I don't really think that he was planning on snooping on his girlfriend. Maybe some people here are forgetting that hindsight is 20/20. If you want to look at your girlfriend's profile on myspace, and she lets you log in with her crap for everything else, you're not gonna stop and say "WAIT! CRAP! I should make a new profile, request her as a friend, wait for her to accept, and then read it! She might be keeping her diary on this thing that she knows I can access at any time!" You're going to log in with the account you know the login details for (hers) and you're gonna check out her profile. If you notice a blog post, you might check it out. It doesn't say anywhere that it is a private entry except for at a little thing at the BOTTOM of the post.
Also, it's generally accepted, at least among all the myspaces I have ever seen, that very few people on myspace use the blog feature. Maybe 20%. Of that 20%, I would surmise that only 10-15% of them have private entries. So his girlfriend is one of the 2-3% of myspace users that keep private journals on there. It's not like he logged into her livejournal and checked her private entries directly or anything.
So before telling AbsoluteZero that he should have done something else, realize that the question was not about what he should have done. It is what he should do, because that is something he can do something about.
For that question, I would say that being (mostly) honest with her is good. Just explain that you were using her account to view her myspace profile, and accidentally got into the private journal entry. Apologize for this. Then, explain how you care for her and don't want to be detrimental to her life. Apologize for acting however you did to make her feel the way she expressed in the blog, and ask if there is anything you can do to make up for it. Lastly, tell her to please tell you if she ever feels like you are holding back, and that you will try to stop whatever you are doing.
I'm not guaranteeing that will work, but it's what I would do in your situation.
Thinking that someone is being overbearing isn't "big big problems". I think y'all are blowing this out of proportion. "Rage" was an especially poor reaction to reading that, frankly. Everyone gets frustrated in relationships sometimes.
On paper, I would agree.
However, I base my comment on a contextual analysis of what he said. For him it is clearly a problem (the aforementioned 'rage'). If it is a problem for him, it is most likely a problem for her as well... he wouldn't react that way if he actually thought she was just being flippant about her feelings.
In my opinion, there is a strong subtext that runs right through everything the OP has said, and its not a good one. Thats why I am treating it seriously.
Thinking that someone is being overbearing isn't "big big problems". I think y'all are blowing this out of proportion. "Rage" was an especially poor reaction to reading that, frankly. Everyone gets frustrated in relationships sometimes.
On paper, I would agree.
However, I base my comment on a contextual analysis of what he said. For him it is clearly a problem (the aforementioned 'rage'). If it is a problem for him, it is most likely a problem for her as well... he wouldn't react that way if he actually thought she was just being flippant about her feelings.
In my opinion, there is a strong subtext that runs right through everything the OP has said, and its not a good one. Thats why I am treating it seriously.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that 'strong subtext' is him being a controlling git. YMMV, but that's what I'm seeing.
I don't really think that he was planning on snooping on his girlfriend. Maybe some people here are forgetting that hindsight is 20/20. If you want to look at your girlfriend's profile on myspace, and she lets you log in with her crap for everything else, you're not gonna stop and say "WAIT! CRAP! I should make a new profile, request her as a friend, wait for her to accept, and then read it! She might be keeping her diary on this thing that she knows I can access at any time!" You're going to log in with the account you know the login details for (hers) and you're gonna check out her profile. If you notice a blog post, you might check it out. It doesn't say anywhere that it is a private entry except for at a little thing at the BOTTOM of the post.
sure, if you're an asshole. Look, I have a bunch of my bf's passwords (although I prefer to forget them as soon as I don't need them to do whatever). He has a bunch of mine. But I'd still never go near anything remotely private - diaries, random documents, pictures, whatever. Its called respecting your partner's privacy. Couples who don't do this are unhealthy. It inevitably goes bad when someone expresses perfectly normal frustrations in private and gets outed. I've seen it happen plenty of times.
I think this is a fine lesson in why you never, ever, no matter how piqued your curiosity gets, read your significant other's diary. I don't care if you've been together for thirty years--it's their innermost thoughts that they fully understand, but you do not.
