They told me the first year of marriage would be a tricky one...

February 2, 2013 10:05 PM

This is a question for those of you who are married (or have an SO): When it comes to things like personal correspondence, is there still such a thing as privacy?

My wife and I have a very open relationship, in the sense that we have few if any secrets from each other. We dated in high school (23 years ago), and got married last year after reuniting during a time when I was convalescent in the hospital. Over the past year, we've developed a deep trust and respect for one's beliefs and opinions.

One area where we have been found to differ, however, is the mail. I've always been of the mindset that if something comes to our home that is not addressed to me, I do not open it without permission. My wife has told me that she is fine with me opening her mail, but I often leave it be - out of courtesy, if nothing else.

My mail, on the other hand, is always opened when I get home from work. Whether it's a letter or a package, I find that she has opened it and looked at (or read) it before putting it aside for me to see. This bothers me, because it strikes me as discourteous. To be clear - I am not trying to hide anything from her. I am simply asking her to extend me the same courtesy that I am giving her, by respecting her privacy in this regard.

My question, then, is twofold: Am I being overly protective of my privacy, given the nature of our relationship? Or is she overstepping the bounds of courtesy?

posted by Telpethoron to human relations (65 answers total)

I don't know where you live, but it's illegal to open another person's mail here in Canada. So that is what occurred to me first. If you gave her permission, that's another thing. But I would never open another person's mail without their permission. Even when I was married or cohabitating, I would phone and ask for permission, even if it was an important package or document we'd been waiting for. Your wife might have grown up with different expectations. However, you've told her what you're okay with and she isn't listening. So it seems like a boundary violation to me. I wouldn't be okay with it either. If she won't listen when you sit down and explain that this is important to you, I would perhaps suggest couples counselling, as I'm concerned about the potential for further boundary violations.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 10:10 PM on February 2 [8 favorites]

I'm on your side for the reasons you've outlined.

Additionally, I think that the sender has the reasonable expectation that you, the recipient, will be the first and/or only person reading it...so I also think your wife is being discourteous to the person who has mailed you correspondence.

I would be...annoyed if I sent a personal letter to one half of a couple and later learned that the other half opened and read it.
posted by lalex at 10:11 PM on February 2 [42 favorites]

In my marriage, that would not be ok. Unless it were from the bank or a utility company and is really for both of us.

I would be upset if my spouse opened a parcel from someone sending me something personal. Part of the joy of receiving a parcel, or mail, is seeing who it is from and guessing what it might be. That kind of spoils the micro-surprise.

Also...what if it were a surprise for her?!!

I would ask her to stop opening personal items and say "Have at it with the bills, but if you open it, you pay it."
posted by taff at 10:14 PM on February 2 [10 favorites]

I would never open something addressed to my husband unless it was obviously for us both, like a bill. And I would be very weirded out if he opened anything addressed to me except for ditto.

(That said, I guess if I saw anything interesting or unusual, I'd ask him about it once he opened it, and be weirded out if he didn't tell me what it was.)
posted by fingersandtoes at 10:15 PM on February 2 [6 favorites]

Tell her exactly as you described it here (though you could start by asking her if she could help you with something, and then asking her if she would mind stacking mail addressed to you in X location so you can deal with it and not opening it first), and she should be fine with it.

Anecdata - I open parcels addressed to me and generic mail addressed to both myself and Mr. Arnicae, because I know he gets overwhelmed by the volume of junk he receives. I wouldn't open his packages without him asking me to because it is fun to open boxes and that would be depriving him of fun. I do however dispose of generic mail addressed to him after reading through it because otherwise we end up with a lot of mail.

Also: we only arrived at this solution after several years together, during which his mail would build up and overflow the "landing pad", be relocated to the table, get divided and dropped partially on side table and desk, until there was a flood of Mr. Arnicae mail. I asked him how he wanted to better handle the mail, our solution is there is a garbage can receptacle by the door, when I feel like checking it out for him, I do it, when I'm not in the mood, it gets added to the pile and we always clean it out 1x monthly.
posted by arnicae at 10:18 PM on February 2

I am just like your wife; I sometimes open my husband's mail. I would be 100% fine with him opening my mail, too. I do this because 99% of the time, if I didn't open the piece of mail, it would never get opened or dealt with. He just doesn't do mail unless he's expecting something. However, you don't say whether you've asked your wife not to do this. If my husband asked me not to open his mail, I wouldn't. I wouldn't be weirded out or anything, I just would ask that he be sure to deal with his own mail in a timely manner so that it doesn't build up and/or we don't miss important due dates/deadline. (On preview, we get packages at work and therefore I don't open that sort of stuff... mostly just junk mail or CC statements.)

Talk to your wife, not the internets. Trust me, this is probably a 1 or a 2 on the scale of Serious Marriage Discussions.
posted by two lights above the sea at 10:22 PM on February 2 [8 favorites]

I trust my husband but I know that he doesn't like it when I open his mail so I (generally ...) don't. I think this is a very individual thing to a couple, though. I've listened to Dan Savage and I think he's said that he and his husband have each other's email passwords and he has looked at his husband's email. My husband has my email password but more so because I worry that I will totally forget it someday and be SOL.

