someone advised me to x-post to this forum (originally posted on relationship discussion) to get the perspective of fellow females... so here it is:
(sorry if long and/or spelling mistakes! not my native tongue!)
We've been divorced for over two years now. We share custody, about 40/60 percent, my son[6y/o] is with me a little more often. The divorce was messy, but the court ordered mediation worked wonders, and now we are even able to throw our son a mutual bday party. Like a modern family, interact civil, even pleasently, for the benefiit of our son.
After the divorce, I was in a steady relationship with someone else[m25] for little over a year, but have been single (after a mutual split) for a few months now. My exhusband got into a steady relationship with another woman[23] too, around the same time as me, but they are still together.
THE CONFLICT:
So, I bought the kid a tablet a while back, he loves to watch netflix and play angry birds-like games on it. To buy some of these games, I logged in with my gmail-account to use the playstore. Unbeknownst to me, the tablet started synchronising with my phone, and my pictures where (apparently) accesible through Google Drive. On the tablet.
Because it is my sons tablet, I have, on several occasions, aloud him to take it to school(they have special days when you can bring something like an ipad), friends, and his dads house.
I got an awkward phone call little over a week back. My exhusband told me that he found the pictures (rather- his girlfriend did) by accident. But he was also very blunt about the fact that he went through all of it, and that besides all the nice pictures of our son, he was shocked by the other 'interesting content' that was there in great numbers. He looked at all the movie clips that where on there as well. He even made a joke about me looking great etc. He told me he had noticed it THREE WEEKS prior, and hoped I would find out on my own- so he wouldn't have to have this conversation with me. So he checked regularly if it was still there (and if there was new content, he looked at it.) These are no assumptions of mine: he straight out told me these things. A mutual friend of ours finally persuaded him to confront me.
So whats that juicy content on there? Honestly, loads and loads of nudies, selfies, even some movie clips of me masturbating etc. MOST of these where send to my bf at the time, it was a LDR. I had even deleted most of them from my phone, but not from the drive (apparently. I never payed attention to this entire Drive thing!). And a few that are more recent, I have been dating, have been texting, have had naughty conversations including pictures.
My reaction on the phone was basically feeling flustered and embarrassed. Obviously I wasn't aware the content was on there, and secondly, it came as a surprise to me that he and his girlfriend used it as well (since I don't even use, its my kids, but I have my own laptop).
Thank god, our son NEVER saw any of it, btw. It was just my ex-husband (and in part his gf) that looked at it.
In my somewhat overwhelmed state, I told him I would fix it a soon as I could, and agreed it was pretty embarrassing. He thanked me for going to fix the problem. But after a while, the whole situation sunk in, and I felt pretty violated. He could have known from even ONE thumbnail that the pictures where private, and he could have closed it, and immediately told me. Not look at EVERYTHING, wait three weeks, checking it every so often, talking about it with friends, before finally telling me.
I decided to be open and honest about my feelings, so I told him a few days later, in a pretty mild manner, that I did not feel comfortable with the way he handled the situation. He was surprised and offended. He thought I 'was going apologize a little more profusely for potentially burden our kid with the trauma of seeing all my smut- and potentially embarrassing myself, our kid and him, if anyone had found it instead of him.' I was flabbergasted that he did not see anything wrong with his behavior at all.
He feels I'm not aloud to feel violated in any way since;
1) he was protecting our kid from harm, it was out of concern. And, in that frame of mind: the ipad is our sons, so per default its also open for him.
2) the ipad sometimes went to school and friends' houses, so therefor he had to know what was on there, since it would be accesible to outsiders ass well.
3) Its human nature to be curious, so offcourse he looked at EVERYTHING, even after realising what it was, its to be expected.
4) I once did a nude shoot back when I did part time modeling. Nothing pornographic, more artsy. But since there are nude pictures of me allready on the internet, I can not now suddenly oppose someone looking at naked pictures of me.
5)He is worried for me, because I lead a lifestyle that is not only immoral, disrespectfull to myself and promiscious... Also I would never find a nice man, because if I was dating a nice guy and he would find out about my lifestyle, he would never stay with me.
The conversation got heated, so I decided to leave it there, hoping he would change his mind after calming down and thinking about it more rationally. The next time we saw eachother, he dropped off our son. My mother was there. I had told her about the situation, so she couldnt help but give her two cents (that it wasnt polite of him to snoop so shamelesly). This fired up into an argument almost simmilar to the one we had before, but with more frustration, voice raising and cursing (both sides). After a few minutes of escalating, when I wanted to walk away after he said 'you are ****ing crazy', he forcefully grabbed my arm. I ripped away from him and slammed the door. Even though our son was being held away from most of it by us distancing ourselfs, and my mom looking after him, he still was aware of what as happening.
