If you found out that your spouse had an email account you weren't aware of and it had email from the opposite sex would you worry?

Yes. If the spouse is trying to keep it secret, then they are doing something they think you won’t approve of.

@daloon: I don’t agree with that. Maybe it’s my account, and I’ve been emailing a man in California about a motorcycle that I’d love to get my husband for our anniversary. I don’t think my husband would disapprove of that (assuming he wants a motorcycle), but I sure don’t want him finding out about it.

Never assume the worst. Trust, people. Trust.

Personally I would never find out about this theoretical email address, because I would never snoop around on my partner’s computer. I’m not saying you did, but I find it highly hard to believe you lucked out and found out due to the partner’s carelessness, as its obvious for some reason they’ve chosen to separate this communication stream from others and would not easily leave around a printout of an email or whatnot. What they choose to do with their time is their business, same as what I choose to do is mine. There’s no rule against having more than one address, and there sure as stars isn’t a rule against a partner having opposite sex friends.

My husband said he created the account to get on fluther and try his comedic skills (he wants to try stand up). He told me his username but it’s not here. By the way, he left the page open on the itouch we share. If it’s innocent why hide it.

No. We’re young enough (and not married, but even if we were) that I assume he has a number of e-mail accounts I’m unaware of. And if he doesn’t, I definitely have some he doesn’t know about. We just grew up in a very e-mail age. I’ve got one for my LJ comments that I refuse to get rid of despite never posting in my LJ anymore, one for the character in my NaNoWriMo novel, one I used in college, one I use now, one from high school, one that was my “junk” address in middle school, another from college, and I might be forgetting some. Mostly they flow into my main address.

I know about two of his. I just assume he has more. E-mail from someone of the opposite sex? Well, there’s a 50–50 chance that if he has e-mail, it’s from one of them so… why worry?

I can relate a bit to your husband here – I have been on the net for a long time with a longstanding identity, but I rebranded myself when I started on Fluther with a new email address and new Flickr page not connected to my other identity. And I (a girl) have been talking and making friends with fellow male and female Flutherites. My male partner knows about the time I spend here that’s an understatement but he doesn’t really care much about it. He does his thing, I do mine.

From what you’ve said I would conclude there is nothing to fear. I don’t get the feeling he’s hiding anything, he’s just choosing not to disclose every detail of his life to you. Take him at his word, but if he’s said nothing to you directly about this issue then I wouldn’t bring it up with him. I mean, you have the right in the relationship to ask questions about anything, this included, but I don’t feel this is an issue you should force unless you truly think it starts being a problem in your relationship, it could be interpreted by your husband as an act of control or insecurity.

I would be a lot more concerned if I learned that my spouse had a post office box that they were not telling me about !

If your spouse were trying to arrange a present, or hang out on fluther, or have innocent correspondences with members of the opposite sex, there would be no need to keep the existence of the account a secret. You just wouldn’t share the password. The fact that someone keeps the existence of the account a secret suggests to me that they are doing something they don’t even want me to guess is going on. The list of such things seems small to me, and most of the items on it are probably not good for a relationship.

Trust is based on behavior and transparency. Secrets are reasonable grounds for a reevaluation of the motives of the other person. Perhaps I’m colored by personal experience. I set up such an account to make sure that none of the emails ever resided on my computer. As it turned out, I hardly needed to have bothered. I turned myself in, and she is not interested in reading through the correspondence (which she can, any time she wants). Reading it will be painful for her, so she’s protecting herself, and lord knows I don’t deserve this, but she trusts that I will tell her everything she should know.

Now not everyone behaves like me, but I do know a number of other people who are very careful to maintain secrecy because they are doing things they really don’t want their spouse to find out. Now, I agree that we should trust, but I think we should also verify. In any case, when I decide to trust, it’s because of the behavior of a person. I pretty much ignore anything they say about themselves with regard to trustworthiness. Famous last words: “you can trust me.” I’ll never turn my back on someone who says that. I have no problem with someone who lives that.

But it’s not a secret account. It’s an account someone isn’t aware of. I find they are extremely different things. My boyfriend, for instance, isn’t aware of my pre-college e-mail accounts because he’s never asked and I’ve never been like, “Man, EmperorPixie, let me tell you all the e-mail accounts I’ve ever had and still maintain just in case my grandparents forget I don’t use them anymore.” If an old friend contacted me on any of them I would surely write back, regardless of gender.

I feel like for something to be secret, there has to be the attempt to hide. Just because you aren’t aware of it, doesn’t mean they were hiding it from you.

It depends what “is” is.~

The only way to get to the bottom of it is to ask your spouse. And apologize for snooping (if that’s how you found it).