If it bothers you, it's reasonable to ask her not to do it and reasonable to expect her not to do it. But it sounds like it's not a huge deal for you so I'd leave it alone.
posted by kat518 at 10:24 PM on February 2

Two Lights: I have, in fact, asked her to leave my mail without opening it. Her response was basically along the lines of "it's no big deal."
posted by Telpethoron at 10:26 PM on February 2

Totally not okay. We even discussed this ten years ago at the beginning of the relationship, and both of us (fortunately) felt the same. Never open each others mail, except at the specific request. It's almost a sacred thing with us. We often DO direct each other to open certain mail, but the point is ... it's with permission per item.

That said, if she hasn't listened thus far, I don't know how to put it across. Hubby and I feel the way we do because we both had persons in our past that had no respect for our privacy in this and many other ways. I suspect this is not the only intrusion, but it's the one that bothers you most.

Please tell her it is a big deal to you, not because you want to hide anything, and (if you want) go so far as to say she can read anything you get after you open it yourself.
posted by batikrose at 10:29 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]

Oh well, then definitely have another chat with her! Let me think... perhaps you can spin it just like email? There's a privacy expectation there, and just like with email, she should trust you to (a) not use email to abuse her trust (of course), and (b) to take care of any thing that comes your way that would impact the household/marriage/her (such as missing a bill, etc). Be clear that it is a big deal to you, and ask her to treat the physical mail with the same expectation of privacy that she affords you with email and other private correspondence. I think that's 100% reasonable. Best of luck!
posted by two lights above the sea at 10:34 PM on February 2

Uhh, what. Yeah, you should tell her this is important to you and it is a big deal to you. It's a big deal to me. If someone were opening my mail, I would tell them that it made me feel suffocated and more secretive, and yeah, makes it really difficult to order surprises and presents in the mail. I'm not sure exactly how to express this need for personal space, but feeling like someone else was going through my correspondence before I even got to it would make me feel like a child again.
posted by stoneandstar at 10:34 PM on February 2 [15 favorites]

I am mostly in charge of mail in my marriage, as we only have one PO key, and I carry it. That said, unless it's clearly something that's for both of us (some of our utility bills are in his name) I don't touch his mail except by direct request, and vice versa.

I really wouldn't care if he started opening my mail (nothing to hide) BUT I would care a lot if I asked him not to and he did anyway. That's the heart of the issue here, I think.
posted by charmcityblues at 10:37 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]

Not ok. It's disrespectful of your privacy and directly disrespectful of your clearly expressed wishes. Just because she would not be bothered by you opening her mail doesn't mean she gets to apply her own preferences to you.

I also agree that if I sent a personal letter to a married friend and found out that their spouse opened and read it, I'd be pissed off something fierce. Being married doesn't eliminate a spouse's right to a sphere of privacy.
posted by quince at 10:40 PM on February 2 [35 favorites]

I think it's a problem that you're making a reasonable request (please don't open my mail) and she's dismissing it.

On the one hand, privacy is important for everyone, even within couples who have differing preferences. But it's also just important that couples be able to take each other seriously when one person makes a request of the other. It's fine to disagree and talk things out. It's not fine to say, "It's no big deal."

I used to open my husband's mail so that I could tell him, "Your book on such-and-such came" or whatever, but he asked me not to because he likes to open his own mail. So I stopped opening his mail. I do not care one bit if he opens my mail, and I don't think either of us thinks of the postal mail as a super private thing (whereas email is much more personal and private, and neither of us reads the other's email without explicit permission). I think the way he phrased it helped--he said something like, "I really like opening my own mail, so can you please just set packages and letters aside for me? It's a fun thing that I look forward to." This phrasing helped me to see it as his preference and not as a big serious talk about my disrespecting his privacy. Maybe try a similar approach with your wife?

If after further conversations, she's still dismissive, I think it's time to have a talk along the lines of, "I tried to request something based on my personal preference, and you dismissed it out of hand. I need for you to take my feelings and preferences seriously, even if we disagree." She doesn't have to agree that leaving your mail alone is a super important privacy issue. She just has to hear your request and respond in a loving way--whether that's a deeper conversation or just an, "OK, clearly this matters to you, so I'll do it even though I think it's silly."
posted by Meg_Murry at 10:40 PM on February 2 [23 favorites]

I think she's probably saying it's not a big deal as shorthand for lots of things: she doesn't understand, doesn't want to be blamed for non-shared concerns she couldn't have known about, and if possible would prefer not to establish boundaries between you on minor things--stuff like that.

So, "Honey, I get that it's not big to you, and I'm not saying you have to be a mind-reader or you did anything wrong or that I want lots of firm boundaries or any of that. But even if it's a small deal, it's something to me, and I'm grateful if you can respect that we're different in small but reasonable ways that we should each accommodate for the other."
posted by Monsieur Caution at 10:45 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]

People are piling on, so I'll add this: Frequently I have discussions with my husband and they don't end on a place where I'm necessarily comfortable... and same for him. It's totally ok to feel like you need to go back to a discussion and clarify or even change your feelings on something. We're human and we can suck at communicating our wants and needs at times, and we can certainly suck at being told we're doing something the other person doesn't like. Give her the benefit of the doubt here; it's possible she just misunderstood the original conversation or was having a defensive reaction to your request. Go back to it, leave your frustration aside, and be calm and reasonable about what you want/don't want her to do.