Also, I forgot to mention that he also looked at my emails etc, but they weren't as juicy, so that wasn't anything he was mad about. So that to me is also proof he was more 'snooping' then supervising our kids tablet.... And another anecdote during this argument: when I asked him: "If the case would have been that my younger sisters phone had accidentally synchronised with the tablet, and her nude selfies would have been accesible... Would he have looked so thoroughly as well?" His answer: "Offcouse not, that would have felt wrong!".... But because its ME, his ex-wife, its okay.... To me that added to feeling insulted by the lack of privacy....
Since then (besides me unsynchronising the tablet- AND never letting it leave my house again) my ex husband send an email to my parents (and a copy to me) stating that he was regretful of the way we argued in front of our kid (but nothing else) and wanted my apologies for that as well, as well as my parents cooperation in stopping him and me from ever doing that again. It was a sensible enough email. I did not reply though, it was to heated a situation for me to be going back and forth in this way, and I still wasn't over the whole 'shameless snooping' (IMHO) thing.
Today he refused to disclose when he was dropping our son of tomorrow, until I had adressed the email. I told him I agreed with him about not fighting in front of our kid. It was foolish, and common sense to not let it happen again. However, I did not approve of his way of using information about when he will drop off (if even) our son, as a bargaining chip to get me to discuss certain issues with him. He then finally told me what time he'd be here.
I dont know what to do now. I've been very lenient towards him in the past (swapping our days to meet HIS schedule, even though it conflicted with mine, to help him out, and countless other things) and tried to play nice, acting a bit like a pleaser. I just didn't want to go back to the ugly times during the divorce, and keep the peace, since our boy was thriving in the peaceful situation. But now, when I've tried to put up a boundary- the entire situation goes to hell.
And some other additional info:
I have asked a friend who works at our country's equivalent of child's protective services if this was in any way a concern for them. She told me that this was an honest mistake, and if they'd have to start to sanction every parent that had any form of sexual content, that could be accessed by a child (like pornmags under a bed, or even an unlocked phone with pics on it) a lot of children would be without loving and caring parents. And it my case, it was clearly an accident, and even more important, the child never saw anything, so no harm or faul- as far as they are concerned.
SO HOW DO I FIX THIS? Do I give in to keep the peace? Or am I just overreacting about feeling violated in my privacy? Is he rightfully outraged with me about the whole situation?
TL;DR- My ex-husband found lude pictures and videos of me on our sons tablet, that accidentally got on there. He was super indiscreet about it and that made me feel violated. But he feels I'm in the wrong here, since I've been morally irresponsible, not only in not knowing the pictures where on there- but for leading a promiscuous lifestyle altogether. Things have escalated and our fragile peace has been shattered, it feels
(sorry if long and/or spelling mistakes! not my native tongue!)
We've been divorced for over two years now. We share custody, about 40/60 percent, my son[6y/o] is with me a little more often. The divorce was messy, but the court ordered mediation worked wonders, and now we are even able to throw our son a mutual bday party. Like a modern family, interact civil, even pleasently, for the benefiit of our son.
After the divorce, I was in a steady relationship with someone else[m25] for little over a year, but have been single (after a mutual split) for a few months now. My exhusband got into a steady relationship with another woman[23] too, around the same time as me, but they are still together.
THE CONFLICT:
So, I bought the kid a tablet a while back, he loves to watch netflix and play angry birds-like games on it. To buy some of these games, I logged in with my gmail-account to use the playstore. Unbeknownst to me, the tablet started synchronising with my phone, and my pictures where (apparently) accesible through Google Drive. On the tablet.
Because it is my sons tablet, I have, on several occasions, aloud him to take it to school(they have special days when you can bring something like an ipad), friends, and his dads house.
I got an awkward phone call little over a week back. My exhusband told me that he found the pictures (rather- his girlfriend did) by accident. But he was also very blunt about the fact that he went through all of it, and that besides all the nice pictures of our son, he was shocked by the other 'interesting content' that was there in great numbers. He looked at all the movie clips that where on there as well. He even made a joke about me looking great etc. He told me he had noticed it THREE WEEKS prior, and hoped I would find out on my own- so he wouldn't have to have this conversation with me. So he checked regularly if it was still there (and if there was new content, he looked at it.) These are no assumptions of mine: he straight out told me these things. A mutual friend of ours finally persuaded him to confront me.
So whats that juicy content on there? Honestly, loads and loads of nudies, selfies, even some movie clips of me masturbating etc. MOST of these where send to my bf at the time, it was a LDR. I had even deleted most of them from my phone, but not from the drive (apparently. I never payed attention to this entire Drive thing!). And a few that are more recent, I have been dating, have been texting, have had naughty conversations including pictures.
My reaction on the phone was basically feeling flustered and embarrassed. Obviously I wasn't aware the content was on there, and secondly, it came as a surprise to me that he and his girlfriend used it as well (since I don't even use, its my kids, but I have my own laptop).
Thank god, our son NEVER saw any of it, btw. It was just my ex-husband (and in part his gf) that looked at it.
