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Would you expect your spouse to read your school assignment without asking?


Miss Peregrine
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If you had a class assignment to write a letter to your future self would you be bothered by your spouse finding it on the computer by looking at your history and reading it? What if out of the blue you heard, "I read your class assignment and I liked it" but you didn't know spouse even knew about it?

 

 

Edited title.

Edited by Miss Peregrine
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Is it a shared computer?  If so, I would expect that anything might be read and then commented on.

 

My husband and I don't share a computer.  In our case, my first thought would be "why are you looking at my history?"   So I guess the manner in which the assignment was found would matter to me. 

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Did he go snooping through your history, or did he come across it by accident while he was trying to locate one of his own documents?

 

If he was actively snooping through your history because he was checking up on you, I wouldnĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t blame you for not liking that!

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Did he go snooping through your history, or did he come across it by accident while he was trying to locate one of his own documents?

 

If he was actively snooping through your history because he was checking up on you, I wouldnĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t blame you for not liking that!

 

Agreed.

 

If he saw it under "recent documents" or something, it wouldn't bother me that he read it. If he actually checked my history on purpose, that would be weird and invasive. 

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Snooping.

 

That's more bothersome than the fact that he read the assignment. I can't imagine writing something that I would mind my husband reading, but if he didn't trust me, then I would have an entirely different set of issues to address. 

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I'd feel a little weird it - something about the looking up my file without asking thing. Which is a bit odd, because if I'd just left a printed version laying around, I wouldn't care if dh picked it up and read it. I mean, I wouldn't write anything for public consumption that I wouldn't want dh to read. Seeing it in a history and then opening it up to read it isn't *that* far off seeing it laying around the house and reading it. But idk, I guess there's something about actually opening up my file without asking that seems a little invasive. Even though a school assignment isn't anything private.

 

Idk, my feelings are complicated here, and maybe a little non-sensical, idk. I would have no problem with dh reading my assignment, but I'd feel weird about him reading it without asking. I'd have no problem with him poking around my computer files, but I want him to ask first. I guess I see my computer files as *mine*, and while there's the presumption that I'd allow dh to see whatever if he wanted to, I also have the presumption that he'd *ask* first, even though the answer's an almost guaranteed yes - I wouldn't say no without a particular reason. Fwiw, asking first matters to me, even though it's mostly just pro forma, since we both expect that the default answer would be yes.

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Well, I personally asked my DH to read all of my school assignments when he had the availability to do so. All of our computers back up files to the same Dropbox account so he could read them any time he wished without me even knowing it.
 

He'd probably be very suspicious if I had something like that assignment and I *DIDN'T* save it to Dropbox or ask him for feedback on. Like I had something I wanted to hide from him.

 

I'm pretty boring so if he snoops, I can't imagine he'd find anything that he'd be at all concerned about.

 

We went through a real rocky patch when oldest DD was a baby and he demanded a paternity test since he was in the Army on an assignment where he spent 2 weeks out of the month doing training exercises. I just rolled my eyes and told him that if he wanted to waste money on a DNA test to prove she was his child, to go right ahead as I was 100% sure of the results.

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I'd feel a little weird it - something about the looking up my file without asking thing. Which is a bit odd, because if I'd just left a printed version laying around, I wouldn't care if dh picked it up and read it. I mean, I wouldn't write anything for public consumption that I wouldn't want dh to read. Seeing it in a history and then opening it up to read it isn't *that* far off seeing it laying around the house and reading it. But idk, I guess there's something about actually opening up my file without asking that seems a little invasive. Even though a school assignment isn't anything private.

 

Idk, my feelings are complicated here, and maybe a little non-sensical, idk. I would have no problem with dh reading my assignment, but I'd feel weird about him reading it without asking. I'd have no problem with him poking around my computer files, but I want him to ask first. I guess I see my computer files as *mine*, and while there's the presumption that I'd allow dh to see whatever if he wanted to, I also have the presumption that he'd *ask* first, even though the answer's an almost guaranteed yes - I wouldn't say no without a particular reason. Fwiw, asking first matters to me, even though it's mostly just pro forma, since we both expect that the default answer would be yes.