(Some of this is veering into more general marital advice... When we got past the year mark we celebrated that we'd made the first year, which basically means we're invincible now. I can't stress enough how wonderful marriage counseling can be early on in the marriage. My husband and I have learned some amazing skills in counseling that have made our marriage really, really strong and resilient. I encourage you (and anyone else) to try it! Best of luck!)
posted by two lights above the sea at 10:49 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]

I'm the wife, I open all the mail. No one thinks it is weird. My husband doesn't mind at all.

I also think this is not a hill to die on.


To clarify: all of our finances are joint, I open packages (ebay, amazon), bills and any letters of unknown origin. I have not and would never open "personal" mail (cards, gift packages) because that would spoil my husband's surprise!

I never ever feel the need to snoop through his wallet, phone or laptap, or anything like that. I open the mail as a matter of taking care of our shared life.

My husband enjoys a ridiculous amount of privacy, actually. We laugh about this sometimes, even! But the mail? Pfffft.

Whatever gets delievered, it all effects our family/household, and we're not in the habit of keeping secrets, so the mail is a non-issue.

I think you should let this one go. Marriage is a for the long haul. This just isn't that important on the scale of things you will deal with as time goes by.


And the first time your wife reminds you to pay that bill/parking ticket/renewal fee because she read and remembered the letter after you've completely forgotten about it? Yeah, that's one of the perks of enjoying a marriage and integrated home vs. simply having a roommate. Trust me.
posted by jbenben at 10:51 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]

Upon preview....

Like your wife, I really really do not see the big deal.

If my husband objected, I would probably need him to explain his position to me a few times before I changed my habits.

Talk to her again.

If she's like me on this issue, she means you no harm. She's likely missing that to you (and many others, apparently!!) this is a serious privacy issue.
posted by jbenben at 11:04 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]

I dunno. I guess I don't care about the mail because it's the last place where I'd want or need any privacy. It's stuff that is shared (specially with merged finances): catalogs, junk mail, parking tickets, bank statements. I don't share email passwords and I have my phone and computer password-protected. Not that I have anything to hide, of course (and I should stress that), but I'd probably react the same as you if my wife insisted on having access to that stuff. The areas in which people insist on privacy just differ. Is there any such area for her that you can say, "You know how you don't want me to be able to get into your ______? That's what the mail is like for me."
posted by supercres at 11:05 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]

It's also a reflection upon you to people outside your marriage. For most personal communication avenues, people contacting you assume that what they are telling you is for your eyes only (or at least initially). If she were to stumble on information that someone else didn't want her to have... well, they might consider it your fault and it would have negative consequences for you.
posted by supercres at 11:08 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]

Married 38 years. I, like your wife, don't care if my husband opens my mail. But he never does. And I never open his mail except for bills, since I pay them, even though they're addressed to him. We both feel that it is respectful to let personal correspondence be opened by the addressee.
posted by Lynsey at 11:11 PM on February 2

I'd talk to her again. The fact that she's blowing you off with "Its not a big deal" when you've asked her to leave your mail alone is the bigger issue, I think.
posted by wolfgirl at 11:12 PM on February 2 [25 favorites]

Wife here. I never open the husband's mail, sometimes if he's expecting a letter or package and something arrives I'll call and get permission to open it to tell him if its the thing he ordered. He says I can open anything of his but I prefer to ask out of courtesy.

I wouldn't care at all if he opened my mail. I'd be a bit pissed off if he opened a birthday card or something that was obviously a gift. But I have nothing to hide, and if he felt the need to do that I'd definitely be worried I was doing something to provoke anxiety and would work with him to sort that out.

I don't know. My parents open each others mail and will open my mail if I get anything sent to their house. They just don't see family stuff as this big secret private thing. I think as a default I don't do this, myself. But the only time I've ever had a live-in partner be all 'OMG NEVVVER OPEN MY MAIL THAT IS SO SACRED DO NOT DEFILE MY TRUST' he was using it to write love letters to (many!!) other women, and have their replies delivered to my door. (I know. What an old romantic!). He was also using it to get other dodgy stuff into the house without my knowledge. To be honest when people get all defensive about this I wonder what it is that's so important for their partner not to see. The whole point of being married is to share your life with someone, it is not a 'having a lifelong housemate' setup. So in this respect I can understand your wife opening your post.

BUT. I am not your wife and your comfort is your comfort. If you can have another (calm, not high-octane I'VE GOT SO MUCH TO HIDE FROM YOU) chat explaining why you're not happy with it, I think it might reinforce that you're serious about this and it's about courtesy to each other as partners.
posted by everydayanewday at 11:37 PM on February 2

Not ok.
posted by ead at 11:42 PM on February 2

Asking your spouse not to open your private mail is a perfectly reasonable boundary, and it's one that's obviously shared by many, many couples. (It's also clear that not ALL couples maintain it, and that's fine for them, but the point is that this is a common, normal, healthy boundary and you are in no way unreasonable to ask for it.)

