someone reading my 4th step inventory

lynnd · Newbie

someone reading my 4th step inventory

tlcate · Veteran Member

Hello Lynn,

Amends would be good, even though you may have done nothing "wrong". Sometimes "I am sorry I hurt you." is called for. Couple of questions . . .

Does he know you are working the steps? Before he read your 4th step, did he understand what it is and the goal of going through this process?

Where did you leave it?

tlc

AGO · Member

This is just my opinion about stuff like this, and it has gotten me into trouble before:

There is no such thing as inadvertently reading someone else's private correspondence, he owes the amends, not you

If I snoop I deserve everything I find, especially if it's about me and it's bad, it's the same as if I ask someone's opinion, I don't get to cry when they chew me out for being a maroon, which does happen more frequently then I would like.

An amends is fixing something that is broken, or righting a wrong, not an apology, the amends I have made in similar instances is stop apologizing and making excuses for the actions of my significant other when they do hurtful behaviors, such as saying he read my things inadvertently, and learned about setting healthy boundaries and respecting myself enough to stand up for myself.

I am frequently controversial about such subjects though, so feel free to disregard entirely what I say.

freya · Newbie

Once in awhile mail that is not mine gets delivered to my house, and, even more rarely, I "inadvertantly" open it and look at it before I realize that it is not mine. In all honesty, I don't think it has ever taken me more that 2 or 3 seconds to realize that something was not for me -- in which case, I put it back in an envelope and back in the mailbox without reading any further.

I am telling you this just to make perfectly clear the fact that, unless your 4th Step is only a few words long, it is impossible that anyone of anywhere near even average intelligence might read it "inadvertently," which means, by default, that he read it -- at least any of it past the first few words -- deliberately, knowing full-well that he was violating your privacy.

...which means in turn that I'm having a lot of trouble imagining how (assuming you didn't fill it up with terrible, blatant lies about him and then deliberately leave it lying around because you were hoping he would read it and be hurt) you could possibly be the one who owes an amend here.

He stuck his nose in where it didn't belong and found out something about his own behavior that he would have preferred to remain in denial about. That's his problem...and there are only a couple of reasonable, rational, mature-adult-like solutions to that problem that spring immediately to mind: 1) He can stop sticking his nose in where it deosn't belong, thereby increasing the chances that, in the future, he can remain safely in denial about the effects of his behavior on others; or, even better, 2) he can modify his behaviors so that, even if someone were to write or talk about them, there would be no reason for him to feel upset, embarrassed or hurt.

freya

-- Edited by freya on Tuesday 2nd of March 2010 07:23:16 PM

-- Edited by freya on Tuesday 2nd of March 2010 07:27:12 PM

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