Right. If he had asked, "Hey, have any new assignments for your class?" I would have told him about it. If he asked to read it, I would have been able to make that choice myself.

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I would feel embarrassed, because I like personal things like that to stay private. So much so, that I usually write personal things, like diary entries in sloppy cursive, with total disregard to accidentally leaving out some of the letters, and then when I've had enough of it (i.e. my paranoid side feels like it's too risky keeping it around) I destroy it somehow. 

 

But I feel like we have a good relationship, I trust him and he trusts me, so I wouldn't get mad at him for reading it. If he read it from a place of distrust, I would be upset with him. 

 

I do go through the web history sometimes, usually just to find a page I had closed, or to see what kids were up to, and sometimes I get sidetracked and notice something interesting that DH had been reading and read it. I don't see a problem with that, and wouldn't have a problem if DH did that with regard to my web browsing either.

 

 

Edited by Dust
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Checked the Safari history. I did save it in a file, as well, but he read it on the futureme webpage where I had originally written it.

That's a little different to me, as I don't consider the websites dh visits to be private the way I consider his actual personally generated content to be private. If an interesting-looking site popped up in the search history, I'd have no qualms about following it. It wouldn't even have to be if I was checking the history in purpose - because there are plenty of sites I get to solely through the search history (because I'm too lazy to bookmark them), so in looking for them, I'd naturally see what other sites had been gone to.
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Response: Most women would be happy if their husband didn't snoop through their computer history. :o

 

To my mind, if they didn't have anything to hide, why would they care if their husbands snooped? If my DH wants to waste his time looking at all the boring stuff on my computer and/or phone, he can knock himself out.

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Right. If he had asked, "Hey, have any new assignments for your class?" I would have told him about it. If he asked to read it, I would have been able to make that choice myself.

Exactly.

 

ItĂ¢â‚¬â„¢s not a matter of you trying to be secretive. This is a trust issue.

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To my mind, if they didn't have anything to hide, why would they care if their husbands snooped? If my DH wants to waste his time looking at all the boring stuff on my computer and/or phone, he can knock himself out.

Maybe she feels like he doesnĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t trust her. ThatĂ¢â‚¬â„¢s an uncomfortable feeling, even though she has nothing to hide. Also, isnĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t she entitled to a bit of privacy?

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That's more bothersome than the fact that he read the assignment. I can't imagine writing something that I would mind my husband reading, but if he didn't trust me, then I would have an entirely different set of issues to address. 

 

 

"Most women would be happy if their husband read their assignment and complimented it." :ack2:

 

If asked to read it, yes. I'd be more bothered by the snooping than reading the assignment. Dh and I don't share a computer and don't use each other's computers. Even if we shared one neither of us would go snooping through the other's profile and history. 

 

Maybe she feels like he doesnĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t trust her. ThatĂ¢â‚¬â„¢s an uncomfortable feeling, even though she has nothing to hide. Also, isnĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t she entitled to a bit of privacy?

 

That's what I would think. Even in a good marriage privacy should be respected. Respecting privacy is a good thing.

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um... if this is a class assignment you have to turn into a professor, who is a stranger, why would you put anything in there you wouldn't want your dh to read?

 

no, it wouldn't bother me.   I admit, I started getting  perturbed at some of the assignment/topics a previous professor had   wouldn't have had any issue with my dh reading or even talking to him - but the professor and other students in the group?  yes, I object to that.

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Dh and I don't share a computer so it would be invasive for me because it would mean that there was purposeful snooping going on.  And no, I don't have anything to hide.  But dh and I have better things to do than to check up on each other. It would be completely different if I mentioned that I had this interesting assignment I had done online and he then chose to look it up.  I would consider telling him about the assignment and where it could be found, an invitation of sorts. 

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To my mind, if they didn't have anything to hide, why would they care if their husbands snooped? If my DH wants to waste his time looking at all the boring stuff on my computer and/or phone, he can knock himself out.

