Sharing passwords

Over at double x, they think the question needs asking: Is Sharing Passwords With a Partner Ever a Good Idea? The answer seems to be yes but only sorta yes.

Snake knows all my passwords, she knows my PIN number (well I told her all my passwords and PIN numbers, whether she remembers them is another question), she can go into my e-mail, my closet, anything she wants. The only secret I keep from her is what her birthday and Christmas present is going to be. If it were any other way, we wouldn't really be married. As I sometimes say to young Catholics at marriage prep courses, If you don't trust this person with your money, passwords and PIN, you shouldn't marry them*.

Do we look in one another's E-mail? Yup. Our lives are so intertwined that it's often necessary for her to find information that is only in my e-mail and vice versa. Once I had someone who wanted to tell me something but only if I promised not to tell Snake. I said sorry and, oh by the way, we tell each other everything. I still remember the look on his face as the significance of that sunk in. (Truth be told, we only share the things that are interesting enough to bother.)

Not unrelated, I remember, back in the early days of HIV education, hearing an "expert" say that even husbands should wear condoms**. Her argument was that you can't be sure your spouse hasn't had sex with someone else. That's true; you can't be sure. But if you don't trust your spouse enough to take the chance, you aren't married. Same goes for money and passwords. No, I don't care if you have paperwork that proves otherwise. You aren't married; you are just pretending to be, playing the part.


* No being partners isn't the same as marrying. Do I think being partners is a bad idea? Yes I do. Sex before marriage strikes me as a minor concern if a concern at all but partnering is definitely a bad idea. It's not that it's a bad thing so much that it isn't anything at all. It's calvinball for couples.

** The old joke back when I was in university was "Sex with a condom is like eating a chocolate bar without removing the wrapper." I know, you aren't supposed to say that sort of thing these days even though it's absolutely true and everyone who has ever used one of those horrid things knows it is.