For all you know, these are issues that've been going through her head that she had to put somewhere in order to gain some perspective. Maybe she wrote it all down, read it and said to herself "wow, I sound awfully silly." Maybe she really does think you're tying her down. Maybe she's working on the outline of a story. Who knows? People are weird with their diaries.
So now you're fucked. You went and betrayed that trust issue, and things are going to be weird with you, and she's going to smell it, and you're going to insist that everything is fine and it's not going to be and it will just cycle down into messiness.
I think you should sit down and have a chat. Ask her, where do you see yourself in this relationship? Are you happy? Can it be improved in any way, or are there lingering issues? And if she asks you why you're asking these questions, say you read an article about it on a plausibly-sounding website like Dr. Phil.com.
If she says everything is hunky dory, then take that at face value. Forget you ever read anything that might construe hopelessness in a diary, and vow to never read it again.
Thinking that someone is being overbearing isn't "big big problems". I think y'all are blowing this out of proportion. "Rage" was an especially poor reaction to reading that, frankly. Everyone gets frustrated in relationships sometimes.
On paper, I would agree.
However, I base my comment on a contextual analysis of what he said. For him it is clearly a problem (the aforementioned 'rage'). If it is a problem for him, it is most likely a problem for her as well... he wouldn't react that way if he actually thought she was just being flippant about her feelings.
In my opinion, there is a strong subtext that runs right through everything the OP has said, and its not a good one. Thats why I am treating it seriously.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that 'strong subtext' is him being a controlling git. YMMV, but that's what I'm seeing.
I don't really think that he was planning on snooping on his girlfriend. Maybe some people here are forgetting that hindsight is 20/20. If you want to look at your girlfriend's profile on myspace, and she lets you log in with her crap for everything else, you're not gonna stop and say "WAIT! CRAP! I should make a new profile, request her as a friend, wait for her to accept, and then read it! She might be keeping her diary on this thing that she knows I can access at any time!" You're going to log in with the account you know the login details for (hers) and you're gonna check out her profile. If you notice a blog post, you might check it out. It doesn't say anywhere that it is a private entry except for at a little thing at the BOTTOM of the post.
sure, if you're an asshole. Look, I have a bunch of my bf's passwords (although I prefer to forget them as soon as I don't need them to do whatever). He has a bunch of mine. But I'd still never go near anything remotely private - diaries, random documents, pictures, whatever. Its called respecting your partner's privacy. Couples who don't do this are unhealthy. It inevitably goes bad when someone expresses perfectly normal frustrations in private and gets outed. I've seen it happen plenty of times.
On the flip side of the coin, couple shouldn't have to hide things from each other. Esspecially ones in a five year relationship.
I don't really think that he was planning on snooping on his girlfriend. Maybe some people here are forgetting that hindsight is 20/20. If you want to look at your girlfriend's profile on myspace, and she lets you log in with her crap for everything else, you're not gonna stop and say "WAIT! CRAP! I should make a new profile, request her as a friend, wait for her to accept, and then read it! She might be keeping her diary on this thing that she knows I can access at any time!" You're going to log in with the account you know the login details for (hers) and you're gonna check out her profile. If you notice a blog post, you might check it out. It doesn't say anywhere that it is a private entry except for at a little thing at the BOTTOM of the post.
sure, if you're an asshole. Look, I have a bunch of my bf's passwords (although I prefer to forget them as soon as I don't need them to do whatever). He has a bunch of mine. But I'd still never go near anything remotely private - diaries, random documents, pictures, whatever. Its called respecting your partner's privacy. Couples who don't do this are unhealthy. It inevitably goes bad when someone expresses perfectly normal frustrations in private and gets outed. I've seen it happen plenty of times.
My point was that he wasn't trying to look through her personal crap. He was trying to look at her myspace profile. It's not his fault that she snuck in a personal thing that she apparently doesn't want other people to see on myspace. He just wanted to check out her profile. If she doesn't have a myspace URL, or if her profile is friends-only, this is very difficult to do without having a profile. If your boyfriend had an account for something that you wanted to access and you didn't, and you didn't think anything private would be on there, would you honestly say "Well... there's still that chance that he randomly put private stuff in there. Better safe than sorry"?