Given that I am not trying to hide my history nor do I care if dh sees my history, nevertheless, to me there's a difference between

*dh seeing my history in the course of doing something else,

*dh looking up my history in order to find something he has standing permission to find,

*dh looking up my history to see what I've been doing (whether he's curious for good reasons or bad, whether he's doing it out of idle interest or very pointed interest).

 

It's just weird and off-putting to me when people deliberately seek out information about you without your involvement. For most things, if a person wants to know, they just ought to *ask*.

 

Also, when it comes to opening computer files (not just seeing the name in a history), some of what I write and store on my computer *is* private. I don't care if dh knows that I am writing in my private journal, but that doesn't mean I want him *reading* my private journal. Not because I'm ashamed of it or because it would be horrible if he saw it, but because it's *private* - stuff I am thinking about or musing about that isn't prettied up for outside consumption. It's not *bad*, but it's not meant for outside eyes, either.

 

But I do understand dh not treating my school assignments with the same assumption of privacy that he would treat my private journal. Still expect him to ask first, although I would understand him not realizing that asking mattered to me in that instance. I'd educate him otherwise, though ;).

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To my mind, if they didn't have anything to hide, why would they care if their husbands snooped? If my DH wants to waste his time looking at all the boring stuff on my computer and/or phone, he can knock himself out.

To me it just seems like basic respect. My husband and I donĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t have anything to hide from each other. We both have access to each otherĂ¢â‚¬â„¢s email accounts because sometimes that is handy when we need to locate something. But we still ask first.

 

And we also read things for each other when asked. We both respect the otherĂ¢â‚¬â„¢s opinion and welcome feedback. But snooping around and looking for stuff and then reading it without asking first? That just seems creepy and lacking in respect and trust to me.

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But snooping around and looking for stuff and then reading it without asking first? That just seems creepy and lacking in respect and trust to me.

 

Yes. I think for most of us in this thread who are objecting to it, we're objecting to the fact that he went snooping. It's an invasion of privacy and that's not okay even when you have nothing to hide. 

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um... if this is a class assignment you have to turn into a professor, who is a stranger, why would you put anything in there you wouldn't want your dh to read?

 

<snip>

 

I can imagine having an assignment and not wanting my husband to read it, even though a professor would.  It wouldn't necessarily have anything to do with having something in it that I wouldn't want my husband to read.   I might just not want his input on my school assignment.  I might want to have him read it after it's graded.  I might not want to hear his suggestions for improvement and feel like I needed to add them, or start second-guessing my own work.

 

There's nothing wrong with wanting some privacy.   

Edited by marbel
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I had a blog and wrote on it every day for a year. I cannot stand it when people read something that IĂ¢â‚¬â„¢m not prepared for them to read. I told my dh that I just couldnĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t handle it if he read something before I published it. I needed to be able to make changes or edit things if I was writing something that wasnĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t quite what I meant without fearing that someone would read my unedited version.

 

So, knowing myself, I am deeply uncomfortable with someone reading something that IĂ¢â‚¬â„¢m not prepared to share. My DH knows I have this quirk and if he found the assignment and read it, heĂ¢â‚¬â„¢d never tell me. First of all, I just donĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t think heĂ¢â‚¬â„¢d read it, but if he did, heĂ¢â‚¬â„¢d keep quiet about it and not try to turn it around that I should be happy he read it.

Edited by Garga
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It's how he went looking for it that would bother me.  Every relationship is different and spouses usually grow to KNOW what boundaries there are.  Some are fine with reading one another's stuff, mail, etc. without batting an eye.  Some know to just ask and it's not a problem.  Dh knows that it would bug me for him to come across something of mine and read it.  He'd just say, "Hey, I saw you wrote something for class...can I read it?  Looks interesting."  And I'd say yes, end of story.  I think he's the same way, but we don't share computers.  Knowing that he KNOWS me enough to ask is kind of a precious thing to me and if he acted differently, I *would* be a little suspicious or at least befuddled and want to know what's up.  And I'd ask him. 

