Thursday, 29 July 2010

Violation


"Why don't you go out for one of your walks?" he said.

I didn't really like the one-of-your-walks thing, but I thought I'd accept the offer. He would look after the girls, I would stroll along the towpath of a beautiful French canal. I bit my lip a little, smiled and put my on my new trainers.

Six miles later I was feeling great. Peace, quiet, thinking time. Birdsong, the wind rustling the chestnut trees.  However, when I got back, there was An Atmosphere. Hardly an unusual situation, and I was chilled and mellow, so I cheerily breezed through the evening as if everything was fine.  The Atmosphere continued for most of the rest of the holiday, so I cheerily breezed into the spare room and everything continued to be just dandy. You know how it goes.

Doing my timesheets, looking at my Outlook Journal, I now discover that while I was merrily tramping along the canal bank, he looked at every single document on my laptop. Every single one.

It's my belief that in a relationship, even when hostilities have broken out, there is still a kind of understanding, a Geneva Convention, around the rules of engagement.  And I think systematically going through the computer breaches that.   I'm not a snooper, I've got too much respect for people's privacy. I don't open his post, look at his phone, read his emails. And he knows that ever since my mother cut the lock off my diary with boltcutters (there's a story....) I am obsessive about the right to privacy. We've talked about this a lot in regard to the girls, I assumed it was taken as read that it applied across the board.

I asked him why. He came up with some bullshit explanation about the fact he'd never expressed any interest in my writing and that I'd been disappointed  about that.  This did not wash with me, nor explain why one or two documents had been open repeatedly.  He had a slightly triumphant air about him when I asked about this specifically. I pointed out that they were in a folder called Writing/Drafts and therefore to set any store by the events they describe would be as much of a mistake as to believe I am a time traveller whose two boys were killed in a air-raid in WW2, or the reincarnation of a little girl who used to sleep in the elephant house.

I was cold, angry. Icily furious.  I still am.

It's not that I have anything to hide. Not on my work laptop where half a dozen people have the password and I leave it around at home all the time, at any rate.

What should I do? I don't feel that I should just let this pass. But I don't know what the appropriate response would be. Hmmm.

2 comments:

  1. Time to tell him to poke it and move on!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Trust me, that option is under very serious consideration.

    ReplyDelete