If his thoughts were so fucking private, why did he leave them there for her to stumble upon?

It was on his desk.. Writing stuff down for oneself is a great way of working thru one's feelings. I don't see he has done anything wrong.
The woman, she knew it was his private thoughts. And everybody knows private thoughts are private.
Is she comfortable about having loose skin? I'm guessing she's not. Just like many women after birth are not very happy re stretch marks. An imperfect body has she. And he noticed it.. So what?
If the intimacy isn't strong enough on her side to get over this, then it's probably good the LW finds out now.

@ 2 I personally believe that if you want to keep certain things private, you put them in your desk drawer. That way, if your BF/GF finds them, it's because they've been snooping, and they deserve to feel shitty (and to be dumped, as far as I'm concerned).

If you leave them on your desk, you may end up in this situation, and it's shitty for everyone... unless you subconsciously wanted the BF/GF to find out, thus sabotaging the relationship while at the same time being able to tell yourself that you're the one who was betrayed.

If whatever LW wrote was so radioactive it'd ruin his relationship for his girlfriend to read it he should have buried that diary in the yard. Or ripped out those pages and burned them. Or something like that. It sounds like there was a lot of delta-T between his writing that stuff and her finding it, but if he kept the diary on his desk it was just a matter of time. Books fall open, folks need paper, desks get dusty. It ain't snooping if it's in plain sight, either.

I wonder if this asshole didn't want (perhaps on a subconscious level) for his gf to find his diary and read what he *really* thought back then.

But if he really wants to take it back, I suppose he could eat the offending pages in front of her. And I mean that quite literally- perhaps eating his words would kinda sorta leach away their poisonous effect, or at least, would be a nice gesture of disavowal. Assuming this guy doesn't write his diary with cobra venom it should be safe, if a little unpleasant. But it probably wouldn't be any worse than what he put his gf through.

Idk maybe it's a crazy suggestion- but it's the only way I can think of to unscrew this pooch.

I'm guessing after 8 months , with a break, these guys don't live together. It was , I assume, his domicile. What else did she allow herself to look at?

"I think any trust we could have had is lost and I don't think she'll ever feel comfortable around me again."

True!

"She's understandably upset, but do I have a right to be mad how deep she went into my private thoughts?"

Sure!

"And is she right to frame those thoughts as a inexcusable slight to her?"

Well, you weren't lying? You felt strongly enough about her bodily form and personality to record it for posterity.

"Is there any way to salvage this relationship?"

Not in hell, nor should you.

@LavaGirl: I don't see he has done anything wrong.

Agree. No one to blame here but cruel fate.

Really Dan? Don't write down negative things about people you are dating sounds a lot like don't take naked pictures of yourself if you don't want someone to hack your phone and put them all over the Internet. But I don't recall you taking the latter position.

As bad as I feel for the LW and his GF, I can't help but guess that if we didn't live in a world that thinks every single thought deserves to be documented and saved for posterity (he could have just written it and then burned the paper afterwards, especially when he sensed he was going to get back together with the girl), this wouldn't be an issue.

@2: "Writing stuff down for oneself is a great way of working thru one's feelings. I don't see he has done anything wrong.
The woman, she knew it was his private thoughts. And everybody knows private thoughts are private."

Here's the thing. I agree that it's a great way to work through feelings. But once this written, if kept for years, the temporary anger takes permanent form. Those relics are best disposed of regularly and not kept with more valuable sketches.

It wasn't wise to leave it on top of the desk, but it was unwise and a confidence betrayal to read that notebook. You don't 'accidentally' read an entire journal. A few lines maybe, and then you call your partner and apologize and ask for context and reassurance. You don't keep reading.

I think for some people, writing down the cruel and shitty things that pop into their head is how they process them, and how they avoid saying them out loud. His carelessness pales in comparison to the irreversible stupidity of the conscious decision she made to invade his privacy.

It wasn't wise to leave it on top of the desk, but it was unwise and a confidence betrayal to read that notebook. You don't 'accidentally' read an entire journal. A few lines maybe, and then you call your partner and apologize and ask for context and reassurance. You don't keep reading.

I think for some people, writing down the cruel and shitty things that pop into their head is how they process them, and how they avoid saying them out loud. His carelessness pales in comparison to the irreversible stupidity of the conscious decision she made to invade his privacy. I feel bad for her, because it was a cruel thing she did to herself.

@ 11 - "it was unwise and a confidence betrayal to read that notebook"

But that's what people do, don't they? Not everyone, of course, but they didn't coin the saying "curiosity kills the cat" for nothing.

@12, You also don't "accidentally" write down hurtful things about people and "accidentally" leave them out for them to find. Sounds like Betrayer/Betrayed just wanted to break up with GF and didn't have the balls to tell her to her face he really didn't find her that attractive.

LavaGirl @2, I agree with you half way, but not entirely.

For some of us, writing down our thoughts is a great way to process our feelings. Totally agree with that idea. I like to write, myself. I often write to process and contemplate my thoughts and feelings. But 95% of what I write never sees the light of day. I use a computer rather than paper, but I make damned sure my personal naval gazing isn't read by anyone else by accident. I password protect my computer, and further password protect my private files. An earnest hacker might get to it, but no partner/lover is going to accidentally stumble upon it.

So yeah, it is perfectly fine for the LW to use writing as a way of processing his feelings. But leaving something like that out where someone else can so easily stumble on it is kind of thoughtless and dumb. It borders on self sabotage.