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Even though I don't have things to hide, per se, I do have things on my computer that are private. For example, I keep a journal of sorts in my email... just emailing thoughts to myself. If I'm angry at DH, or annoyed or... I write about it. I wouldn't want him to read those things - like someone else said, if I'm ready/want to talk about stuff, I'd like to do it in my own way. I write to myself differently than I address things with DH. It's not wrong to have private thoughts... it IS wrong to snoop around without permission.

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um... if this is a class assignment you have to turn into a professor, who is a stranger, why would you put anything in there you wouldn't want your dh to read?

 

no, it wouldn't bother me.   I admit, I started getting  perturbed at some of the assignment/topics a previous professor had   wouldn't have had any issue with my dh reading or even talking to him - but the professor and other students in the group?  yes, I object to that.

It's not that I didn't want him to read it. I wasn't given the choice. If he had asked I most likely would have let him. If I had said no it would not be because of the content but my insecurity about my writing. He knows  I am terrified at taking a writing class.

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My Dh, as much as I love him, is a master at misinterpretation.  If I say "I know you want to go to bed honey, so just go" he tends to hear "I am upset than you don't want to spend time with me so just go away."  I have to make sure that when I talk to him, I am super clear about what I am saying.  I need to be sure that what I actually say is "you are tired, it is late, I am going to watch another episode, but I am not going to be upset if you just go to bed, because I understand that you are tired." And sometimes making sure that's how clear I am requires bouncing my thoughts around online, typing it out, texting a friend, etc etc. 

 

My DH as well. He is extremely literal, so when I say things, I have to be sure to say *exactly* what I mean. I've had to work on my habit of just blurting out whatever's on my mind.

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To my mind, if they didn't have anything to hide, why would they care if their husbands snooped? If my DH wants to waste his time looking at all the boring stuff on my computer and/or phone, he can knock himself out.

You obviously donĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t have a jealous spouse. My DH and I are very open with things like these because DHĂ¢â‚¬â„¢s ex-wife was jealous....and IĂ¢â‚¬â„¢ve known other men with wives just like her. DH couldnĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t talk to a lady at the checkout without it becoming a two day fight over if he was cheating or not. He helped someone....cheating. I heard one of my co-workers having to defend himself multiple times to his wife that no, he wasnĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t cheating on her with me because I answered the phone at work (that was my job) and no he wasnĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t cheating on her because he took 10 minutes to get to the phone because he was in a patientĂ¢â‚¬â„¢s room (he was a nurse).

 

A person who wants to make an issue with something can take the slightest thing and make it a huge ordeal.

 

Stefanie

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I just rolled my eyes and told him that if he wanted to waste money on a DNA test to prove she was his child, to go right ahead as I was 100% sure of the results.

This was said to me in a joking manner as one of our children does have an unexpected genetic trait (though it isn't unexpected to me as I remember basic biology). I said the blood test was fine, but there would be a heavy payment when it came back positive.

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Hmm.  I'd like to think I'd never do this.

 

On the other had, I look in people's medicine cabinets, or sometimes their sink cupboards, when I am using their toilets.

 

It's a vice, I know.

 

ETA: Of course I never reveal what I see.

Edited by Bluegoat
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Checked the Safari history. I did save it in a  file, as well, but he read it on the futureme webpage where I had originally written it. 

 

Is it a public website, where people post with the purpose of sharing it? If so, okay I guess. If not, then no, not okay. 

 

But do you normally share a computer? If not, why was he on it? To snoop? Cause that's not okay. 

 

My husband would NOT read something he randomly found on my computer, and I wouldn't on his. That's an invasion of privacy to me. 

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My husband has my passwords to my phone and computer, but I would have a problem with him snooping. He's not a suspicious person in general so it would be pretty out of character for him, fortunately. In our relationship, that would be pretty invasive. If he asked, though, I'd generally say yes and if I said no, I would provide a reason why not. 

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 I'd have no problem with him poking around my computer files, but I want him to ask first. I guess I see my computer files as *mine*, and while there's the presumption that I'd allow dh to see whatever if he wanted to, I also have the presumption that he'd *ask* first, even though the answer's an almost guaranteed yes - I wouldn't say no without a particular reason.