On the flip side of the coin, couple shouldn't have to hide things from each other. Esspecially ones in a five year relationship.
Who said anything about hiding? Everyone has their own private space that they put their innermost thoughts. If you think that relationships are about telling your partner every little thing that runs through your mind, then you are in for some failed relationships.
I think this is a fine lesson in why you never, ever, no matter how piqued your curiosity gets, read your significant other's diary. I don't care if you've been together for thirty years--it's their innermost thoughts that they fully understand, but you do not.
For all you know, these are issues that've been going through her head that she had to put somewhere in order to gain some perspective. Maybe she wrote it all down, read it and said to herself "wow, I sound awfully silly." Maybe she really does think you're tying her down. Maybe she's working on the outline of a story. Who knows? People are weird with their diaries.
So now you're fucked. You went and betrayed that trust issue, and things are going to be weird with you, and she's going to smell it, and you're going to insist that everything is fine and it's not going to be and it will just cycle down into messiness.
I think you should sit down and have a chat. Ask her, where do you see yourself in this relationship? Are you happy? Can it be improved in any way, or are there lingering issues? And if she asks you why you're asking these questions, say you read an article about it on a plausibly-sounding website like Dr. Phil.com.
If she says everything is hunky dory, then take that at face value. Forget you ever read anything that might construe hopelessness in a diary, and vow to never read it again.
Hey you, listen to this guy. Listen to Makershot. LISTEN.
sure, if you're an asshole. Look, I have a bunch of my bf's passwords (although I prefer to forget them as soon as I don't need them to do whatever). He has a bunch of mine. But I'd still never go near anything remotely private - diaries, random documents, pictures, whatever. Its called respecting your partner's privacy. Couples who don't do this are unhealthy. It inevitably goes bad when someone expresses perfectly normal frustrations in private and gets outed. I've seen it happen plenty of times.
Different people, different relationships. Some couples are perfectly fine with putting their nose in each other's private business. I don't think it's necessarily unhealthy either. Again, it depends on the person. I personally didn't mind my ex's to go through my private stuff at all. That's me. Maybe there is something between the OP and his GF that is similar to that (it's common for that sort of trust to develop in the course of 5 years).
Look, the thing is, if you expect something to stay private, as a matter of common sense you don't give other people access to it. It's not as if her GF had a private online entry and he hacked the code to break in. It's true that the entry was set to private, but that's a measure to prevent other people from seeing it (and we know that those "other people" don't include the OP, considering he doesn't have an account of his own).
Besides, the OP said he normally stays out of whatever his GF writes in her blogs, and he just got curious this one time. So what? We know that this isn't something he regularly does.
I think you guys are making a big deal out of him reading her stuff.
On the flip side of the coin, couple shouldn't have to hide things from each other. Esspecially ones in a five year relationship.
you, my friend, are in for some harsh lessons.
Matthias: no, he wanted to read the page. not just the profile.
I was under the assumption that page = profile. When someone tells me "Check out my myspace page", I go look at their profile. I don't go look through the profile, pictures, blog entries, and comments - "page" and "profile" are pretty much one and the same in my myspace terminology book.
I'm not saying that the end result was okay - I'm just saying that it was an accident. The OP explicitly shows that he didn't even KNOW it was a private entry until halfway through the thread, and yet a lot of people are still saying he was just trying to snoop through his girlfriend's personal, private side.
On the flip side of the coin, couple shouldn't have to hide things from each other. Esspecially ones in a five year relationship.
you, my friend, are in for some harsh lessons.
Matthias: no, he wanted to read the page. not just the profile.
I was under the assumption that page = profile. When someone tells me "Check out my myspace page", I go look at their profile. I don't go look through the profile, pictures, blog entries, and comments - "page" and "profile" are pretty much one and the same in my myspace terminology book.
I'm not saying that the end result was okay - I'm just saying that it was an accident. The OP explicitly shows that he didn't even KNOW it was a private entry until halfway through the thread, and yet a lot of people are still saying he was just trying to snoop through his girlfriend's personal, private side.