But, for me, it's not so much that your wife opens your mail as it is that she actively dismisses your boundaries about the mail that's the needle-scratching-the-record moment. She doesn't get to decide for you what is and is not a "big deal" in terms of your privacy. The fact that this not a big deal for her is fine for her, but that does not cancel out that it is a big deal for you. You are allowed to have different boundaries and preferences than she does, and the healthiest relationships are, in my experience, the ones that make room for these differences to coexist.

I would bring this up again as a clearly Not OK thing.
posted by scody at 11:51 PM on February 2 [45 favorites]

I always open any mail that comes to our house, its "our" mail regardless of who its addressed to. The exception of course is anything that is something that maybe a birthday card or something else "special". If he didn't want me to open mail addressed to him, I'd find that very odd. I mean, for one, it'd add another step to things like bills, financial/filiing stuff, whatever. Its our system, doesn't mean it has to be yours.

Your marriage and your quirks are your's to define. (I would back off on saying that you are doing her a courtesy of not opening her mail because she is clearly not framing the mail issue as a courtesy issue, meaning its not a courtesy to her if she doesn't think it is.)
posted by stormygrey at 11:57 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]

It doesn't really matter if the consensus here is "okay", "not okay", or "somewhat okay". It's a not unreasonable thing to ask, and you are entitled to ask for things in relationships whether they are "normal" or not.

I like the phrasing up above, "it's something I look forward to" - that captures why I like opening my own mail, especially if it's presents or things I've bought. I couldn't give a shit about letters from the bank or bills, or even my magazine/paper subscriptions - those are open season.
posted by smoke at 12:18 AM on February 3 [6 favorites]

What other people think of this doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, it's you and your wife that have to come to the agreement about who opens what, not you, your wife and the rest of the internet.

People telling you that it's not a big deal is kinda silly, I think. It's a big deal to you how your mail gets handled, and that's OK, irrespective of what others think of it. Other people's opinions might be right for them, but they don't have the right to force those opinions on you. Being autonomous is part of being an adult.

You need to revisit the conversation with your wife, and ask her why she thinks that it's OK to open someone else's mail. If it's simply "no big deal", then she shouldn't really have a problem NOT opening your mail, as it's not something that she feels strongly about. If it is something she feels strongly about, then maybe she could explain it to you, to set your mind at rest? Would you feel OK showing her all of your mail after you've opened it? Of course, your mail is your property, and you get to say what happens to it.

Personally, I would be seriously pissed off by this - someone else deciding that they get to decide what levels of privacy I have is a big red flag to me. For the most part, it's nobody else's business, and for the small part of it which is related to someone else, there has to be a level of trust that you will TELL the other person.
posted by Solomon at 12:49 AM on February 3 [5 favorites]

I would never open a significant other's mail unless it was a shared household expense and I'm the person responsible for paying bills. Privacy has always been very important in my family and this attitude has followed me into every relationship I've ever had. To this day my father hands my mother her purse when he needs something and he parcels the daily mail according to the addressee. I think it helps that they're both very open about what they're getting in the mail; my dad will open the electric bill and announce the total due, or my mom will open a Zappo's box and show her new sandals to him. There's never a sense of secret-keeping--just mutual respect.
posted by xyzzy at 1:00 AM on February 3

Agree that the mail issue isn't the problem, it's the way your wife is just blowing you off. That's just plain rude.
posted by BlueHorse at 1:56 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]

In 45+ years on this planet I've never opened another person's mail - SO or otherwise - without being asked specifically to do so. It would never occur to me that that would be an okay thing to do. I'd also be seriously upset if I'd asked someone NOT to open my mail and they continued to do so ESPECIALLY if it was my SO.
posted by hapax_legomenon at 2:12 AM on February 3 [6 favorites]

Hi, I'm your wife! Well, not really, though my household works like yours in terms of mail. My husband does not open my mail but I do open his. If it's a personal (hand-addressed) letter, I try not to but I am a madly nosey and curious person. I have actually phoned him at work to ask if I could open a specific piece of mail when I knew it really was personal but wanted to know what it said anyway.

Possibly relevant: I have no privacy boundaries myself. My husband can open my mail, go through my drawers and read my email. (So could you, for that matter, if you really wanted to. It wouldn't bother me.) I also don't really understand people who are not like this, though I accept people are different than I am and, when they are not my husband, attempt to behave as if I get these boundaries when I totally do not.

Also possibly relevant: I grew up in a house where not opening the mail - bills, IRS correspondence - led to Bad Things like lights being turned off and wage garnishment. I have a compelling drive to open All the Things so I feel in control against Bad Things.

I do not believe my husband has ever asked me not to open mail addressed to him, but were he to do so it would be a struggle. I would do my best to comply but just so you know, the pile (even small) of unopened post would cause me anxiety.

Perhaps something in the above will be useful to you and your wife as you discuss this again. I wish you luck sorting this out.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:24 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]

An important concept in marriage is to respect each other's point of view as highly as you respect each other.