Journal keeper here. I write. I exaggerate. I tell the truth. I fantasize. I jot down boring day to day things. I tell stories where I'm the sympathetic character and no one else is as sympathetic as I am. BECAUSE THEY'RE MY JOURNALS. The problem is only partly that she read his journal. The rest of the problem is that she read one little slice of journal out of context from when they were broken up and he was sad and angry. The problem is that she's glomming on to the negative and refusing to see any positive that's there.

Does B/B have the right to be mad? Definitely. He's allowed to be angry over anything he wants to be angry about. Is she right to frame those thoughts as an inexcusable slight? Hell no. She could, if she chose, frame her thoughts as "hey, he notices that my body isn't perfect and makes love to me anyway. That's terrific! What a guy!" Is there any way to salvage the relationship? Maybe. Here's what you do. You apologize once, then quit. You tell her the context of the private thoughts by saying that she saw the negative but doesn't know all the positive. Then quit. If she brings up the topic again, ie, if she goes on and on about her insecurity, you tell her that you've been over that already, and quit.

As for Dan's advice to keep the journal out of sight for now on, well, sort of. Don't leave it right on your desk. Maybe leave it in a desk drawer under other notebooks, not obvious but not hidden. It's not nice to rub people's noses in secrets, but that doesn't mean you can't have them.

"your own carelessness—leaving something so toxic in a place where she might find it and read it—was unforgivably thoughtless." Careless, yes, thoughtless? No. Everyone had the right to their own thoughts. There were other things in there also that she must have realized--well before she got to the part about herself that were very private, but she still read it. Dan, you dropped the ball on that part. '

I do "Morning Pages" where I get up and journal in the morning. My Partner knows about it, the notebook is right out where she could get it. She worries about our relationship (even thought we have been together for years already) and she could look in there to see if I am talking about her or about OTHER girls that she fears I will try it on with. But she doesn't do it. Know why? She is mature enough to allow me some privacy. She doesn't snoop.

This girl snooped and now she got what she deserves. Painful but it is a lesson for her: trust don't snoop.

I have kept some diaries from the 70s. Anyone stupid enough to read them..
Still the question. So what? She has an imperfect body. It was a problem for him. Was. Sounds to me like he now cares a lot about her.
LW, you can only tell her what you've told Dan. I still contend your private journal is nobody else's business untill you're dead. Then they can get upset about what you wrote.

@undead: the temporary anger takes permanent form

It's one thing to say something in anger that you don't really mean as a way of lashing out. But this guy was just being honest in a journal he thought no one would read, so I (like his girlfriend, apparently) have trouble completely dismissing those thoughts/feelings as suddenly obsolete. It's more like he deprioritized them.

Issues like that have a way of resurfacing when a relationship later comes under stress. Maybe it's better that they break up.

"do I have a right to be mad how deep she went into my private thoughts?"

Yes. She is lying about looking for paper, if she managed to thumb through the journal -- who the hell goes looking in a sketchbook for scrap paper? -- all the way back to April, and keep reading the whole time. Your girlfriend is a prevaricator, as well as a snoop.

"And is she right to frame those thoughts as a inexcusable slight to her?"

No, she is not. People think all kinds of ugly, frustrated, nasty, venting things when they are upset. I imagine he was plenty worked up around about break-up time. The reason they are not a slight to her is because he kept them to himself, just like we all keep the ugly insides of our cranium to ourselves most ot the time -- right up to the moment she decided to snoop into his private thoughts, and then tell him a shovel of bullshit-cum-justification about looking for scrap notepaper in order to not have to admit she's a snoop. She doesn't get to feel slighted about something he wrote for his eyes only any more than she gets to feel slighted for the things he thinks but never says out loud.

Appparently there was reason for that breakup back then, which the two of you have set aside. But hey, if she would rather break up with you over this, I guess all that means is that you were right when you decided to break up the first time.

Once upon a time, when I was packing to leave a toxic relationship and move overseas, my partner left his journal out on the dining room table. I opened it, and realizing it was his journal, read it pretty much cover to cover. I was looking for some explanation for how things had got so toxic, since he'd stopped communicating much with me.

I learned that 1) he really loved his previous girlfriend, and 2) he had been cheating on me for several months with a friend who was actually a FWB (with whom we'd had several social outings). I also learned that 1) it's generally better not to read someone else's journal and 2) the relationship was even more toxic than I thought. I felt guilty about reading his journal, but on the other hand, he left it out in plain sight in a shared space.

I'm unlikely to read someone's journal again, but that doesn't mean I would not be tempted, or that I can guarantee I won't yield to temptation. I can pretty much guarantee, though, that I won't leave my journal out in plain sight in a shared space!

I mean, she's basically going to have to get over it. We live in a weird world in which, while we're encouraged to, you know, recognize that "not all women are perfect", body-wise, but can't, you know, actually acknowledge that a woman's body is not perfect. At least, if you want to be in a relationship.

Last I checked, unless you live in a godless american or European metropolis, most men and women in the world are still managing to get married and have kids. Western city-dwellers have amazingly skewed perspectives and our generation additionally has an amazing ability to assume that everyone engages in the same modes of thinking as we do; i.e., that not everyone wants to live a 20-year adolescence before settling down, buying up, and producing little status-symbols of our own.

But I digress.

She's uncomfortable with her own body, and it's probably objectively pretty ugly. But, you know, beauty ain't everything, ugly people live fulfilling lives - perhaps even as fulfilling as the lives of pretty people! - and are getting married and having kids.

Basically, she's got to learn that she isn't, as a person, devalued by her own looks. The BF's comments can only as hurtful as she believes them to be true.

@4 Jesus Christ. A guy writes in his own diary and it's an asshole move? What kind of fucked up asshole thinks that?