Well the initial point of the thread was that he thought his girlfriend was violating his trust. She isn't. Accidently, he did.
One thing I forgot to mention about having a chat with her like I suggested: if she does say everything's cool, don't blow it and ask "are you surrrrre there's nothing going on?" If you have doubts, don't ask a question that's obviously fishing for a particular answer. Keep it neutral and light.
I don't think the term is "hide things" from one another. More of a "if you don't ask, I won't tell," kinda situation.
It's not the same as hiding things... mostly, it's that some things just aren't necessarily anyone's business but your own.
If there is healthy trust in the relationship, then yes, privacy should be respected. I think both partners have to recognize that there are lines, and especially talk about where those lines are.
If there isn't trust in the relationship for whatever reason, such as one person caught in a lie and the couple is now trying to rebuild that trust, then no, there are no rights to privacy. All bets are off. If you want someone to trust you again, you need to prove that you can be trusted. That's just how I see it.
You could say that if there's no trust, there's no relationship, but honestly, isn't it all too easy to slip up and making a little mistake that eventually gets blown out of proportion? The lie itself may not have even been that bad, but to the partner, depending on his/her personality, it could be viewed as a "significant" problem in the relationship.
And you don't do something and expect no consequences. The consequences to lying (and getting caught in it) are: break up, or give up your own "right to privacy" in an effort to re-establish the trust.
I only know because I myself was caught in a lie with my current boyfriend. Tack on the long distance aspect of the relationship and it gets tedious. Tack on the fact that he is, really, utterly overbearing and absolutely has to know about everything about me to be comfortable and be able to manage the distance?
Oh, it's no fun. But we know what we're like together and we accept these sacrifices now to keep us going until the distance closes.
But. That was a BIT of a tangent.
Bottom line: trust has to be earned. Yes, you can expect someone to trust you right off the bat... just don't expect them to be overly excited about it if you betray that trust.
And in closing, the MySpace is public. Everyone can see it. Even if AZero tells his girlfriend that he doesn't look at it, she has to know he's going to get curious and check it out at some point... either that or she's extremely naive.
Did he solemnly swear to her that he'd never read it? No, I don't think so.
I hardly ever check my own boyfriend's MySpace because I don't care... but I do still check it from time to time, just out of curiosity.
As it is... better he saw it for himself rather than a mutual friend stumble across it and tap him on the shoulder and go, "Yo, dude, your chick's talking smack about you to everyone."
Thinking that someone is being overbearing isn't "big big problems". I think y'all are blowing this out of proportion. "Rage" was an especially poor reaction to reading that, frankly. Everyone gets frustrated in relationships sometimes.
On paper, I would agree.
However, I base my comment on a contextual analysis of what he said. For him it is clearly a problem (the aforementioned 'rage'). If it is a problem for him, it is most likely a problem for her as well... he wouldn't react that way if he actually thought she was just being flippant about her feelings.
In my opinion, there is a strong subtext that runs right through everything the OP has said, and its not a good one. Thats why I am treating it seriously.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that 'strong subtext' is him being a controlling git. YMMV, but that's what I'm seeing.
That may be the case... but I am working on the assumption that he wants to keep the relationship, so I am suggesting that he alter his current modus operendi in order to achieve that.
That may involve him loosening his grip... only he knows for sure.
Basically I am attempting to give non-judgemental, bias free advice in the hope that that might enlighten him as to his next course of action. I think turning the guns on him (while perhaps justified in an objective sense) probably won't help him in any significant way and might just cause him to retreat, which I think is a bad outcome for any H/A board which professes to help those in need... no matter how flawed they may be.
But enough of that... straying in D&D type stuff...
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Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
Thinking that someone is being overbearing isn't "big big problems". I think y'all are blowing this out of proportion. "Rage" was an especially poor reaction to reading that, frankly. Everyone gets frustrated in relationships sometimes.
On paper, I would agree.
However, I base my comment on a contextual analysis of what he said. For him it is clearly a problem (the aforementioned 'rage'). If it is a problem for him, it is most likely a problem for her as well... he wouldn't react that way if he actually thought she was just being flippant about her feelings.