In my somewhat overwhelmed state, I told him I would fix it a soon as I could, and agreed it was pretty embarrassing. He thanked me for going to fix the problem. But after a while, the whole situation sunk in, and I felt pretty violated. He could have known from even ONE thumbnail that the pictures where private, and he could have closed it, and immediately told me. Not look at EVERYTHING, wait three weeks, checking it every so often, talking about it with friends, before finally telling me.
I decided to be open and honest about my feelings, so I told him a few days later, in a pretty mild manner, that I did not feel comfortable with the way he handled the situation. He was surprised and offended. He thought I 'was going apologize a little more profusely for potentially burden our kid with the trauma of seeing all my smut- and potentially embarrassing myself, our kid and him, if anyone had found it instead of him.' I was flabbergasted that he did not see anything wrong with his behavior at all.
He feels I'm not aloud to feel violated in any way since;
1) he was protecting our kid from harm, it was out of concern. And, in that frame of mind: the ipad is our sons, so per default its also open for him.
2) the ipad sometimes went to school and friends' houses, so therefor he had to know what was on there, since it would be accesible to outsiders ass well.
3) Its human nature to be curious, so offcourse he looked at EVERYTHING, even after realising what it was, its to be expected.
4) I once did a nude shoot back when I did part time modeling. Nothing pornographic, more artsy. But since there are nude pictures of me allready on the internet, I can not now suddenly oppose someone looking at naked pictures of me.
5)He is worried for me, because I lead a lifestyle that is not only immoral, disrespectfull to myself and promiscious... Also I would never find a nice man, because if I was dating a nice guy and he would find out about my lifestyle, he would never stay with me.
The conversation got heated, so I decided to leave it there, hoping he would change his mind after calming down and thinking about it more rationally. The next time we saw eachother, he dropped off our son. My mother was there. I had told her about the situation, so she couldnt help but give her two cents (that it wasnt polite of him to snoop so shamelesly). This fired up into an argument almost simmilar to the one we had before, but with more frustration, voice raising and cursing (both sides). After a few minutes of escalating, when I wanted to walk away after he said 'you are ****ing crazy', he forcefully grabbed my arm. I ripped away from him and slammed the door. Even though our son was being held away from most of it by us distancing ourselfs, and my mom looking after him, he still was aware of what as happening.
Also, I forgot to mention that he also looked at my emails etc, but they weren't as juicy, so that wasn't anything he was mad about. So that to me is also proof he was more 'snooping' then supervising our kids tablet.... And another anecdote during this argument: when I asked him: "If the case would have been that my younger sisters phone had accidentally synchronised with the tablet, and her nude selfies would have been accesible... Would he have looked so thoroughly as well?" His answer: "Offcouse not, that would have felt wrong!".... But because its ME, his ex-wife, its okay.... To me that added to feeling insulted by the lack of privacy....
Since then (besides me unsynchronising the tablet- AND never letting it leave my house again) my ex husband send an email to my parents (and a copy to me) stating that he was regretful of the way we argued in front of our kid (but nothing else) and wanted my apologies for that as well, as well as my parents cooperation in stopping him and me from ever doing that again. It was a sensible enough email. I did not reply though, it was to heated a situation for me to be going back and forth in this way, and I still wasn't over the whole 'shameless snooping' (IMHO) thing.
Today he refused to disclose when he was dropping our son of tomorrow, until I had adressed the email. I told him I agreed with him about not fighting in front of our kid. It was foolish, and common sense to not let it happen again. However, I did not approve of his way of using information about when he will drop off (if even) our son, as a bargaining chip to get me to discuss certain issues with him. He then finally told me what time he'd be here.
I dont know what to do now. I've been very lenient towards him in the past (swapping our days to meet HIS schedule, even though it conflicted with mine, to help him out, and countless other things) and tried to play nice, acting a bit like a pleaser. I just didn't want to go back to the ugly times during the divorce, and keep the peace, since our boy was thriving in the peaceful situation. But now, when I've tried to put up a boundary- the entire situation goes to hell.
And some other additional info:
I have asked a friend who works at our country's equivalent of child's protective services if this was in any way a concern for them. She told me that this was an honest mistake, and if they'd have to start to sanction every parent that had any form of sexual content, that could be accessed by a child (like pornmags under a bed, or even an unlocked phone with pics on it) a lot of children would be without loving and caring parents. And it my case, it was clearly an accident, and even more important, the child never saw anything, so no harm or faul- as far as they are concerned.
SO HOW DO I FIX THIS? Do I give in to keep the peace? Or am I just overreacting about feeling violated in my privacy? Is he rightfully outraged with me about the whole situation?
TL;DR- My ex-husband found lude pictures and videos of me on our sons tablet, that accidentally got on there. He was super indiscreet about it and that made me feel violated. But he feels I'm in the wrong here, since I've been morally irresponsible, not only in not knowing the pictures where on there- but for leading a promiscuous lifestyle altogether. Things have escalated and our fragile peace has been shattered, it feels
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