I used to write everything. I've got journals from early elementary school right up through high school. Now, they're all pretty plainly journals and they aren't in normal notebooks or mixed in with more public-appropriate things. But if I DID have journals that were indistinguishable from normal paper and I wrote hurtful things about people who have every business being in my home and looking for normal things in their appropriate places that normal people use, like paper found in a notebook on a desk, I would be kind of a jerk for leaving that journal out where a partner, roommate, or visitor could easily find it and see those hurtful things.

Everyone's entitled to their private thoughts, and some people absolutely find writing (and going back and re-reading that writing) therapeutic. Personally, it helps me gain perspective on difficult situations. I'm usually far more eloquent and thoughtful in writing than I am in speech, so if I'm struggling with something, writing it down helps me organize my thoughts immensely. I often won't see where the flaws in my reasoning are until I've gotten it down on paper or screen.

Everyone deserves those around them to respect their right to express themselves privately. But it's up to me to protect those thoughts from understandable mistakes to the best of my ability, by not leaving them out like mines to be stepped on.

Now I don't really think there's anyone at fault here. I don't get the impression that B/B wanted his GF to read his outdated, hurtful thoughts about her. And I believe him when he believes that she didn't go out of her way to snoop, but rather made an understandable mistake and saw something she couldn't unsee while flipping through the notebook for a blank page. The fact that they've had an on-again, off-again relationship for 8 months says to me that maybe there are other issues here than just this one incident, and to me that's the big reason I doubt the relationship will survive this bidirectional mistake.

Essentially, there's a big difference between a peeping tom watching me change through a gap in the shades and a neighbor going about their own business who happens to see me naked because I failed to close the blinds. Am I entitled to be naked in my own house? Absolutely. Am I entitled to my privacy from prying eyes in the bushes? Absolutely. But do I have some responsibility if I fail to take reasonable precautions against baring my T&A to the neighborhood? Abso-fucking-lutely.

yeah, I don't journal, but reading someone's journal seems virtually guaranteed to let you find something of this nature.
I'd assume figuring out your feelings, venting frustrations and dark thoughts is the major function of writing only for yourself. So no, I don't think that what's in a journal should be taken at face value (I know my initial impulses certainly can be way off, especially when I'm upset) and yes, the gf definitely has herself to blame. Karma is a bitch. And she doesn't like snoopers.

Eh, if my partner wrote something about how disgusting he found my body, it would be over. He doesn't have to think I'm the hottest thing ever and he can certainly notice my flaws. But that he would take the time to write down how ugly or horrible I am would really bother me and I don't think I could get over it. And it would be really hard for me to feel sexy in front of him, and therefore our sex life would be over. It's time to move on.

@4 --- what does "delta-T" mean?

@10 --- I disagree that temporary anger takes permanent form if you leave it in a journal. I have looked through my old journals and my older/wiser/more mature self has often been amazed at how upset my younger self was about something at the time it happened. (Even the big things.)

This is a really incredible essay about being the lover instead of the loved in a relationship - girlfriend might want to read it.

http://www.salon.com/2015/09/11/i_have_n…

I used to keep a diary about this kind of stuff. But it's an online blog locked only to me. So no, people don't get to read it by mistake. I did once read my bf's Facebook messages to other people, while we were breaking up. When we got back together I never mentioned it because I knew I had no right to snoop. But I did get him to change the terms of the relationship with his female best friend, as he'd been telling her she was the most important woman in his life, has an amazing smile etc. I just said her rudeness to me couldn't continue. Our relationship is much better now, years down the line. I have no reason to snoop and I've never snooped again.

@30, I found the essay confusing and painful to read.

>> It’s taken some getting used to, this being the one who desires rather than the one who is desired. Being the one to say, ”I want you.” The one to extend the goodnight kiss beyond sleep well and into let me touch you... The one who afterwards makes up the outside part of the spoon. >>

But "a man I know only a little" makes a pass at her. It sounds like other men desire her. And it sounds like that's important to her. Why not find someone to have sex with who actually wants sex with her, as part of either non-monogamy or a separate new relationship if non-monogamy isn't possible?

Still @21: Thanks for your input. If B/B's relationship, like yours, was indeed "toxic" (he says he's been dating her "on and off" for eight months, which sounds like a big toxicity warning to me), then that would explain why, upon discovering the notebook was not in fact full of blank sheets of paper for her to write on, she read back through six months of entries as part of a fishing expedition into B/B's psyche. Doesn't make it right. I agree B/B should have put the notebook in a drawer, but that didn't justify her continued reading once she discovered it was his private thoughts. Ricardo, as usual, got it right -- curiosity killed the cat, and it seems to have now killed this relationship. But I reckon that's for the best. Hopefully B/B's ex will learn a lesson about snooping.

There seems to be this idea that people write the absolute truth in journals, that because it's kept secret it's somehow more honest. Not so! It's a lot more nuanced than that. The journal is a place to work something out, maybe come to a different conclusion that the one we started with.

What if Miss B/B had snooped and found that Mr. B/B had been looking at 1970s Playboy style porn? In that case, she'd have learned that Mr. B/B was attracted to perfect pretty roughly 24 year old women with perfect skin, perky breasts, no scars, no stretch marks, etc. She'd also know that after looking at the pretty pictures he turns around and has sex with harsh commentary post weight loss her.

We all have ideas in our heads about perfection. We all (hopefully) come to terms with the real people in our real worlds. That's all this journal entry says. I take it perfectly ordinary and sweet that we (most of us) become more attracted to our sex partners' so-called flaws as we fall more in love with them.