In my opinion, there is a strong subtext that runs right through everything the OP has said, and its not a good one. Thats why I am treating it seriously.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that 'strong subtext' is him being a controlling git. YMMV, but that's what I'm seeing.
I don't really think that he was planning on snooping on his girlfriend. Maybe some people here are forgetting that hindsight is 20/20. If you want to look at your girlfriend's profile on myspace, and she lets you log in with her crap for everything else, you're not gonna stop and say "WAIT! CRAP! I should make a new profile, request her as a friend, wait for her to accept, and then read it! She might be keeping her diary on this thing that she knows I can access at any time!" You're going to log in with the account you know the login details for (hers) and you're gonna check out her profile. If you notice a blog post, you might check it out. It doesn't say anywhere that it is a private entry except for at a little thing at the BOTTOM of the post.
sure, if you're an asshole. Look, I have a bunch of my bf's passwords (although I prefer to forget them as soon as I don't need them to do whatever). He has a bunch of mine. But I'd still never go near anything remotely private - diaries, random documents, pictures, whatever. Its called respecting your partner's privacy. Couples who don't do this are unhealthy. It inevitably goes bad when someone expresses perfectly normal frustrations in private and gets outed. I've seen it happen plenty of times.
]
To be honest I don't know exactly how myspace works, but is there an auto login feature? I use it at penny-arcade cause I'm confident no one will god I don't know post pictures of me naked or something, could OP's girlfriend do the same thing?
I mean to be honest if I was his girlfriend I'd be pissed, not because it was private but because he didn't ask. Couples should be open with each other, but people shouldn't snoop, it was an accidentlal snoop but a snoop none the less.
Thinking that someone is being overbearing isn't "big big problems". I think y'all are blowing this out of proportion. "Rage" was an especially poor reaction to reading that, frankly. Everyone gets frustrated in relationships sometimes.
On paper, I would agree.
However, I base my comment on a contextual analysis of what he said. For him it is clearly a problem (the aforementioned 'rage'). If it is a problem for him, it is most likely a problem for her as well... he wouldn't react that way if he actually thought she was just being flippant about her feelings.
In my opinion, there is a strong subtext that runs right through everything the OP has said, and its not a good one. Thats why I am treating it seriously.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that 'strong subtext' is him being a controlling git. YMMV, but that's what I'm seeing.
I don't really think that he was planning on snooping on his girlfriend. Maybe some people here are forgetting that hindsight is 20/20. If you want to look at your girlfriend's profile on myspace, and she lets you log in with her crap for everything else, you're not gonna stop and say "WAIT! CRAP! I should make a new profile, request her as a friend, wait for her to accept, and then read it! She might be keeping her diary on this thing that she knows I can access at any time!" You're going to log in with the account you know the login details for (hers) and you're gonna check out her profile. If you notice a blog post, you might check it out. It doesn't say anywhere that it is a private entry except for at a little thing at the BOTTOM of the post.
sure, if you're an asshole. Look, I have a bunch of my bf's passwords (although I prefer to forget them as soon as I don't need them to do whatever). He has a bunch of mine. But I'd still never go near anything remotely private - diaries, random documents, pictures, whatever. Its called respecting your partner's privacy. Couples who don't do this are unhealthy. It inevitably goes bad when someone expresses perfectly normal frustrations in private and gets outed. I've seen it happen plenty of times.
Hey. Chill out Cat. I don't appreciate you publicly insinuating that I am a controlling asshole. Especially when you don't know me in the least.
In my OP, I was pissed off because at that point it as far as I knew that was a public post. I thought she was airing out to the entire internet and all of her friends these things that she can't even say to my face. THAT pissed me off.
It wasn't until later, when I checked it again to see if maybe when I read it the first time I took what she wrote the wrong way, that I noticed it was set to PRIVATE. It isn't glaringly obvious or anything. So step the fuck off with your judgmental attitude. I came here for help and advice, not for you to be a prick. If you have nothing to say that isn't help or advice, you probably shouldn't be posting.
