Up front, let me give the disclaimer that I have friends who have these kinds of email addresses and I'm not trying to pass judgement or condescend to anyone. I just don't get it; maybe someone can help me understand that I'm off base on this if they feel I am.

That said, what's with women whose email address is "thejonses@whatever.com" or, worse, "myhusbandsname@whatever.com"?

It's not like email costs anything or is troublesome to set up--anyone can have multiple, free email addresses. I don't understand why a person would have a shared email address with their spouse and not just set up their own account. Is it a trust thing? An "aren't we cute?" thing? An "everything we have is ours together" thing?

I just don't get it--to me it's saying I'm just part of a couple or I'm just part of a family and not an individual. Isn't it a little self-deprecating? It seems so 50s to me--"oh, I don't deserve my own email address and honestly, I don't really get how this new-fangled internet mail works anyway, so I just leave it to my husband to deal with."

I don't know--it just makes me sad. I know couples who have the "myinitialandhisinitialsmiths@whateverland.com" address, conveying the message "we're so close we share everything and have no secrets," yet several of those very same couples have broken up because one of them cheated. And the "thesmiths@perfectfamily.com" just strikes me as incredibly sad; more often than not the women who have that email address are stay-home moms and to me it says that they've totally subjugated themselves to their husbands and kids and no longer see themselves as people who are worthy of their own personal experiences.

It reminds me of the address labels with the cartoon pictures of each family member, looking smug and perfect. Yes, the same labels I used to have when I was trying my best to play happy family.

I mean, is it a permission thing, as in the husband tells the wife she can't have her own account? Does he even check it, or does the woman just set it up that way? Would a woman have her friends address paper mail to "my friend and your husband" and intend for the letter or card to be read by both? I don't even mean in a secrecy way, just a friendship way and an interpersonal relationship way. Do my emails to Susie So-and-So need to be written as if I'm addressing both she and her husband, or the whole family?

Anyway, I just don't get it--it depresses me.