Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Privacy and Passwords

You've probably seen the case in Michigan in which a man has been charged with a felony for logging into his wife's personal email account. He wanted to confirm his suspicions of an affair. According to Leon Walker, he and his wife shared a computer in their home. He says his wife kept a list of her passwords next to the computer. Check out the story here from ABC News:

Now Leon did confirm that his wife was having an affair with her first husband, who he alleges used to beat his wife in front of her child. So he shared the emails with the father of his wife's child. wow.

Anyway, I'm not married and currently not in a serious relationship. But I wonder if I would give my spouse/significant other the password to my personal email accounts or my Facebook or Twitter accounts?

Would I want the passwords to his accounts? Would I want to know who is talking to — and about what?

I want to be trusting and I want to be trusted. Trust is earned and I hope that I have good sense to get involved with someone who is trustworthy (my track record is a little shaky).

There was a segment on one of the morning shows yesterday that discussed a recent report on financial infidelity - spending money your spouse doesn't know about. The report noted that while women spent money on clothes, men spent money on DATING WEBSITES ! (what?)

Anyway, I'm digressing.

What do you guys think about marriage and passwords and privacy?
Did Leon have reason to check his wife's email if he thought her child was in danger?
Would you want your spouse/significant other to read your personal emails?
Should your spouse/significant other have access to all your social networking accounts? (facebook, twitter, etc.)
Is it okay to have an email account that your spouse/significant other doesn't know about?
What about personal privacy? Does that exist in a marriage?

Let me know your thoughts.

1 comment:

SingLikeSassy said...

You know, I have all the passwords to Mr. SLS' accounts -- financial, facebook, e-mail etc. Either it was to check his mail cause he couldn't access it or because we have an account that I created and just made up a password for him or so I could buy stuff on iTunes. I don't know if he has accounts I don't know about because, well, I don't know about them. LOL!

He, on the other hand, knows nary a one of mine, not because I didn't want him to have them but because he doesn't remember stuff like that. And I do have several different emails some he doesn't know about but not for any secrecy or sneaky purposes just because there was no reason to tell him, oh, I use this email for junk mail purposes and this one for blogging and so forth. He didn't and doesn't care.

Just as in all situations, I think what works in each marriage is what works for the people in it. If you don't want to share then work that out with your mate and vice versa.