How open or private is your marriage?

[Canuck Mormon]

Um, an open marriage also has other meanings in the world (and not good ones). Just sayin'.

My wife and I don't hide anything from each other, except around Christmas. We agree not to look at the credit card statement online until after all the gifts are open. That's it. In fact, sometimes I think my wife shares a few too many things with me!!

[NightSG]

Yup. I see this sharing stuff with a lot of couples in the ward. They all have these joint email addresses (at least that's what they provide to the ward. I have no idea if they also have separate emails). I don't understand it. I wouldn't want to wade through my husband's emails, nor would I want him to wade through mine.

You have a right to a private life, whether or not you are doing anything 'wrong.'

This, and the whole lack of trust thing. One of the things that doomed my marriage was my ex's idea that not only was everything to be shared between husband and wife, but that she was also free to share that beyond the marriage as she saw fit.

I had near strangers asking me about things that never should have left the bedroom. She had given out access information on accounts that were in my name only, and just generally made it to where hand delivery or a PGP signature (I never let her get my PGP passphrase, since regardless of my personal beliefs, a lot of the company and client data it protected wasn't mine to be careless with.) was the only way I could convince anybody that something really came from me.

Needless to say, after that, passwords were changed to stuff she would never guess, which she decided was solid evidence that I was hiding something important. I was, but only from her in the sense that that was the only way to hide it from the public in general.

Now, I wouldn't share information on anything that's solely in my name. If my next wife and I need to share an email address, bank account or whatever, we can get one in both names. I want people to be sure that when something says it comes from me, it does. When an old friend tells me something in confidence, it is their choice whether she finds out or not. It also provides plausible deniability if something happens and I know she doesn't have the access to have caused it.

[Vort]

An exception to intracouple openness and information sharing is where one spouse is in a Church leadership position that exposes them to private or confidential information. I realize this is rather obvious, but I thought it worth saying.

[Dravin]

An exception to intracouple openness and information sharing is where one spouse is in a Church leadership position that exposes them to private or confidential information. I realize this is rather obvious, but I thought it worth saying.

Another obvious one is vocational confidences.

[mrmarklin]

I don't have anything password protected, not even my phone, but I guess I really don't like anyone looking over my shoulder.

For a while my messages were synced with the wife, and it drove me nuts because she would sometimes reply to a message that was not for her.

Don't really have any deep dark secrets, but I do like my privacy.

[Suzie]

I have my own passwords, etc and my better half as well. It doesn't mean we are not "open" or "transparent". If needed, we access each other's computers, phones, etc but to be honest I personally do not feel the need to do so and I find it weird that any spouse would just be checking their spouse computer and phone or texts for no reason, that's a huge red flag that something isn't right IMO.

[NightSG]

I have my own passwords, etc and my better half as well. It doesn't mean we are not "open" or "transparent". If needed, we access each other's computers, phones, etc but to be honest I personally do not feel the need to do so and I find it weird that any spouse would just be checking their spouse computer and phone or texts for no reason, that's a huge red flag that something isn't right IMO.

Oh, that was after I changed the passwords. She would go through the phone bill calling every number that had called or been called by my cell phone, demanding an explanation as to why they were talking to me.

Classmates, professors, clients, wrong numbers, telemarketers, didn't matter to her. Did matter to a couple of clients that got 10PM phone calls from her.

The complete lack of proof of anything was, to her mind, absolute proof that I must have everything to hide, in order to be doing such a good job of hiding it. Really. Alex Jones would call her paranoid.

[NightSG]

[marshac]

We even have the same password on everything.

Same.... but only because I realized that she was WAY better at coming up with them than I was, so I just used hers on everything.

[mirkwood]

About the only thing my wife isn't allowed are my work passwords. I could lose certifications for that. However, she has but to ask and I will log onto anything work passworded to let her look if she wants to. Only BCI is off limits. She knows all my othere passwords. We don't share toothbrushes and I don't share drinks with anyone.

[Quin]

I was open.

He wasn't.

He still treats our divorce as if it should be

Meaning he clones my phone (waaaaaaaay too easy) & puts Keylogger viruses in emails he sends about custody issues so he can hack my accounts (grrrrr).

I'm meeting more & more people with techy-ex's

I met THREE this week in Seattle!

(Ugh. Microsoft land. Go figure)

Maybe someday the law will catch up.

Whoops. Back on target:

My parents (gazillion year marriage) are the same as my ex and I were when we were married (10+ years)

She's open.

He's not.

Like my ex & I... My dad has security clearance... My mom doesn't.

So his stuff has to be private / Ironkey'd, etc.

so THEIR stuff is done through my mom's.

Point being, that just because theirs an inequality in transparency doesn't mean the über-private person is a scum gurbling coprolite.

Q.

[MarginOfError]

An exception to intracouple openness and information sharing is where one spouse is in a Church leadership position that exposes them to private or confidential information. I realize this is rather obvious, but I thought it worth saying.

My spouse and I have never had a joint e-mail account, but we use different browsers on the computer and usually leave our e-mail and facebook accounts logged in. So either of us could look at the other's emails without much difficulty.