@28 delta- t... means elapsed time. Delta (the Greek letter) is math speak for change.

@28 yeah and Thx @35 for clarifying

inviolable sanctity of LW's thoughts aside there are plenty of ways he could have hidden his diaries, esp. If he puts poisonous, relationship-ending shit in them. If LW's not going to take even minimal safeguards to protect his private, poisonous writings he can't complain when his gf chances upon them months after the fact.

Also, I see a lot of commenters blaming this gf for not stopping herself from reading the diary once she found the passage about herself. IMO that would take a superhuman amount of self-control and trust in your partner to do... Trust LW clearly doesn't deserve.

Obviously @36, you have never written some shitty thoughts about others, thoughts you were planning to share with no one.
These two people are in an eight month relationship, that has included one break, that we know of. Are they partners?
Yes.. His words were nasty. He accepts that.
You ever have an argument where shitty words were spoken? And after.. You just walked away from
the relationship, even if the person apologised?

It's really simple.

"never put down in writing what you don't want anyone to read".

I have been burned like the LW; not a journal, not venting, but in a context where I was discussing relationship issues I was trying to work through and where I thought I was sufficiently anonymous. Yes, she was a snooper of the first order, and I knew that too (caught her going through my phone more than once). I certainly had every "right" to try to talk through my relationship issues (hell, she regularly did it with someone I was expected to socialize with).

I was neither careless nor thoughtless in how I concealed this activity and yet, still a freak accident occurred that let her connect me with a trove. Indeed, the whole point here is this isn't about being justified or having a right or even subconsciously wanting to be outed. If you need to write something down to process it, then fine, do so and then dispose of or destroy it. Do not leave these buried landmines laying around - if you do so, then recognize that you actually have to accept this outcome at some point.

Sorry LW, but the hurt is real (for you and for her) and there is no un-do button; you just have to live with the heartbreak of actually losing someone you love, and - worse - with the pain of knowing you badly hurt someone you love. The latter does not fade as quickly.

I used to say to myself that I'd give anything to have that undo button - to take back the hurt, even if the relationship didn't survive, no matter which of us pulled the trigger, the pain would have been less. But you know, the real truth is that the snooping and the things I was talking about bluntly with others - more bluntly than I would with her - were real issues and were in fact the things causing problems - extinction level problems - with the relationship. So what happened was actually kind of a natural ending: she was unable to trust anyone she had feelings for, snooped constantly until she found a justification for punching down on the eject button (there was a history of this - one she herself provided cryptically - that I didn't really piece together until doing the relationship autopsy). I'm not being even slightly fatalistic when I say things work out the way they do for a reason - for a perfectly rational reason.

And, the pain was sufficient to motivate me to figure out why I was always so drawn to anxious-avoidant emotionally unavailable lovers (cf aid of a counselor for the the relationship autopsy), which led to choosing a partner who unreservedly loves me. Who knows, maybe I was tired of the old relationship pattern and I was sub-consciously leaving landmines laying around to do what I was unable to muster up the guts to do consciously: pull the trigger on a bad relationship.

It's ok to have scars (chicks dig scars), but make sure you get the learning experience from this. You'll be paying the price of the pain regardless.

DTMFA. Both parties can learn a lesson: LW can learn what happens when you leave your Super Private Diary sitting around where it'll tempt people (Spoiler: People don't cope well with temptation), and his should-be-ex can learn what happens when you don't treat other people as if they deserved privacy (spoiler: DTMFA).

And LW: An on again/off again relationship is not a good relationship. Learn that frequent breakups are a very big red flag. If someone can't keep dating you, it's a mistake to assume that they'll keep dating you.

@30/32: Unintentionally hilarious. "I have, in this one particular relationship, experienced a little of what it's like to be an average dude! The horror! The horror! But strangers still hit on me, so I'm still much better off in general. Woe is me."

@36 - no, it does not take a super-human amount of effort or trust. It's being a mature adult and recognizing there are some things you might rather not know or see and just not going looking in the first place. Ms. Finch and I have both made a practice of not really looking at each other's private stuff since we first met. There's no real "need" for it, but we both always err on the side of protecting each other's privacy. It's really not hard.

Having insufficient detail on what was actually written, I'm agnostic on whether she's in possession of a justified dumping card. If she were a real keeper, she'd have responded by saying that least this wasn't The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

@38: "Yes, she was a snooper of the first order, and I knew that too (caught her going through my phone more than once). I certainly had every "right" to try to talk through my relationship issues (hell, she regularly did it with someone I was expected to socialize with)."

It sounds like you did nothing wrong, other than accidentally dating an abuser. "I will freely humiliate you by airing our dirty laundry with friends, but don't you dare ever talk about anything to anyone else, no matter how anonymous" is a classic abuser move.

The hubster and I both have zones of privacy. I don't go into his private stuff; he doesn't go into mine. If I tripped over a journal set out on his desk while looking for a scrap of paper (likely I'd go on his desk - there are many mutual things on his desk) I don't know if I'd have the willpower to set it down. If that makes me a flawed person, so be it. I'm a member of the human race.

So I can understand the gf tripping over the journal, I understand the desire to read, and, yes, she now reaps as she sowed. She snooped to learn things, and now she cannot unlearn the knowledge.

And so LW also reaps as he sowed. He wrote down really harsh things about his gf and they were discovered. In my line of work, one often subject to substantial prying. I have adopted the position that if I don't want it ever read, it is never said. She now knows that LW finds her loose skin - something she is so sensitive about - unattractive enough to commit it to paper. That is a relationship killer. I have less favorite parts of my husband's body - some things I don't like - and they aren't going to be put down anywhere. Nothing like going for the kill there LW.

