What to do with his email password

November 2nd, 2008

This is from Sean in Alberta:

ICE CREAM SQUAD, I don’t know what to do. A long time ago a guy I was seeing asked me to check his email for something. I remembered his password and I know it’s bad but I’ve been checking his email since. Nothing was really happening until two days ago - he’s flirting with a guy in his class! They’re going for lunch tomorrow! Now I don’t know what to do because I can’t admit I’ve been reading his email. What do I do???

SM:ps took this one.  She’s the kindest firecracker you’ll ever meet -

Are you still seeing this guy? If not, then there’s really no harm done, but I think you may need to sort out why it bothers you that he’s moving on and you are clearly not.

If so, then I think you should ask him if he realizes you still know his password and if he’s changed it yet or trusts you that much….warning, he may then ask whether you’ve been looking at his emails…then you need to decide what to do next. You can either be upfront and honest and say yes and brace yourself for the inevitable possible argument (though in my opinion, if he really did not want you to check it, he would have changed it - or should have if he was planning on doing anything he did not want you to know about), or lie and say no (not what I would suggest as even little white lies are not always conducive to healthy relationships - any lie has the possibility of snowballing!). In short, I think honesty is (cheesy, but) always the best policy. Good luck!

Sorry for the harshness, but that’s what I would tell a friend.

Posted in Cheating, Relationships | Comments (0)

Can’t stop looking.

October 27th, 2008

We got this email from Dana in Halifax, NS:

I can’t seem to stop looking at my ex’s Facebook pictures and googling him to see what he’s up to.  We broke up over a year ago and it’s like I look to see if something’s bad and then when I do I get upset. Then I end up looking at old pics of us on my own page and it goes downhill from there.  I even lose hours at work doing this!  I know it’s stupid but I don’t know how to stop!  What can I do??

Dana, at least 3 of us are dealing with this kind of thing.  SM:zen is totally in love with her boyfriend and STILL googles an ex of 5 years even though she gets zilch every time.  But the truth is, it’s not stupid.  It’s normal - like, who hasn’t done this for at least a little while - and it just means you’re not done dealing with the breakup. Obviously. Anyway, we’ve had a little discussion and SM:ps says it best:

Best thing to do for at least a little while is to de-friend him.  That way you don’t know what’s going on, but trust me when I say you’ll feel the freedom of not having your feelings bound by each of his updates. He’s obviously moved on, and so should you.  Bite the bullet and take him off your friend list.  That means FB, MySpace, Twitter, whatever.  Then, get a hobby.

Posted in Relationships, Stalking | Comments (0)