If that concept isn't enough, try repackaging (heh) into something she understands.
Let her know that she's spoiling the momentary anticipation you experience opening personal "good mail".
posted by mightshould at 3:05 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]

Everyone is expected to a reasonable level of privacy which they define. You've stated yours and been ignored on this.

It's both a serious privacy issue, and a respect (asking for something reasonable and being ignored) issues. I wouldn't go as far as to say this is definitely a relationship ender, but if you ask her again - and you should point out that you are asking again - and it's again ignored, then this is a serious problem. At that point, appropriate marriage counselling would seem wise.

As you both go through life, issues such as serious medical problems, finances, pensions, dealing with each others families (the in-laws), wills and so forth will test your privacy and boundaries. This does need to be fixed. Now.
posted by Wordshore at 4:09 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]

It is absolutely, unqualifiably wrong to open another person's mail without their permission. It should be perfectly obvious why. This is one of those moral issues where there is no grey area.
posted by Decani at 4:21 AM on February 3 [6 favorites]

My husband and I have different comfort levels around mail and email. I don't share my password with anyone. He routinely asks me to open up his inbox. On the other hand, he guards the privacy of physical mail very closely. I'm fine with it being opened unless it's personal. So, I open only bills, bank statements, and such, if they are addressed to him.

The earlier replies saying you need to make clear that this is an important boundary to you make the most sense to me. Perhaps you can find a compromise on particular types of mail that would be ok for your wife to open? Beyond that, I don't think you should let anyone else tell you how you SHOULD feel about her opening your mail. If it bothers you, it bothers you.
posted by bardophile at 5:01 AM on February 3

Wow, no way do you open another person's mail. I don't even open my *kids'* mail (with the exception of college-fund statements, EOBs and the like). There are few simple, small joys that compare with opening a box from amazon or an envelope that's not a monthly statement.

The fact that you have specifically asked her not to open your mail and she's dismissed your request as no big deal is a HUGE RED FLAG. Your reasons for wanting to open your own mail are irrelevant. Maybe it's just part of your routine when you get home from work: put the keys on the hook, hang up your jacket, put on a cardigan and slippers, read the mail. It's your mail. She can sit at the table with you and watch you open each envelope if she wants, but it's yours to open.
posted by headnsouth at 5:09 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]

To be clear - I am not trying to hide anything from her. I am simply asking her to extend me the same courtesy that I am giving her, by respecting her privacy in this regard.

I'm not married, so hopefully you won't discount my answer, but what your wife and some of the responses here don't seem to realize is that it's not you who might be hiding something, and it's not (only) your privacy she's violating when she opens your mail. If I sent a personal letter to a married friend (which, granted, I haven't done in years because of email) and found out her husband had just opened it and read it?! I'd be furious. Being married is not a license to be disrespectful to everyone your spouse knows.
posted by DestinationUnknown at 5:18 AM on February 3 [5 favorites]

Personal mail I leave alone if addressed to my husband. Bills, notifications, stuff like that that may be addressed to him but affect us both, I go ahead and open, and call him if he needs to know what is in it immediately.

But it doesn't matter what we think. What matters is your wishes on this matter, and I am shocked she won't respect your request. You can tell her I said so!
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 5:30 AM on February 3

It seems to me that all of those who do open their spouse/SO's mail are doing it with knowledge and okay, which is not the case here. I think that if you asked your wife to not do this and she continues to do it, that's something you need to re-address with her. I personally get hardly any mail and my SO are usually sitting next to each other when we open things anyway, but I wouldn't appreciate him opening my mail for me (and nor would be). I dont think I'd consider it a major violation of my privacy, but I feel like if it's indeed "no big deal" then NOT doing it should actually be simpler than continuing to do it.

I do understand that there are those that want and need that level of sharing and transparency, for whatever reason, but those would likely not be people for me. However, if I was otherwise really happy with said person, I don't know how much I'd push on this one. There are worse ways to be discourteous to one's partner that I take more seriously than opening my mail.
posted by sm1tten at 6:41 AM on February 3

I don't think this is either a huge breach of privacy or a thing that is considered the norm in a marriage. When I first got married, we drew a distinct line on the mail. His was his; mine was mine. Now that we've been together for a long time, things are looser. I open most of the mail. I set things aside for my husband that are personal, his interest or unknown with his name on it. Occasionally a piece comes in and I'll see if he wants me to open it -- something that has a check for deposit, official correspondence that has his name but looks like something I will be dealing with, etc. Amazon boxes, Christmas cards and presents from his family (whether for us or our kid), he gets to open that because it's fun! If I opened something and he got upset, I'd apologize. Sometimes that happens and it's no big deal. But, it's super rude to just dismiss your concerns. Just because you are married, doesn't mean you have to abandon all markers of individuality. Opening and dealing with your own mail is one of those things. It's a pretty minor request and one that could be easily accommodated.
posted by amanda at 6:56 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]

If it's "no big deal," then it should be no big deal for her to knock it off, right? Duh.

If you're doing something that you know bothers your spouse, you better have a damn good, easily articulated reason.