 

Exactly this. 

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To my mind, if they didn't have anything to hide, why would they care if their husbands snooped? If my DH wants to waste his time looking at all the boring stuff on my computer and/or phone, he can knock himself out.

 

Um, because it is weird and creepy to have your husband checking up on you and snooping on you??

 

Like, if I found him going through my wallet and purse for no reason, just to snoop and see what was in there and what receipts I had..t.hat would be REALLY weird and we'd be having a BIG TALK about what the heck was going on. 

 

Same thing with his work briefcase...(actually, it's a backpack). I don't go rifling through there to see what's in there. It's not mine. And although I'm sure there is nothing he has to hide, it's rude to go into someone's private stuff. 

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I was going to say "huh?" and then I read more.

 

The snooping bothers me. Leaving a random file on the computer is, to me, kinda like leaving a random typed paper on a table; I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone picked it up and read it. 

 

But having someone who goes looking for your stuff is creepy. 

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My husband has my passwords to my phone and computer, but I would have a problem with him snooping. He's not a suspicious person in general so it would be pretty out of character for him, fortunately. In our relationship, that would be pretty invasive. If he asked, though, I'd generally say yes and if I said no, I would provide a reason why not. 

 

Yes, this. We have each other's passwords but we don't use each other's phone or computer without the other knowing. It would be weird for either of us to do it. The only time I use his phone is when he's sleeping due to his work schedule and it rings or he gets a message. His dad is 93 so we're always concerned. Even then, I just briefly look and if it's nothing he needs to be awakened for, I just ignore it.

 

My husband won't even go in my purse when I tell him to. It's funny but also can be annoying too. He seems to have a fear of the inside of women's purses. :D

 

Dh -Where's the checkbook?

Me - In my purse, next to my side of the bed.

Dh - :Gets my purse and hands it to me so I can get the checkbook out and give it to him: Sigh

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We don't share a computer 90% of the time but DH does occasionally use mine when he forgets his at work.  I would assume he had a good reason to go through the history and it's unlikely that he'd read it once he realized what it was.  But if by some chance he did and it had personal info in it I might not want others to know he'd never even mention that he read it, so as to not make me uncomfortable.

 

If it was his personal essay (which he just turned one in last week) on his computer, I would probably read it and use the info in it to start a "how can we do better" conversation if there were issues in the paper.  

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I dunno, I read DH's history if I'm up before him and I am curious what he was doing the night before (we have strange sleeping schedules sometimes and are often awake at different times).  It's not a suspicious nosiness but an interested one - he finds interesting things on the internet that I could never find but do like to read about.  I doubt he reads my history in the same way because he's not nearly as interested in my interests as I am in his (there is no universe in which he'd read a thread about Lukeion's Latin sequence or a chat thread on these forums).  If I found something he'd personally written on the internet or whatever, I'd definitely read it!  I can't imagine his wanting to keep something secret from me like that, but if he did I suspect he'd actually hide it in some way, I guess.

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there is a difference between an assignment laying around or up on your screen, or having to go look for it.

the first, no big deal,  the second - it's a symptom of a much bigger problem.

 

I have dh's password for his computer  (and I've had to use it on occasion to deal with a printer)- I dont' think he's ever tried to get on mine.

unlike a couple kids who've hacked into mine for things they needed.  (I wasn't around for them to ask for the password. - what they were doing wasn't' an issue for me.)  I like having geeky children.

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"Most women would be happy if their husband read their assignment and complimented it." :ack2:

 

I wanted to comment on this.  I would change it to "Most (if not all) women would be happy if their husband read their assignment after they asked him to and then complimented it."  The fact that you intimated in another post that  you hadn't even mentioned the assignment to him, smacks to me that he was looking for something when he came across it.  Did he need to be looking for something?  Like one of his own things that he needed to find?  Or was he looking to snoop as you also intimated?  Snooping is benign if you are snooping in the snack closet (or other common area) to find something to do or eat.  It is not benign when you are violating someone's privacy including your spouse.  I have a close relationship with my spouse but we still have some privacy within the marriage. 

 

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