People who think LW's girlfriend should get over it? Well, I suppose you've never had a deep insecurity. They aren't rational, they aren't logical, and sometimes people never get over them. As an intimate partner, I know where the dead bodies are buried. I could walk into the other room and drop a bomb on my husband that would destroy our sex life and likely our marriage - just a comment about his body - not that I am carrying Manuel the pool boy's child. My ex made sure to tell me I looked like a man before he walked out the door, just to twist the knife.

So, like AFinch, I tend to look at these things pragmatically. Pragmatically people aren't perfect and they snoop. And snooping isn't the great evil - all the time - that people seem to think it is. I snooped a bunch at the end of my first marriage, and I am glad I did. It allowed me to protect myself. Its all well and good if you can trust your partner, but sometimes you can't, but you are still trying to unwind the relationship. If I honestly thought something was really up with my husband, like he was cheating, I'd snoop without the least bit of guilt. I have children to protect.

@43 - I don't really view snooping as the great evil but it is a symptom (red flag) about a possible great evil, which is crippling insecurity...that is, everyone has insecure moments and generally personality or physical features about which we are permanently insecure, and it's fine so long as we don't allow it to sabotage our lives.

I had been in so many relationships with seriously insecure and snooping-minded people that by the time I was in this particular relationship, I'd gotten comfortable with being snooped on - that is, not feeling defensive or like I needed to hide anything. I merely called her out on being snoopy and disrespectful, without being defensive or acting guilty...which had an immediate effect (though clearly not permanent), and which did not cost me the relationship (what I'd always feared about standing up for my own privacy). The real answer, of course, was to get in a relationship where this dynamic wasn't going on.

I should have said Ms. Finch and I honor each other's privacy and in so doing, perhaps protect our own feelings. Having rounded-up (very little as it turns out) we both know there are a few things where we each aren't the others dream match.

"I should have said Ms. Finch and I honor each other's privacy..."

That part's the key. Plenty of insecure people don't snoop; snooping isn't just insecurity, it's when insecurity combines with having no respect for the other person.

Snooping in itself isn't an extinction-level event, but it's often an indication that the worthwhile parts of the relationship are already extinct.

@ 40 - "it does not take a super-human amount of effort or trust. It's being a mature adult"

The problem is, though, that being a mature adult takes a super-human amount of effort for a lot of people.

@ 27 - "if my partner wrote something about how disgusting he found my body, it would be over"

Yes. It's hard to enjoy being intimate with someone who you know looks at you with disgust. I once ended a relationship because of that; I could no longer tolerate his comments, and I truly wondered why he would want to be with me if so many things I did disgusted him (silly things, like blowing my nose in public when I didn't have the possibility of washing my hands immediately afterwards). I can only imagine how shitty I would have felt if the source of his repulsion had been my body.

@ 33 - Thanks!

@ 39 - "Spoiler: People don't cope well with temptation"

Lol. It's amazing that this still needs to be pointed out.

Okay Dan, well, you are absolutely right, a little harsh, but it makes the point. However, maybe they should consider this an opportunity. Not to forgive and forget. But a golden opportunity to bring issues into the open, work through them, then forgive. No matter how long their life will be together or even with whom in the future, life will be shitty from time to time and forgetting an issue or misunderstanding is not nearly as useful as working through it. They might as well acquire the skills now.

@46 - touche! Well played.

I do still cringe in shame when I think of how some of the things I groused about must have felt like kicks to the gut. It's awful to realize just how badly you've hurt anyone, especially someone you cared deeply for. But that's part of growing up and being an adult - you get hurt and you hurt other people...it's a risk with emotional vulnerability.

@ 51 - And the point of getting hurt and hurting other people is that you should eventually learn not to.

DarkHorseRising @43 "If I honestly thought something was really up with my husband, like he was cheating, I'd snoop without the least bit of guilt. I have children to protect."

Can you talk through the process of how finding out that your husband is cheating is a way to protect your children? Is the point that if he could cheat, he might also be the kind of person who would try to get out of supporting the children after divorce (and so you need to know early in order to prevent him from hiding money)?

@Ricardo
Absolutely. I learned most of what I know about relationships from doing it wrong. You live, you hurt, you hurt others, you learn.

@ 54 - It's trial and error. And some people don't believe in the scientific method...

On a related note, Steven Colbert introduced screamintothevoid.com last night.

1) It's time to cut bait.

2) It wasn't accidental.

3) That shit wasn't on page one, was it? I didn't think so. She got what she deserved.

If I realized that I had come upon a private journal and I realized that it was about me and our relationship, I don't think I could not read it. It would seem like essential self-defense, especially in an unstable relationship. And frankly, she learned some things she needed to know -- like the full extend of his ability to be really vile and judgmental. Just because it was the result of a toxic break-up doesn't mean it doesn't count as a revealer of his emotional nature. Anyone who would write and keep such poison, leaving it out for anyone to see, must own it as something real. I used to write really nasty letters to people who had pissed me off -- what I called the "data dump" -- and then DELETED THEM. All of the anger and pettiness spilled out and I felt much freer to be the reasonable adult in my next interaction. I not only never sent the stuff, but I never kept it.

Nobody's secret thoughts are "You, [Your Name Here], are perfect in every way, and have no meaningful flaws." That's never going to be what anyone's secret, private thoughts really are.

It seems like there are two weaknesses at work--you can either be the kind of person who snoops, or you can be the kind of person who can't handle learning that other people's secret thoughts aren't pure unbounded admiration.
Having both problems at once seems to always lead to disaster.