ANYWAYS
Last night I talked to my girlfriend. I didn't tell her that I read her myspace blog. I asked her if she felt I held her back from doing things she would like to do. She said "well... sometimes." I explained to her that I want her to do whatever it takes for her to be happy, she's an adult and she's free to do whatever she pleases and I will always love her no matter what choices she makes so long as they aren't destructive or immoral. I told her that when she asks me my opinion about tattoos and piercings and the like, that is exactly what I give her, my opinion and nothing else, I am not forbidding her to do anything. She would tell me if she thought something I wanted to do to my body would look dumb (and she has), and that's all I'm doing with her.
That seemed to make her happy as she got a big smile and gave me a big hug. I guess we'll see where things go from here.
Hey, guys, I wasn't snooping. I just didn't feel like creating a new account to look at fucking myspace, so I just used hers. Between us that really isn't stepping over any lines. If it was, we wouldn't know eachothers' passwords for just about everything.
I didn't realize it was a private blog until AFTER I read it.
Tough shit, that's exactly what you should have done. You know the site can function as a diary, everyone does. Its not the same as a flickr account, or something
What you're doing here is making judgemental statements that carry no help or advice. Please restrict your remarks to those phrased in such a manner that they may be more clearly construed as constructive remarks intended to assist the thread creator, rather than solely as an expression of disapproval or criticism.
Pheezer on
IT'S GOT ME REACHING IN MY POCKET IT'S GOT ME FORKING OVER CASH
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Thinking that someone is being overbearing isn't "big big problems". I think y'all are blowing this out of proportion. "Rage" was an especially poor reaction to reading that, frankly. Everyone gets frustrated in relationships sometimes.
On paper, I would agree.
However, I base my comment on a contextual analysis of what he said. For him it is clearly a problem (the aforementioned 'rage'). If it is a problem for him, it is most likely a problem for her as well... he wouldn't react that way if he actually thought she was just being flippant about her feelings.
In my opinion, there is a strong subtext that runs right through everything the OP has said, and its not a good one. Thats why I am treating it seriously.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that 'strong subtext' is him being a controlling git. YMMV, but that's what I'm seeing.
Again, this isn't a helpful remark. It's a direct attack and it's not appropriate in this forum. Please stay out of this forum if you cannot obey the rules of it.
Pheezer on
IT'S GOT ME REACHING IN MY POCKET IT'S GOT ME FORKING OVER CASH
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
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Also, it's generally accepted, at least among all the myspaces I have ever seen, that very few people on myspace use the blog feature. Maybe 20%. Of that 20%, I would surmise that only 10-15% of them have private entries. So his girlfriend is one of the 2-3% of myspace users that keep private journals on there. It's not like he logged into her livejournal and checked her private entries directly or anything.
So before telling AbsoluteZero that he should have done something else, realize that the question was not about what he should have done. It is what he should do, because that is something he can do something about.
For that question, I would say that being (mostly) honest with her is good. Just explain that you were using her account to view her myspace profile, and accidentally got into the private journal entry. Apologize for this. Then, explain how you care for her and don't want to be detrimental to her life. Apologize for acting however you did to make her feel the way she expressed in the blog, and ask if there is anything you can do to make up for it. Lastly, tell her to please tell you if she ever feels like you are holding back, and that you will try to stop whatever you are doing.
I'm not guaranteeing that will work, but it's what I would do in your situation.
https://medium.com/@alascii
On paper, I would agree.
However, I base my comment on a contextual analysis of what he said. For him it is clearly a problem (the aforementioned 'rage'). If it is a problem for him, it is most likely a problem for her as well... he wouldn't react that way if he actually thought she was just being flippant about her feelings.
In my opinion, there is a strong subtext that runs right through everything the OP has said, and its not a good one. Thats why I am treating it seriously.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that 'strong subtext' is him being a controlling git. YMMV, but that's what I'm seeing.
sure, if you're an asshole. Look, I have a bunch of my bf's passwords (although I prefer to forget them as soon as I don't need them to do whatever). He has a bunch of mine. But I'd still never go near anything remotely private - diaries, random documents, pictures, whatever. Its called respecting your partner's privacy. Couples who don't do this are unhealthy. It inevitably goes bad when someone expresses perfectly normal frustrations in private and gets outed. I've seen it happen plenty of times.