What’s great about this question is that it appears you just joined today to get to the bottom of this mystery. While I certainly hope it works out well for you and the hubby – at least we just gained another Jelly.

Fluther on.

Oh! I should have read your comment earlier! What’s his username? You can’t really search for them, so perhaps if you mention someone can point you to his profile.

I’d be more concerned with the content of the correspondence than the gender of the sender. Did you see what she wrote? Also, Empress is on to something. People spell things in weird ways when making user names…maybe that’s why you’re not finding him on here.

I asked my husband and he said he deleted his account. I have learned you can’t do this so now I am suspicious.

Hmmm, curiouser and curiouser.

Now. Now is the time to be suspicious. Yes.

He could have been banned from here if his humour wasn’t really humourous but he sure couldn’t have deleted his account… so this is now starting to smell real fishy.

It really goes to your relationship with him. Do you trust him? Are you honest with each other? Are you worried a lot that he is sneaking around behind your back? Sounds like time for a heart to heart talk!

Thank you everyone! We have been together for 17 years (married at the age of 21) with 3 children. I don’t want to be suspicious but actions speak louder, right? I keep calling him on this and he gets angry and said I need to trust him.

Banned? Possible, his humor can be quite offensive.

Yes, it violates your trust and your commitment to each other. Counseling.

Even if he was banned, his account would still be here. Check the “comments for you” section for a message from me, please.

of course he’s going to act and be angry. that’s his defense mechanism. “Let me throw a fit and get her to drop this subject.”

@jca: Very true.

I’ve used this tactic myself in the past (not proud of it).

“I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU’RE ACCUSING ME OF EATING THOSE COOKIES! HOW DARE YOU!”

Try checking his sent folder.

He insists he had his account deleted and said I either need to believe him or all of you.

You know what? We have these shiny, shiny founders who are active on the site. Ben and Andrew. You can PM one of them and see if they’ll tell you or you can believe your husband and walk away.

Either way, good luck.

[mod says] Accounts are not deleted but individual users can be banned. From what I understand, it would be onerous to have to scrub a users’ entire existence from the database (wow, that came out strange, almost like a movie plot). So, even banned users show up if you search for their usernames.

you could try asking him if he really had nothing bad going on, to show you what the woman wrote. if it was “comments for you” they’ll still be there. if you’re wrong and he’s right, be prepared to be humble and apologetic. if you do find something that is upsetting and shocking, be ready for your emotions.

don’t freak out just yet. just ask him about it, but not right now. ask him about it when you are at your happiest moments—when you are enjoying each other as friends and conversation is open and free-thinking.

allow the moment to be relaxed in nature. ask your question like a “what if” question. his initial (unspoken) reaction will be the answer, but you have to know how to discern the lie or the truth when he answers.

Oh dear. Are you telling him what we say in an effort to get him to confess? If so, that’s a bad move, I think. It works better if you stand behind your own beliefs, instead of invoking other people’s beliefs. We’re nothing. We only have opinions. We are not evidence.

I’m afraid this sounds like a very serious fight to me. You guys may be yelling, or not, but I suspect the tension runs deep. That’s what happens when trust is at stake. My therapist tells me that a lot of men refuse to come clean, and that if you don’t come clean, you can’t fix the relationship.

One other thing. He might have said fluther, but that might be to throw you off the scent. Could be another site that does similar things. Also, I doubt if the mods would ever reveal people’s names or their use of the site. First of all, it’s unethical, but second, they might have an obligation to keep information private.

If your intuition tells you he is screwing around, then he is screwing around.

I would be so enraged, that I would have to leave until I calmed down enough to talk to him about it. I would never trust him, because no matter what he said about it, it would be a lie. I would also know what was said in all the mails, and how often they sere sent and recieved. I would probably give him a black eye or two with my cast iron pan.

Hell hath no fury, and all that.

What is this nonsense with always assuming that communication with the forbidden “opposite sex” is bad?

Before I clicked on this question, I was thinking the same as Les. What if the email account was secret because of a present purchase, and the present was being purchased from a member of the opposite sex? You’d get “worried” about that?

it all comes down to the fact that he said he had the account to get on fluther and now his profile has supposedly been deleted. If it is all so innocent, why lie about a fluther account?

@jonsblond: Ask him what the username was, contact the mods, and see if they have deleted the account. What kind of correspondence was there from a female? Was it PnL telling him his fluther account had been deactivated? If so, I don’t think there’s much to worry about.

Are you sure it was a female? Some of the user names on here are very misleading. Some that I was sure would be female are male and vice versa.