@52 & 55 - Of course that's the goal! I also don't think you have to iterate via trial and error through every possible permutation like a roomba crushing things. I meant only to say that part of being an adult is learning to accept that you get some of the bad with the good.

I also think it's a fantasy to believe you can avoid hurting other people altogether. I think the biggest hurt in a relationship (maybe this is just me) is the hurt of rejection. And you know, I think love is often unrequited, through no failure of character on the part of the disinterested party. You can be perfectly nice, considerate and empathetic and fail to love someone back the way they love you. You're gonna hurt 'em on the way out, no matter how nicely you do it. This is what I mean by being an adult: no small amount of additional torture is suffered by people whose partners refuse to simply hurt them by dumping them.

What I think we learn to do is to bite the bullet and take approaches which minimize the collateral damage, and learn to forgive others when they behave in that same way.

@ 60 - Yes, I wasn't trying to contradict you, more like pushing your train of thought one step further (re: mature adult behaviour). But you put it better: "we learn ... to bite the bullet and take approaches which minimize the collateral damage, and learn to forgive others when they behave in that same way."

@53. Motherhood has changed me, and perhaps not all in "better" ways. I am far more grasping or perhaps, in dog trainer's language "resource guarding" than I used to be. So in three ways, I'd consider snooping in the case of cheating as a way to protect my brood as well as myself.

1. As you identified, the possibility that someone deeply infatuated and considering dumping me for someone else may engage in secreting of money and cleaning out the accounts.In the course of my first divorce, without children, I didn't exhibit this as a concern. My father, in fact, was unhappy I did not fight more over certain funds. I feel differently now that I have kids to support over the long term. I wouldn't act, or steal, but I'd snoop. I am far more territorial than I used to be.

2. My father did a real bait and switch on my mother during their divorce. While he was with the other woman, he'd write my mom love letters and, on one memorable occasion, he took both of us to look at a house. I'd snoop to ensure to confirm any representations that the affair was over or that he intended on carrying on with me were objectively verifiable. Despite my apparent coldness in this, I adore my husband, and he knows I'd forgive him for a one night stand (and I would). I'd want desperately desperately to go back or stay with him if he promised me fidelity again. My mother's willingness to believe my father dragged their divorce out way too long, and the longer the divorce went, the more it tore us children up. So it isn't just about me not being played for a fool - I can live with that - its more about extending the pain of the divorce and its impact on my/our children.

Snooping is about information gathering. As explained by other posters, it can represent an insecure, to the depths of their heart, person, and no amount of "information gathering" will allow them to trust, no matter what they believe or say. Or it can be a legitimate response to a reasonable indication that there is a reason not to trust the situation. In that situation, information gathering can represent self-preservation to plan forward moving steps.

And just to add a little fuel to the file, for your consideration.....

>>>> People often subconsciously can pick up on clues that what is being represented (I love your body) is not actually true (I am really turned off by the loose skin). <<<<<<< LW never mentioned that prying is part of his gf's modus operandi, so hard to say if she was or was not a snooper. She could be an insecure snooper. OR she could have picked up on that he isn't all about her bod. I see a few people grouse that "of course," he isn't going to think everything about her is perfect. I'd agree, but this doesn't appear to be a minor dislike on his part, as in he doesn't like her nose. He had to literally work through his dislike of a significant part of her body. That's not small. Its very interesting that THAT is what she zeroed in on in the journal. And you know what, if I was her, I'd want to know that too, because I wouldn't want to be with someone who had to "work through" some physical issue I have, especially something I was sensitive about.

God, the number of errors in that post...

Fuel to the file.. .HAHA. I'm going to bed.

@1 Sometimes people leave things out in obvious places because they want them to be seen.

If the guy's journal on his desk because the book isn't full yet and he'd just finished today's entry, then fine, but was it an old journal that he placed front and center? Oh and he says he "completely believe[s] her when she said it was an accident"? That's because he made sure she didn't have to look on purpose. It looks like this guy wants out of this relationship but he wants her to do the leaving. This way, he even gets to get his meanest digs in and still claim moral high ground.

If he did do it on purpose, it's genius. Juvenile and cruel genius, but still genius.

@56 it was John Oliver who introduced screamintothevoid.com

I write things down when I'm upset/angry, often on my computer. If I save them, I give them filenames that are misdirecting (i.e. "shopping" or "taxes") or if really toxic, I lock the file with a password. Precautions are a good thing

DarkHorseRising @63, thanks, that helps me understand.

I still don't get it. We have no
Idea what his words were.. How cruelly or not he spoke of her. Does she like her loose skin? If not.. Then why be so upset when he too doesn't like it?

@30, @32, @39 -- yes, I read that essay when it was published a few weeks ago, and my overall impression was that the husband had really done a nice head job on the writer. It sounds like he's basically asexual (assuming that he's not getting action elsewhere) and has convinced the writer that he is not asexual, simply very-very unattracted to her. But if he were truly interested in sex but not attracted to her, he would either (1) divorce her; (2) cheat on her; or (3) turn out the lights and lose himself in fantasy. It seems cruel to make her feel unattractive.

Frankly if I had a bunch of loose skin I'd expect not everyone would be thrilled by it. If that's the worst thing he thinks about her, she should count herself lucky.

If she were honest, she'd probably realize there are things about him that bugged her early on, even physically. I used to find certain things about my husband kinda gross. Now I love them. Intimacy is like that. Bridget Jones right? It's in her hands.

Were I the girlfriend, I could get past him smack talking me to his journal. I would totally understand. I know how journalling works and how it can help you get over someone and work through your darkest thoughts.

