Sharing Passwords With Your Husband Is Risky Business

on January 23, 2012 at 5:26 PM

computer keyboard There's a new trend where lovesick teens are engaging in risky email password sharing with boyfriends and girlfriends as the ultimate sign of trust and disclosure that they are not cheating on them. Interesting. Don't these kids watch TV? Don't they know that this is a disaster waiting to happen? As soon as these 14-year-olds break up -- and most of them will break up -- their ex is going to be hacking into their accounts and broadcasting all their private messages to the world on Facebook and the web. While this is obviously a very bad idea for teens, email password sharing takes the discussion in an entirely different direction when talking about whether adults who are married or in committed relationships should also be sharing passwords.

No way! But for an entirely different reason.

I've given my husband my email passwords -- not as a sign of trust but simply as a matter of convenience. I've been away from a computer and called home to ask him to look up directions in an email or grab a phone number, and vice versa. He doesn't choose to have a Facebook account for various professional reasons, but will frequently go on mine to see what his friends (also my friends) are up to and even send them messages (from my account using my name -- but signing them with his name).

I'm not sure what divulging email or social media passwords for "trust" reasons accomplishes. Even if I have his email passwords (and I do), I would never in a million years go into his account to randomly "snoop around" if I had a suspicion. I'd like to think I would just ask him. Respecting each other's privacy in relationships is just as important as trust.

Hopefully, couples today don't live their entire lives online and still have "friendships" offline. I don't tell my husband everything that my friend and I talked about over lunch, and neither does he. It would probably be 80 percent boring to hear, but the rest might be totally benign stuff I just don't want him know and have a right to share or withhold from whoever I want. It would be akin to him fitting me with a secret spy microphone recording everything I talk about when I'm not with him. He shouldn't be reading my private emails, suspicions or not.

As soon as I find out that he is, I'm changing my password.

Does your spouse know your password -- why or why not?

Image via GoodNCrazy/Flickr

About the author Cynthia Dermody

is The Stir's Managing Editor who has trophies in her home for her skills at the Irish Jig. She makes cupcakes with as many fattening ingredients as possible, doesn't comb her hair for months at a time, and was probably a faerie in a former life.

Filed Under: computer, facebook

Comments (34)

Melissa042807

on Jan 23, 2012 at 5:41 PM

Yeah. Because why shouldn't he? And I know all his passwords. Why shouldn't we be able to access each other's accounts? We're married, after all. It just makes sense to us. And we're respectful of each other - it's not like I go browse his e-mails or his Facebook for kicks. The one time he hijacked my Facebook for an April Fool's joke without asking me first, I was pissed and he hasn't done it again. So all in all, sharing passwords is just not a big deal to us.

Now, if I had teenagers and I found out they were giving their passwords to friends and/or significant others, there would be a serious sit-down-and-have-a-talkin'-to.

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TKsMommie

on Jan 23, 2012 at 5:54 PM

I think he knows all of mine and I am pretty sure I know all of his personal ones. Mostly because we tend to need each other to look something up or things like that. I know his FB password because he has me put pictures on his page because everything is on my computer, and they are networked but he has no desire to hunt for them! For the two of us its not a big deal because we share pretty much everything anyway. I know some people are all freaked out about the idea of their spouse having their email password and I don't get it.

AliNoelle

on Jan 23, 2012 at 6:39 PM

We have eachothers passwords. I have his and insist on having his because of problems with porn in the past. I feel that it keeps him honest if he knows I can check everything that he does. I only rarely check though.

3gifts.from.god

on Jan 23, 2012 at 6:57 PM

Yeah, he does, because like you, sometimes I need him to look stuff up on my e-mail for me. If DH wanted to read every e-mail I have, or PM on any site I go to I would not be bothered by that at all. There is nothing my DH does not already know about me. I have no interest in reading his e-mails, but if I did, I have no doubt that his e-mails would be as boring to me, as mine would be to him.

Trust isn't about not needing to have eachother's passwords, it's about not needing to care if you do.

sammyd2011

on Jan 23, 2012 at 7:16 PM

Like you said, it's purely out of convenience that my husband and I share passwords. He admitted to snooping through my phone while we were dating, but I didn't get upset because I had nothing to hide.

SaphiraJFire

on Jan 23, 2012 at 7:28 PM

we have each otehrs passwords to everything, unless he forgets mine are complicated lol.

We do not hid things and have no locked rooms from each other either! its the same thing really.

trust is not caring if the other has your password and knows where your stash of chocolate is!!!! When you truly have nothing to hide what is the big deal.

I would seriously think something would have to be wrong freak out about it.

Agentmomyyc

on Jan 23, 2012 at 9:25 PM

NO he doesn't have my passwords and I don't have all of his. He has no interest in Facebook except to see the pics I post of the kids so I always show him those. I just don't feel the need to share EVERYTHING with him. Some things I just keep to myself for no other reason than I want to.lol sounds weird but it's all good in the hood.

SicTransitGlori

on Jan 23, 2012 at 10:58 PM

We know each other's passwords, but it wasn't a conscious decision to share them. I don't have anything to hide, so I don't really care. If he wants to comb through my emails then he can knock himself out (although I'm confident that he would sooner gouge his own eyes out). I log into his facebook all the time... not to check his messages, but to creep his newsfeed when I'm bored. His friends are more interesting than mine. :p

Knuckles

on Jan 24, 2012 at 2:42 AM

All it takes is that one misread or misunderstood e-mail (or that one random time an ex or even a stranger writing out of the blue that they love you and miss you and that they really need you right now. Something you would normally read then delete, maybe have a laugh, no big deal) for a fight to start. No relationship is immune to undermining given the right circumstances.

atmartin06

on Jan 24, 2012 at 5:01 AM

My boyfriend and I have lived together for 7 yrs and we openly share our info with each other. We both leave our email signed in on the computer in separate browsers, so if either of us wanted to read the other's messages they would be able to...but we don't. If there is an email that concerns both of us, we talk about it. Other than that, we butt out of each other's private business because we trust each other. He does not have a Facebook account but mine is always signed in and he checks it often to see what our mutual friends are up to...again, no biggie to me. He rarely messages anybody or even clicks "like" on something, and it's not like I'm doing secret stuff on there. I don't see the big deal if you are in a long-term committed relationship. It would be different if it were a new relationship where that kind of trust had not yet been built.