I asked my WH for all his email accounts and passwords and I think it made him mad. He said cant I have any privacy anymore I said you never wanted it before the affair! Should I make him give them to me or should I not push right now? This is our third attempt to put our marriage back together and I dont want to push him away.But I dont want to be a fool again either. I dont think I can ever trust him again anyway.I feel that if he really wants this to work he would do all that is possible for me to heal and trust again. any advice?

Ask him what is more important, keeping his secret or keeping his M? If he gets mad, leave him be and head towards plan B.

R U finished with your plan A yet?

L.

If he needs privacy, he can go into the bathroom and lock the door. (Got that one from Melody). What he wants is SECRECY, which is different.

Stay in Plan A, and let him know that you really need transparency for the marriage to thrive.

I agree. He wants secrecy, not privacy.

"He who has nothing to hide, hides nothing."

Run that one by him.

People who have nothing to hide, don't hide. Don't ask for his email passwords anymore, just go put a secret keylogger on there and see for yourself what he is doing. He, apparently, has something to hide.

lady,

It's very helpful for those following your story if you keep your posts on one thread.....that way, nobody has to go and look for the information you've already revealed.

Here's a post I wrote about the difference between privacy and secrecy:

***********************

"Invasion of Secrecy"

“You’ve invaded my privacy” the wayward spouse says! “How could you read my email? How dare you look at my cell phone records. I’ll never be able to trust you again”.

[They] won’t be able to trust [You]!

On one level….it’s laughable WS babble. On the other hand, the BS often does feel guilt and regret about having to snoop. The WS uses those feelings to their advantage. But you haven’t invaded their privacy.

You’ve invaded their secrecy

And they don’t like it.

Married people are entitled to privacy....but not, but not secrecy.

The true concept of privacy never implies keeping secrets. In fact, just the opposite is true. What is divinely inspired and ripens in privacy, is later always opened up and shared with others. It is never meant to be hidden. Only dishonesty, lies, negative intentionality and destructiveness of one sort or another, need to be hidden from others. Nothing that is true and beautiful needs to be kept secret. Not ever.

The wayward spouse uses a simple truth: that we all need some privacy and creates real evil by using truth to cover a lie. What usually happens is that privacy is used to camouflage the intention of keeping secrets. In other words, secretive people will use the right and need for privacy to conceal that they really are keeping something secret.

Secrecy and privacy are not too difficult to distinguish from each other.

A rule of thumb to distinguish the two is to ask: is this fact about me important in this relationship at this time?

There’s a big difference between closing the door to the bathroom, and closing a window on the computer so your spouse can’t see your secrets. All secrets involve private information, but what makes them secrets is that the withheld personal information is important to actions in the relationship. It’s privacy if you ask your husband to hang up the phone extension when you’re chatting with a friend. It’s secrecy if you’re going to tell that friend personal things about your marriage.

Secrecy is a tool, which is commonly used in trying to escape consequences.

Secrets always hide something negative, that's why they're secrets.



Those who keep a secret fear the truth because they know they have no intention of changing.

They are dishonest because they know that others may react to what is hidden and they wish to avoid this.

Keeping secrets is finally….an emotional theft.

It helps us feel less vulnerable and usually stems from old baggage and shame.

It is cheating to secure a result that cannot or will not come about if the secret is disclosed. Keeping secrets also avoids the effort and responsibility of finding an equitable, honest solution in which others can participate.

Secrets are always antithetical to relationship, to intimacy, to real and fulfilling contact. Secretive people are never fulfilled emotionally. They keep a wall of separation between themselves and others and then wonder why the feel so alone and misunderstood. They often blame others for this state and use it to justify secretiveness, instead of doing the only valid and meaningful and intelligent thing: spill out all secrets and make themselves as transparent as possible.

So, next time they say you've invaded their privacy....tell them "No, everyone deserves privacy. I've invaded your secrecy!"

He has given me the password now but ask me not to read his jounals(he has his own laptop) because these are a way for him to talk about his feeling and try to heal.
he says that he feels like a big failure for what has happen in the past year and I would never forgive him I tell you what I dont think I could forgive is that he loved someone else more than me but gave her up because it was the right rhing to do Who wants love like that maybe if i read his journals I would find out the truth.Does any one have any advice? would you read it?

star fish do you mean always stay on this thread and dont start another one even if my questions have changed? or can you change the subject line? thanks for your help

LB:

I think the fact that he gave you the password is a good sign.

It may be best for you to not read the journal. After all, you wanted to ensure that he wasn't contacting anyone else, and wasn't that the point of the password? In addition, sometimes people put things down in a journal in the heat of the moment, and putting it on paper (or the computer), helps them to sort through their emotions, and doens't necessarily reflect the complete truth about the way they feel.