What would be harder to get past is feeling self-conscious about the loose skin. Having read his explicit thoughts about it would kill intimacy for me in a way that just feeling insecure about it before wouldn't have.

It sounds like it really doesn't bother him anymore though. Again, were it me - I'd need him to make this SUPER CLEAR. I'd need to know he thought I was hot and wasn't just closing his eyes to avoid thinking about the flaws enumerated in his journal. Physically, I'd need to be put on a pedestal for a bit.

But emotionally, I'd want to work on the stuff he unleashed in writing.

The gf's reaction also points to her insecurity re her body. Self love and acceptance much more important than other acceptance.
If she'd seen the date of his entry.. It was back in April. He has worked thru his reaction and sees he was ignoring his deeper feelings about her.

@ 64 - Pretty much what I said @ 3.

@AFinch: I don't really view snooping as the great evil but it is a symptom (red flag) about a possible great evil, which is crippling insecurity

It's also a way for sane people to confirm (or disconfirm) reasonable suspicions that their partner is being dishonest with them. People lie to their partners all the time, whether it's about cheating, spending money, drug/alcohol use, their attraction to them, fake orgasms, etc.

Reading your post, I can see how one's relationship history influences one's beliefs about snooping. You had bad relationships with cripplingly insecure women who aggressively and controllingly snooped on you. I've been in relationships with liars, one who cheated on me and another who lied about dropping out of school. Snooping spared me a lot of time and sanity, and it also taught me not to dismiss my intuitions if something doesn't smell right.

@76 - that's why I said it was a flag about a possible evil. I think DarkHorseRising and others have totally valid points about why you should gather information. I think I might've saved myself some grief in relationships if I'd been a bit nosier about some things that seemed...funny.

Although I generally come down on the side of not-snooping, I'm not a black-and-white person, I like nuance, context and shades of grey.

Whichever one I identify with more is completely in the right, and the other one is a horrible person.

@AFinch: Takes all kinds.

For better or worse (probably mostly the latter), if I were in @DarkHorseRising's husband's shoes:

I could walk into the other room and drop a bomb on my husband that would destroy our sex life and likely our marriage - just a comment about his body

I'd rather know the truth, even if it killed an otherwise decent marriage and caused me unimaginable pain. There's just something ... terrifying? tragic?... to me about a happiness propped up by ignorance or delusion. Of course, some would say that happiness requires at least a little help from either of those things...

@76: I eventually adopted the policy of walking away when I started feeling inclined to snoop. In all likelihood, spared even more time and sanity.

I mean, it's not like snooping can ever prove that there isn't something going on; the best it can give is the certainty that you haven't found anything yet. That feeling that maybe there's something that doesn't smell right? That alone is usually enough.

This is exactly like what happened in the Harriet the Spy book, except for the part about loose skin.

@Eudaemonic: In all likelihood, spared even more time and sanity.

I'm not sure I understand how that works.

it's not like snooping can ever prove that there isn't something going on

If you're generally paranoid and casting about randomly for evidence of wrongdoing, no, snooping is not going to ease your mind. But if you have suspicions about something specific, say, that someone didn't go where they said they were going, snooping can pretty easily settle the question.

Here's an example - after tiring of fighting with my 13 year old daughter about voluntarily allowing my wife and I to check her phone periodically, and tiring of the subsequent fighting when we turned the stupid fucking thing off due her noncompliance, I've resorted to snooping. It's been surprisingly reassuring, so much so that I haven't remembered to check her activity for weeks.

@Seandr, the power is in the delivery as much as the information conveyed.

It seems to me that in this very space in the past that phone and email snoopers have been lambasted by both Dan and commenters for snooping-- almost to the point where if you discover your partner is cheating by snooping on their phone, it's not his/her fault, it's your fault for snooping. So I'm mystified why in this case when someone is snooping in a written journal, at least in Dan's response, it is the writer's fault, not the snooper's. What's the difference between phone/email and a written journal?

@78: http://www.xkcd.com/774/ (mostly in jest...)

@84: Keeping dark confessions in a sketchbook alongside art would be an even worse idea, in that they're a huge "attractive nuisance" for people to flip through.

@bettyanon: snoopers have been lambasted by both Dan and commenters

The commenters? Yes, at least some. Dan? No. Here's a summary of his view on the subject:

"The snooping-is-wrong absolutists will shit themselves if "snooping is wrong" doesn't appear somewhere in this response. So here it is, gang, right at the top. Heck, I'll toss it out again — "snooping is wrong" — even though I disagree. No long-term relationship is snoop-free, just as no long-term relationship is lie-free, porn-free, or thinking-about-fucking-someone-else-while-I'm-fucking-you free. And when a little snooping uncovers something like this, well, it's retroactively self-justifying."

I find I mostly agree with Dan. Humans are designed to acquire information. Curiosity is one of our signal characteristics. To be purely academic, personal information - its acquisition and control - provides power in our social interaction. Thus, a cheater will strive to limit and control the flow of information to his or her spouse or s.o. in an effort to maintain his or her social position (married, or "respected"). Or, a swinging couple controls the dissemination of their peccadillo to carefully curate a certain social position in their network. My daughter scrupulously guards her privacy, even at seven, in order to exert control and independence over at least a subset of her world without having to cede or negotiate power with me. Privacy and omission is a good thing (my husband doesn't need to know I am fantasizing about Manuel the Pool Boy or Manuellita, my Zumba instructor), or it can be very bad (if I was using that privacy to run off with Manuellita). Similarly, snooping - information gathering - can be good or bad.

To be truly strange, I remember a YA novel I read as a child. In it, a character noted that fire was neither good nor bad, it was simply power. Snooping and privacy are much the same. It all depends what these tools are being used to do.