And yeah, you don't open other people's mail. Maybe some couples do, but it's not like you're asking for something that's bafflingly unusual.
posted by Metroid Baby at 7:03 AM on February 3 [3 favorites]

Never had this issue with my wife, she always put my mail aside for me to open when I got home. (Not that there was much of anything to arouse curiosity, pretty much all bills all the time and seldom any mysterious scented envelopes addressed in feminine handwriting and sealed with lipstick. Vanishingly seldom, to speak the absolute truth.) If there was anything that looked like it might be screamingly important (certified mail, etc.) she called and said "Do you want me to open this?" If she had gotten into the habit of just opening my mail it would have seemed a bit of a trespass to me and I would have asked her not to.

But. If she made it clear that it was important to her and that she would feel that I was excluding her from an important part of my life if I said she could not, I would have withdrawn from this area of personal privacy at once and in as good order as I could. My mail would have gone from territory occupied by me to territory occupied by us.

As I said, I never ran into this particular issue. But there were, especially early on, many other areas of my privacy that went from single to double occupancy, and many of hers also. I am not at all saying that my/our way is the right way or that everybody else should do it like us, just that this way exists and can work out. YMMV.
posted by jfuller at 7:18 AM on February 3

As you can see, there are a range of emotions people have about the idea of someone else opening their mail. Me, I'm having a sense of unease and violation just thinking about someone else reading my personal correspondence. I'm thinking both about mail sent to me that is just for me, and about mail I've sent to other people that is just for them, and I'm having a really angry reaction to people who say that they would read those things without my consent or approval. Honestly, if I think about it long enough, I get sort of a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, feeling out of control and upset. But that's my reaction, and I'm not objectively right, and other people who say that it doesn't bother them are not wrong.

The mail isn't the problem. It's a symptom of a problem. The real problem is that your wife (and possibly you, too, based on the framing of your question) believes that there is a right answer to this question about boundaries, and that she has it and you don't, and therefore she can keep doing what she's doing because you're just wrong about it. This is not a question that has a right answer; this is a question that has different ways it makes people feel. And you and your wife both need to learn to negotiate and respect one another in situations where you don't have the same feelings. And that's how you should frame it to your wife when you talk about it again and when you tell her that it may not be a big deal to her, but it is a big deal to you, and you need for her to hear you and respect you on this.
posted by decathecting at 7:20 AM on February 3 [3 favorites]

This is your preference, not any hard and fast rule. Ask for what you want.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:48 AM on February 3

I have, in fact, asked her to leave my mail without opening it. Her response was basically along the lines of "it's no big deal."

If it's really no big deal then she should have no trouble at all respecting your perfectly reasonable desire to open your own mail. What she may well have trouble doing is changing her present habit of opening everything. Habit is strong stuff, and it may well be that she's already slit everything open before remembering that you'd asked her not to, or even before she's looked at the addresses on the front.

It will probably be counter-productive for you to make a big deal out of this. Just use the broken record technique: every time you find a piece of your mail already opened, draw it to her attention and say "Could you please leave mail addressed to me unopened, so I can open it myself? Thanks."

Deliver the request using exactly the same words and in exactly the same calm and reasonable tone every single time, as if every time you ask is the first time you've ever asked; remind yourself that what you're doing is a deliberate, specific technique and that becoming and/or sounding exasperated will undermine it. Might take two repeats, might take two hundred, but if this truly isn't a big deal for her then the repeated request will eventually sink in.

In fact, if she says "it's no big deal" you should respond "Oh, good. Thanks!" which acknowledges her position without letting her off the hook of your reasonable expectation.

One of the keys to keeping a good marriage good is to go out of your way not to find malice in those things your spouse does that drive you up the wall. Always start from a position of assuming good faith and shared human fallibility.
posted by flabdablet at 7:58 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]

I like to send little cards and presents to my friends regardless of their married status. If I found out that one of my friends' spouses were opening their cards and gifts, I'd be furious and it would make me think very badly of that person's spouse.

However, I wouldn't mind at all if they showed the things to their spouse afterward or opened then with their spouse there. Why? Because I go to a lot of effort to make packages that are fun to open and filled with tiny surprises as the package is unwrapped. I'm building that experience for my friend, not for someone who just happens to live in their house.

You've made a perfectly reasonable request of your wife & she has no right to discount it. It's astonishingly rude, not only to you, but to everyone who sends you things in the mail.
posted by winna at 8:15 AM on February 3

The only times I open my husband's mail: 1.) When he has specifically asked me to do so (as in, "I am waiting for X fragile package -- please open right away when it comes it to make sure it came in once piece"), or 2.) When it's a piece of mail that is addressed to him but that I know for a fact is really meant for both of us / the household (like a utility bill or something), or 3.) When it's something that I recognize as very, very urgent and I know that he will not be able to get to it in a timely fashion because he is at work or out of town.

My husband does not open my mail outside of those circumstances either.

Since asking her to respect your privacy apparently hasn't worked, because she apparently does not have the same privacy boundaries that you do, maybe you could try adding other reasons. You could say that you really enjoy opening your own mail-- it's like opening a present or something! (That's how I feel about my mail, as long as it's not junk or a bill.) Or you could try emphasizing the angle that you do not want her to accidentally open something that may be a surprise for her.