For all you know, these are issues that've been going through her head that she had to put somewhere in order to gain some perspective. Maybe she wrote it all down, read it and said to herself "wow, I sound awfully silly." Maybe she really does think you're tying her down. Maybe she's working on the outline of a story. Who knows? People are weird with their diaries.
So now you're fucked. You went and betrayed that trust issue, and things are going to be weird with you, and she's going to smell it, and you're going to insist that everything is fine and it's not going to be and it will just cycle down into messiness.
I think you should sit down and have a chat. Ask her, where do you see yourself in this relationship? Are you happy? Can it be improved in any way, or are there lingering issues? And if she asks you why you're asking these questions, say you read an article about it on a plausibly-sounding website like Dr. Phil.com.
If she says everything is hunky dory, then take that at face value. Forget you ever read anything that might construe hopelessness in a diary, and vow to never read it again.
On the flip side of the coin, couple shouldn't have to hide things from each other. Esspecially ones in a five year relationship.
My point was that he wasn't trying to look through her personal crap. He was trying to look at her myspace profile. It's not his fault that she snuck in a personal thing that she apparently doesn't want other people to see on myspace. He just wanted to check out her profile. If she doesn't have a myspace URL, or if her profile is friends-only, this is very difficult to do without having a profile. If your boyfriend had an account for something that you wanted to access and you didn't, and you didn't think anything private would be on there, would you honestly say "Well... there's still that chance that he randomly put private stuff in there. Better safe than sorry"?
Hey you, listen to this guy. Listen to Makershot. LISTEN.
https://medium.com/@alascii
you, my friend, are in for some harsh lessons.
Matthias: no, he wanted to read the page. not just the profile.
Different people, different relationships. Some couples are perfectly fine with putting their nose in each other's private business. I don't think it's necessarily unhealthy either. Again, it depends on the person. I personally didn't mind my ex's to go through my private stuff at all. That's me. Maybe there is something between the OP and his GF that is similar to that (it's common for that sort of trust to develop in the course of 5 years).
Look, the thing is, if you expect something to stay private, as a matter of common sense you don't give other people access to it. It's not as if her GF had a private online entry and he hacked the code to break in. It's true that the entry was set to private, but that's a measure to prevent other people from seeing it (and we know that those "other people" don't include the OP, considering he doesn't have an account of his own).
Besides, the OP said he normally stays out of whatever his GF writes in her blogs, and he just got curious this one time. So what? We know that this isn't something he regularly does.
I think you guys are making a big deal out of him reading her stuff.
I was under the assumption that page = profile. When someone tells me "Check out my myspace page", I go look at their profile. I don't go look through the profile, pictures, blog entries, and comments - "page" and "profile" are pretty much one and the same in my myspace terminology book.
I'm not saying that the end result was okay - I'm just saying that it was an accident. The OP explicitly shows that he didn't even KNOW it was a private entry until halfway through the thread, and yet a lot of people are still saying he was just trying to snoop through his girlfriend's personal, private side.
Well the initial point of the thread was that he thought his girlfriend was violating his trust. She isn't. Accidently, he did.
https://medium.com/@alascii
It's not the same as hiding things... mostly, it's that some things just aren't necessarily anyone's business but your own.
If there is healthy trust in the relationship, then yes, privacy should be respected. I think both partners have to recognize that there are lines, and especially talk about where those lines are.
If there isn't trust in the relationship for whatever reason, such as one person caught in a lie and the couple is now trying to rebuild that trust, then no, there are no rights to privacy. All bets are off. If you want someone to trust you again, you need to prove that you can be trusted. That's just how I see it.
You could say that if there's no trust, there's no relationship, but honestly, isn't it all too easy to slip up and making a little mistake that eventually gets blown out of proportion? The lie itself may not have even been that bad, but to the partner, depending on his/her personality, it could be viewed as a "significant" problem in the relationship.