I am going to go go hug my husband. I am so glad that on this, we see eye-to-eye and tread carefully.

Peace out.

@40 Yes, yes, yes. I don't understand how people function in relationships where they can't allow each other private thoughts and spaces. I consciously allocate 'your private space I won't go into' for partner in our shared living space. It's never occurred to me to check his emails or browser history when I'm using his devices. When I'm sane, I trust him, and believe strongly in his right to privacy. When I'm a hormonal mess, I force myself to BEHAVE as though I were sane, because my delusions don't change his rights, but acting on them would fundamentally change my perception of our relationship.

So, I think Dan was harsh to the letter writer. I think he has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his own home, and the girlfriend, upon realizing she was looking at something private, should have closed the damn thing and left the house. Locking the door behind her to remove temptation.

But blame is irrelevant, yes? The important part is how the healthy delusions are broken. She can no longer pretend he's not conscious of her imperfections. If she can't accept his past distaste, the relationship will have to end, not because either of them is a horrible person deserving of pillory, but because that tiny, vital piece of willful ignorance can't be recovered.

@86 OK, thanks for that. I'm not familiar enough with how to search the site to find times when he's sounded different than that, but that's clearly a time when he was more reasonable about it.

I was sort of on the fence, but then I went back and reread, and a few things stick out for me:

I was upset and I gave a pretty harsh commentary on her. I think I was trying to convince myself that I didn't feel as strongly about her as I did. A lot of the things were fair, but some were less so.

That changes things for me. It's no longer just a random thought dump we're talking about, but a deliberate attempt to be nasty. Some people would probably feel like this would be easier, rather than harder, to deal with - it's not his *real* thoughts after all, just something he wrote while he was angry and trying to paint her in a bad light - but for me it would be a bucket of ice water. I don't like people who are deliberately cruel. I choose not to be one, and I choose not to date any.

Should she have snooped? No. I'm pretty firmly on the side of no snooping, and I'd like to think that if I picked up something that was clearly a journal (which I have done in the past, while cleaning for partners and friends), I'd put it back down without reading it. Still, if I did come across something nasty that was written about me, it would be hard not to read at least a few lines. Also his description of it as a journal-stroke-sketchbook makes me wonder if the writing wasn't accompanied by unflattering sketches of her, which she would have registered in an instant, and which would certainly make it harder for me to look away. (He hasn't said anything to indicate that this is the case, it's just something I wonder about.)

And is she right to frame those thoughts as a inexcusable slight to her?

Not right, not wrong. She feels how she feels, and she obviously feels like this is something she can't get over. You don't get to tell her that it's not a legitimate reason for ending the relationship. Relationships aren't charity events. Me, I'd probably end it too. I'd wish you all the best for the future, and remain on friendly-acquaintance terms, but I'd end it. After years of being brought up to hate my body, I've gotten to a place where I can accept it. I don't love every bit, and I'm fine with that. I love some bits, and other bits are things that I view as purely functional, things that keep me alive and get me from A to B. A partner doesn't need to love every part of me either. But having a partner who isn't grossed out by my appearance is a pretty low baseline to shoot for, IMO, and I wouldn't stick around with someone who was.

Let's take the LW's word for it, that the notebook was out in the open, and she was looking for a piece of paper. Many people here are saying she's a snoop for having read it, and while there may be some truth in that - after a couple of sentences it must have been clear that this was not meant for her eyes - I think this is still very different from breaking into email or searching for (and finding) a carefully hidden diary. Nothing about the notebook screamed "private."
It would be an unusual person who would not keep reading a bit longer, if they accidentally saw a sentence about themselves. Pretty sure I would.

@82: "I'm not sure I understand how that works."

Reacting to the urge to snoop always served me well. If you feel like you need to snoop, there's a lot you don't know, but what you do know is that something's giving you the urge to snoop--which means there's something you need to be feeling and aren't.
If someone's making me want to snoop, it doesn't really matter whether or not they're doing the specific thing I'm getting paranoid about; what matters is that something's making me paranoid. Staying with people who make you paranoid costs a lot of sanity, so I prefer not to do it.

Feeling the urge to snoop isn't an indicator about what anyone else is doing, but it is a strong indicator that I'm in the wrong place.

"But if you have suspicions about something specific, say, that someone didn't go where they said they were going, snooping can pretty easily settle the question."

True, but whatever underlying concern made you suspicious is still there; in my experience, snooping is never really about not knowing. Your example, though... yeah, kids change a lot, because you can't break up with them. I'm not sure how I'd handle that.

@88: "When I'm a hormonal mess, I force myself to BEHAVE as though I were sane, because my delusions don't change his rights,..."

And it's so hard to realize this in the moment.

I have a perspective that is evidently not shared widely. I think that when you see something written and it doesn't say "Dear YOU" then you should take your eyes off of it immediately. My partner keeps a journal and it sits in the nightstand or on it or on the bed. I've never been tempted to read it ever. If I did it would be a horrible violation of trust. She could figure out this was a journal entry and stopped reading and should have. And when she went ahead and read it, she should shove that bad feeling right down inside and forgotten about it, because that part is her responsibility.

Two things. Journals are private. There are no excuses for violating another person's privacy. Someone who reads a private journal is the moral equivalent of a peeper, and deserves the emotional fallout they may bring upon themselves. Second thing. If you have a repugnance for something about her body, the chemistry of the relationship will not stand the test of time. Let her go. She deserves someone who finds her to be perfect.

@88: This isn't paranoid delusions, though. These are things he feels about her.