I think she really does need to back down on this, though. If she keeps refusing to get it, ask her whether she would be okay with you reading all of her email and listening in on her phone conversations, too.
posted by BlueJae at 8:16 AM on February 3

Well, I've been married for 13 years and I don't think I keep any secrets from my husband. But I would never open his personal mail without explicit permission, and I would expect the same from him. I open routine things like bills or pay stubs, since I'm the one that handles the finances. But anything personal, or anything that looks unfamiliar, will always wait until he comes home (or he calls and tells me to open it after I mention it to him).

I agree with others that say the disturbing thing about your case is that she knows this bothers you, but yet she continues to do it because she doesn't have a problem with it. She is not respecting your (very reasonable) wishes.
posted by barnoley at 8:18 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]

You should write your feelings out in a letter and mail it to yourself.
posted by Lucinda at 8:38 AM on February 3 [22 favorites]

My question, then, is twofold: Am I being overly protective of my privacy, given the nature of our relationship? Or is she overstepping the bounds of courtesy?

Is this about privacy for you, or that you feel it is discourteous? Just curious, it might help to figure out exactly why you don't like this behavior. For me (and I imagine a lot of people), physical mail is rare nowadays so I get a little bit of excitement out of opening my mail and I would feel like my husband was "stealing" my fun if he opened my mail (besides dumb things like bills). Whatever the reason, no, you are not being unreasonable about wanting to open your own mail, and yes, she is overstepping, especially because you've already asked.
posted by coupdefoudre at 8:45 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]

It's not so much a question of "courtesy" in general as that she is blithely disregarding a strong preference you have expressed. She doesn't get to say that your strong preferences are "no big deal".

I would keep restating the preference, and if she didn't stop disregarding it, I would be concerned.

(Married almost 13 years.)
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:00 AM on February 3

ask her whether she would be okay with you reading all of her email and listening in on her phone conversations, too.

Plenty of couples do have joint email accounts and joint Facebook accounts, and in many cases it is not considered out of bounds for the spouse to join in on the conversation on the phone and/or listen to voicemails sent to the other spouse.

This is entirely about personal preference and personal style for the couple. My only surprise is that I just would have expected that a couple who married relatively late in life after years of living on their own would both be more apt to have stricter boundaries about these things.
posted by deanc at 10:00 AM on February 3

Just another vote for "good grief, no, your spouse should not be opening your mail without your permission". Privacy isn't even really the issue here, IMO, so much as boundaries (a must in any healthy relationship, no matter how close) and respect. By saying "it's no big deal" and continuing to open your stuff, she is disregarding your preferences and violating your boundaries in a manner that you absolutely are right to feel strange/uncomfortable about.

My concern would be that this tendency on her part doesn't stop at mail-opening, and that she needs to get a handle on whatever it is is causing her to feel like she can step all over/ignore boundaries. In other words, I definitely wouldn't "let this go". My SO and I have been together for 13 years and the only time I ever open "his" mail is when it's clearly junk mail that has been building up. And even then I generally ask, "hey, is it okay if I shred this random credit card offer with your name on it?".
posted by aecorwin at 10:25 AM on February 3

Assuming for the sake of the question that you celebrate Christmas, would it be ok to open someone else's wrapped gift? Because part of the fun of receiving a gift or getting an unexpected letter (not a routine bill) is the anticipation of wondering what's inside before you open it.
posted by ambrosia at 10:56 AM on February 3

Privacy is one thing, but lack of control is an even bigger one, and having your perfectly reasonable request brushed off is very troubling.
posted by odinsdream at 11:09 AM on February 3

deanc, she is opening all of his mail without permission. I really don't think she would appreciate him listening to all of her phone conversations without permission. That's different from joining in on a conversation when you've been asked to. Just like how opening mail you've been asked not to open is different from opening mail that you know your spouse would want you to open.

I am aware of the joint email thing but it's my understanding that among net-savvy people under 45 or so, having a joint email address is generally considered at best quaintly old fashioned among older couples, and at worst creepy among younger ones (not to mention unprofessional, if you use that account at all for work).

I personally also find the idea of someone in my family opening all my paper mail without asking first creepy, but I know there's a wider range of opinion on that. It would also be unprofessional in my case to let my husband open all of my paper mail, since I work from home and therefore get a fair amount of professional correspondence sent to my home address. You may want to try making that case as well, OP, if it applies to you. I do some work under confidentiality agreements and my clients would be really annoyed if they discovered my husband was reading all of their messages to me.
posted by BlueJae at 11:16 AM on February 3

I agree with so many people above that the problem isn't that she's opening the mail (I open all the mail in the Corpse household), but that she's doing something you've asked her not to do. Have you asked her why she does it? Nosiness? Fear? Habit? Is she in charge of all the paperwork and bills?
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:42 PM on February 3

Hmm, tough call on this one. In general, I consider myself something of a privacy freak - I go out of my way to avoid giving out personal information to stores/companies, I only use relatively anonymous accounts online (MeFi, by virtue of requiring a CC payment to create an account, probably has more information about me than any other single website).