And you don't do something and expect no consequences. The consequences to lying (and getting caught in it) are: break up, or give up your own "right to privacy" in an effort to re-establish the trust.
I only know because I myself was caught in a lie with my current boyfriend. Tack on the long distance aspect of the relationship and it gets tedious. Tack on the fact that he is, really, utterly overbearing and absolutely has to know about everything about me to be comfortable and be able to manage the distance?
Oh, it's no fun. But we know what we're like together and we accept these sacrifices now to keep us going until the distance closes.
But. That was a BIT of a tangent.
Bottom line: trust has to be earned. Yes, you can expect someone to trust you right off the bat... just don't expect them to be overly excited about it if you betray that trust.
And in closing, the MySpace is public. Everyone can see it. Even if AZero tells his girlfriend that he doesn't look at it, she has to know he's going to get curious and check it out at some point... either that or she's extremely naive.
Did he solemnly swear to her that he'd never read it? No, I don't think so.
I hardly ever check my own boyfriend's MySpace because I don't care... but I do still check it from time to time, just out of curiosity.
As it is... better he saw it for himself rather than a mutual friend stumble across it and tap him on the shoulder and go, "Yo, dude, your chick's talking smack about you to everyone."
That may be the case... but I am working on the assumption that he wants to keep the relationship, so I am suggesting that he alter his current modus operendi in order to achieve that.
That may involve him loosening his grip... only he knows for sure.
Basically I am attempting to give non-judgemental, bias free advice in the hope that that might enlighten him as to his next course of action. I think turning the guns on him (while perhaps justified in an objective sense) probably won't help him in any significant way and might just cause him to retreat, which I think is a bad outcome for any H/A board which professes to help those in need... no matter how flawed they may be.
But enough of that... straying in D&D type stuff...
To be honest I don't know exactly how myspace works, but is there an auto login feature? I use it at penny-arcade cause I'm confident no one will god I don't know post pictures of me naked or something, could OP's girlfriend do the same thing?
I mean to be honest if I was his girlfriend I'd be pissed, not because it was private but because he didn't ask. Couples should be open with each other, but people shouldn't snoop, it was an accidentlal snoop but a snoop none the less.
Satans..... hints.....
Hey. Chill out Cat. I don't appreciate you publicly insinuating that I am a controlling asshole. Especially when you don't know me in the least.
In my OP, I was pissed off because at that point it as far as I knew that was a public post. I thought she was airing out to the entire internet and all of her friends these things that she can't even say to my face. THAT pissed me off.
It wasn't until later, when I checked it again to see if maybe when I read it the first time I took what she wrote the wrong way, that I noticed it was set to PRIVATE. It isn't glaringly obvious or anything. So step the fuck off with your judgmental attitude. I came here for help and advice, not for you to be a prick. If you have nothing to say that isn't help or advice, you probably shouldn't be posting.
ANYWAYS
Last night I talked to my girlfriend. I didn't tell her that I read her myspace blog. I asked her if she felt I held her back from doing things she would like to do. She said "well... sometimes." I explained to her that I want her to do whatever it takes for her to be happy, she's an adult and she's free to do whatever she pleases and I will always love her no matter what choices she makes so long as they aren't destructive or immoral. I told her that when she asks me my opinion about tattoos and piercings and the like, that is exactly what I give her, my opinion and nothing else, I am not forbidding her to do anything. She would tell me if she thought something I wanted to do to my body would look dumb (and she has), and that's all I'm doing with her.
That seemed to make her happy as she got a big smile and gave me a big hug. I guess we'll see where things go from here.
Thanks for the help, everyone.
Just make sure you're more careful about this kind of stuff later on.
edit: I was reminded of the Mel Gibson movie "what women think" and how he always says the things they want to hear.
What you're doing here is making judgemental statements that carry no help or advice. Please restrict your remarks to those phrased in such a manner that they may be more clearly construed as constructive remarks intended to assist the thread creator, rather than solely as an expression of disapproval or criticism.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Again, this isn't a helpful remark. It's a direct attack and it's not appropriate in this forum. Please stay out of this forum if you cannot obey the rules of it.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH