my head. Probably less healthy than a diary but that's another conversation. My DH can pick up my phone at any point. He knows my passcode, I know his, we often use each others if it's closer to look something up, get maps up, etc.

He can't see in my head. And if I had a diary, he wouldn't read it because it would be like cracking my head open to read my thoughts. Not like seeing a message I'd sent to a friend.

@AuroraJ That's so invasive of him to have read your private thoughts.

I have had it happen many years ago , and it's horrid. {Mine too caused a scene}

My old neighbour once had an awful row with her 16 yr old step daughter-

The daughter said that the stepmother had read a letter{placed in a private ''Memory box'' from her birth mother {who had died of cancer } and it referred to the stepmother as a nasty woman {she was!}

The poor stepdaughter was bereft over it.

In the past I have found ''Writings'' by my son- {like when changing his bedding} I'd never have read them, as I completely understand the need to vent through writing.

It's very different to the millions of men who snoop.Restraining orders are generally about men, violence against women is generally about men.

OP's husband snooped with a view to berating and controlling her - how on earth do you think that's okay?

@RogueFemale I have no idea how the fuck you linked me saying that it's no different to the millions of women going through husbands phones to restraining orders and violence against women....

You also missed the bit where I said it wasn't ok but clearly that doesn't fit your narrative eh

Reading a person's diary is very different to going through their phone. Both are an invasion of privacy but a diary is more of your inner thoughts and sometimes things that you wouldn't say to another living soul. Hubby should be apologizing not threatening OP with putting that one page on the family group chat. Although, if he did, he might be shocked by how people react by not taking his side.

Okay, whatever you say is right.

I wouldn't have been happy with either of my ex husbands looking through my phone. I keep a diary on my phone, and have all my jewellery business on my mobile too, but at the times I left both husbands I'd confided in my sister and mother and a close friend, and if they'd read those messages and emails I'd have been screwed.

Phones are every bit as private as a diary in my opinion.
Snooping through either is just as bad as the other.

So instead of feeling horriefied that you feel so bad that you have thought about leaving him he turns the whole thing around and demands that you apologise for feeling that and off load that into your diary.
I agree with others that you should put your thoughts to actions.
DOnt entertain any more explanations about what you have written into your private diary. He is in the very wrong to read it and he should apologise for that and really mean it.

A boyfriend read my diary more than 20 years ago and I can still feel the shock and horror of my privacy being invaded when I think about it.

It's such an intrusion. I don't know how you deal with it, especially if he's gaslighting you into the expectation that you explain or excuse your inner thoughts.

Hopefully, his therapist will point out his inappropriate and wrong behaviour and he will fully apologise to you.

Someone gets it.

Find a way of keeping your diary under lock and key from now on!

He isn't entitled to know your innermost thoughts and you are expressing them in your diary. It's such an invasion of your privacy!

He sounds like the women who 'accidentally' read their partner's phones messages, emails etc..

Everyone who is trying to score points against women needs to remember this is the Relationships board, not AIBU. Your comments aren't helping OP who has a specific problem with her partner invading her privacy.

My mum read my diary as a teen and I’ve never forgiven her. Your DH is an idiot and if you want to leave do, my parents stayed together for the kids and none of us thanked them for it

He doesn't sound like these women. Because OP says

"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."

and I don't think the follow-on from women snooping is generally them taking photographs and threatening to post on the family chat and attempting to coercively control the man. Call me old-fashioned.

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’s a nasty, blackmailing cunt. I think you should put the diary entry into motion and leave the twat.

So twice you have left it out and twice he has read it,that's not nice, he sounds like a nasty bully, threatening you with putting it on chat?