I became much more hesitant to give her my password when I was called as clerk. There was no complaint about it. One thing that really irks me about our current Elders Quorum president is that he and his spouse are a pair that firmly believe in shared everything. I won't ever send him anything in e-mail that has any need for discretion because it is almost guaranteed that his spouse would be guaranteed to see it.

Another obvious one is vocational confidences.

I never let anyone use my work computer for this reason. Allowing unauthorized access to the Protected Health Information available from my computer can result in fines as high as $50,000, probable loss of my job, and potentially jail time. If President Monson came to my house and declared that my temple recommend was dependent on my giving my work passwords to my spouse, I would hand him my temple recommend and wish him a good day.

[Guest]

An exception to intracouple openness and information sharing is where one spouse is in a Church leadership position that exposes them to private or confidential information. I realize this is rather obvious, but I thought it worth saying.

Another obvious one is vocational confidences.

I don't have anything password protected, not even my phone, but I guess I really don't like anyone looking over my shoulder.

For a while my messages were synced with the wife, and it drove me nuts because she would sometimes reply to a message that was not for her.

Don't really have any deep dark secrets, but I do like my privacy.

If I'm the spouse, why in the world would I demand confidential information of Church Members or clients or work passwords or even do a stupid thing like answer my husband's texts?

In addition to TRUST, there's such a thing as RESPECT.

So, the way my marriage works - it is only confidential because I wouldn't dream of prying the info from my husband. It's not that he wouldn't give it to me - he probably would if I ask of it - although, I can't think of any reason why I would. And vice versa.

[NightSG]

I never let anyone use my work computer for this reason. Allowing unauthorized access to the Protected Health Information available from my computer can result in fines as high as $50,000, probable loss of my job, and potentially jail time.

During my marriage I worked in a medical office, corporate security at a Fortune 100, and receiving (among other job duties) for a FedGov contractor. In all of those, my personal email was used from time to time as a backup for my work account, and occasionally time sensitive information was passed by voicemail or text message as well. If at any time, I had been called to testify about the security or privacy of any of the information I handled in any of those jobs, "Nobody else has my passwords except me, and they're not written down anywhere to be physically stolen" is a much easier answer than "you'll have to go through all this with my wife, too."

If a capable techie hacked my account, that's IT's problem. If I gave the password to someone who can't clear a paper jam without calling tech support, it's my (expensive, career ending, potentially convictable) problem.

Edited January 10, 2014 by NightSG

[Dravin]

If I'm the spouse, why in the world would I demand confidential information of Church Members or clients or work passwords or even do a stupid thing like answer my husband's texts?

Good question, why would you?

[Bini]

When I worked in nursing I had to deal with all the confidentiality mumbo jumbo as well. And right or wrong, I still found myself talking to my spouse about a particular situation or patient, not in full detail but enough that he knew what was going on. So yeh, I tell my spouse everything too. I guess it's a good thing I'm not a bishop or the president or whatever.

[MarginOfError]

When I worked in nursing I had to deal with all the confidentiality mumbo jumbo as well. And right or wrong, I still found myself talking to my spouse about a particular situation or patient, not in full detail but enough that he knew what was going on. So yeh, I tell my spouse everything too. I guess it's a good thing I'm not a bishop or the president or whatever.

It's possible to talk about a patient's medical issues without revealing PHI. Afterall, diagnoses are not PHI. I've talked to my spouse about patient issues before as well without revealing any PHI. The thing that is harder for me is remembering not to say, "Oh, I saw so-and-so from the ward at the hospital today." (for those that aren't versed in the intricacies of PHI, we can't legally even confirm or deny if a patient was treated at our facilities)

But that isn't really the problem with my computer. I don't do direct patient care. I do research, and so I sometimes have data sets on my computer that contain record numbers, names, addresses, birth dates, treatment dates, etc. These data sets can range from a handful to hundreds of thousands of patients. So I tend to be a little protective about how my computer is used and who gets to use it.

[Finrock]

I suppose I should clarify too (which I assumed initially to be obvious) that when I was ward clerk and ward executive secretary I never revealed (and will not in the future) private information I learned about others in the course of fulfilling my callings.

-Finrock

[NightSG]

It's possible to talk about a patient's medical issues without revealing PHI. Afterall, diagnoses are not PHI. I've talked to my spouse about patient issues before as well without revealing any PHI.

And this makes it even more important to protect the actual identity. For example, if you've been discussing patient X at length all week, and how that case has been taking up all your time, it's no stretch at all for someone to figure out that Mr Smith, who your coworker just texted you about an urgent but unidentified development with, is patient X.

[dahlia]

Oh, all this talk about emails reminded me... I had a professor who was called as a witness in another professor's tenure case. My prof had also attended grad school at this same location. He had emails from his time as a grad student all the way up to his present employment with the school.

The lawyers requested all of his emails with the professor bringing the suit. How do you produce them? You turn over all the emails, ALL, and let the legal staff sift out the relevant emails. Well, the university was one of the early adopters of email, and being well off and not seeing a need to dump old files to save storage back in the old days, had EVERY email this guy had ever sent over his entire relationship with the university. Emails to his wife, emails to colleagues, emails to the girlfriend : ), emails to students, his doctor, his dentist, his kids... you get the picture.

I understand that after this, the school developed some scheduled email deletion protocols. : )