That said, my SO of some 15ish years (not technically married) and I open each other's mail without a second thought. Usually I open it all, because I pick it up from the box in the morning on the way in to work, open it during lunch, and throw 99% of it away right at work. On those occasions when she gets to the mail first, she opens it all (though she won't sort it into garbage-or-not, she sorts it into personal-or-not and I basically end up still taking it to work the next day to go through at lunch). No big deal really.

However, she has never asked me not to open her mail. If she did, I would leave hers aside unopened, without question. So it seems like something of a red flag here that your wife actually ignores your request not to open your mail.

Not to sound too paranoid here, but personally, I would take her actions as showing a distinct lack of trust. Me, I would poke that with a great big stick and see if I could really antagonize her about it (for example, by very obviously getting a PO box), but then, I wouldn't stay with a partner who distrusts me in the first place. ;)
posted by pla at 12:59 PM on February 3

I know sometimes my partner or I get defensive about little things like this. "Please don't open my mail" gets taken as an attack or a claim that her expectations are 'wrong' - so she starts arguing with you over whether it's normal/OK for a married couple to read each other's mail, saying "It's not a big deal" - which to me reads as, "normal people are fine with this, I'm not doing anything wrong". I can't say, not seeing you interact, whether you're being accusatory or outraged and pushing her to be defensive, or whether it's just her own insecurities coming out ("I am too an adequate homemaker!").

As you see here, it's both normal to read each other's mail, and normal not to read each other's mail. But in order to communicate on issues like this it's critical to get around the defensiveness / generalization, and start working to take your own relationship choices as their own thing, based on your specific relationship and your individual preferences and personalities and histories. It's hard! It'll come up in a thousand other ways. You both had expectations you didn't even know about based on what you saw 'normal' couples do, and now you have to break away from that and make your own life together. Good luck.
posted by Lady Li at 1:58 PM on February 3 [4 favorites]

in order to communicate on issues like this it's critical to get around the defensiveness / generalization

Absolutely true, and this is why the broken-record technique works as well as it does.

If she does experience a defensive reaction to being asked not to open your mail, then this is in fact a big deal for her regardless of how much she wishes it were not, and giving her time to notice, internally acknowledge and process that is the least unhelpful thing you can possibly do for it. Turning a defensive reaction, even a completely unreasonable one, into an on-the-spot back-and-forth argument rarely gets anything resolved.

On the other hand, you won't ever see change you quite reasonably want to see if you act as if provoking a defensive reaction is necessarily cruel or unfair. Consistent, persistent and calm restatement of your boundaries will, in a good marriage, always get the job done eventually.
posted by flabdablet at 2:38 PM on February 3 [2 favorites]

Did you live together before you got married? My husband and I lived together for a couple years before we were married and so we still maintain the mail opening habits we had then - when things were still separate, except bills and even though bills may be addressed to one or the other of us, we know what they are, so either one of us opens them. Same goes for junk mail like credit card offers that get opened and shredded no matter whose name they are in.

I wonder if having set such habits before they were married is the difference between people that have answered this question in different ways.
posted by echo0720 at 5:00 PM on February 3

As others have said -that it is her blowing off your request that is the issue. I would explain to her, again, that even though it's not important to her, it is important to you and to please accept your request. If she continues to ignore you, I'd open a PO Box.
posted by deborah at 10:29 PM on February 3

To answer some of the questions that have appeared upthread:

This is not so much a privacy issue as a courtesy issue. As I said earlier, I am not in any way trying to hide anything from her.

Echo0720: No, we didn't live together prior to getting married. We had separate homes up to that point.

The corpse in the library: Yes, she does handle the bill paying, for the most part. She writes out the checks for any bills such as utilities that we don't pay online, and I take them to the post office (which is where I work).

She and I had a discussion on this very issue last night as I was coming home from work. I explained to her that it was not so much about privacy as courtesy - that I wanted to be able to open my own packages instead of having them opened for me. She was reluctant, but agreed to set my personal packages aside for me to deal with. I think, at this point, that we've managed to achieve a reasonable compromise. I want to thank everyone for their responses - it's things like this that make Metafilter such a great place.
posted by Telpethoron at 4:29 AM on February 4 [4 favorites]

Glad you were able to work it out. I just wanted to give you a quick description of where I think your wife is coming from, in the hopes that you might feel better about the whole thing. Because I, like your wife, would open my SO's mail without a second though. Here's why: because nothing important or private ever comes to me in the mail. In fact, 95% of the mail I recieve is garbage - credit card offers and the like, all of which are in plain white envelopes that you have to open in order to find out that you need to toss them. So if I open my girlfriend's mail, it's more out of courtesy than anything else. Because most of the time, I'm going to find garbage inside the envelope, and then I can throw it out for her. Handing her an unopened envelope when she gets home is, 95% of the time, akin to saying to her, in the word of the late Mitch Hedberg, "here, you throw this out."

All that said, I'd obviously stop opening her mail if she asked me to. Which it sounds like your wife has done as well, so everything worked out.
posted by Ragged Richard at 11:22 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]