"AITA for insisting that I have nothing to apologize for after my husband read my diary?"

I'm trying to stay focused here but my edibles have kicked in and I need advice. I have kept a diary since I was 10. It is my form of therapy, & I do not police my thoughts. I have never let anyone read my diary.

My husband & I started dating over a decade ago. One day a couple of months in, he was over at my apartment, & I had hopped in the shower. When I came out, he was sitting on the bed shell-shocked. He said he read my journal, which was mostly about my life as a newly single woman. He told me it really stung to read all that. "But wait. Hold on. How'd you find it?"

He said he was looking for matches. He couldn't tell me why he kept reading even after he knew what it was, but his apology was sincere & I forgave him. Not too long after that, things got messy. He started getting either very sad or very angry while referring to things he read. His feelings were so intense that I STARTED APOLOGIZING FOR MY THOUGHTS.

Anyway, we got married. A decade later, I was thinking of a divorce & wrote a ton to process my thoughts about some sensitive topics. Again, he "stumbled" upon my journal & read it all. I was pissed, but he convinced me that he would never do it again. Besides, he was really hurt by the things I wrote, and I felt bad. I let it go, but he started getting sad or angry again thinking about what he had read.

Once more, the intensity of his feelings led me to apologize for my thoughts. Now here we are, married with kids, setting up Scrabble on a Friday night. He went to find a piece of paper & came back quiet & distracted. I asked if everything was okay. He looked at me sharply & told me that he just read my journal.

I tensed, thinking of how I recently tackled some tough feelings related to our different ethnic & religious backgrounds. I wrote things that would have been hurtful to read, & I was mortified knowing that he did read them, but I was also annoyed. "Wait. You read my journal again?"

He blamed me for leaving it out & accused me of being a bad person for what I wrote but honestly I wasn't listening to him anymore. I just wanted to know why we were dealing with this again. It's pretty basic knowledge that one shouldn't read other people's diaries, right? But look at him, forcing his way into my brain & shaming me for what he saw. I surprised myself by slamming my hand on the table.

"A THIRD TIME??" We were both hurt, but he was accusing me of overreacting while minimizing and deflecting from his behavior. He called me "overly emotional" when I cried over how violated I felt. This feels so wrong, like I committed a thought crime.

So AITA for insisting he's 100% wrong? I'm so mad, but I am doubting whether my reaction was proportional to what he did. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being terrible), what would you rate someone reading your journal? & would you apologize for the things you wrote?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

[deleted] said:

NTA. It’s almost a guarantee he has read it more than these three times. It’s a gross violation of trust and privacy and he never will change.

namesaretoohardforme said:

NTA. You do realize that he's doing this intentionally, though? You need to switch to digital and don't write your passwords down lol. But this breach of privacy really calls for couple counseling.

[deleted] said:

You willingly married someone after they proved time and again that they have no problem crossing your boundaries and then punishing you for what’s inside that journal. Leave the ah. He will do it again- and if you think he’s only done it three times, you’re naïve. Leave him. NTA but you will be if you stay with someone who punished you for your thoughts and violates your boundaries time after time.

dehydratedrain said:

NTA. He's snooping into your most private thoughts and then manipulating you into feeling guilty. Buy a small safe for your journal, and maybe even a decoy journal where you fill every page with: My husband is a snoop. He swore he'd never look again but he's a liar. My husband violated my privacy. My husband is a diary addict.

She later shared this first update:

Thank you all for your comments. I am overwhelmed. For those suggesting therapy, I have been in it for a long time, and I credit it for listening to the little voice in my head instead of ignoring it. Therapy gave me the insight to see what he was doing in real time.

But to those saying YTA and ESH, all I can say is that this type of behavior has been normalized so much for me, and I have been gaslit for so long, that I automatically convinced myself it wasn't that bad. I feel like I'm emerging from the upside-down, and I have to relearn basic social norms. You have no idea how sad all of this makes me.

We talked today, and he continued to minimize what he did and kept steering the conversation to how hurt he was reading what I wrote. I kept asking him if I shared those things willingly with him. When he said no, I told him that he can then deal with the consequences of his own actions by himself. I kept stressing to him what a big violation it was and that I needed space to think.

I guess he's been stewing about it for the last few hours because tonight, he started to yell at me in front of our kids and angrily tell them about what I wrote. He literally told them that I don't like that they are from his culture. Man, why are you hurting them?? To hurt me?! I was pleading with him to stop and trying to cover his mouth, the kids were shrieking and sobbing, and he was yelling and wild-eyed.

The chaos of tonight just broke me. I had flashbacks of my childhood, screaming and crying on a stairwell watching my dad go after my mom. Long ago, I had promised that I would never put my kids through something like that.

I tried to get them out of the house since he wasn't stopping, but we only got as far as my car where the 3 of us sat crying while I kept apologizing to them and trying to reassure them. God, how did I get to this point?

Two weeks later, she shared this major update:

I will keep the update itself brief: The kids and I are safe, and I am divorcing my husband. The incident that I posted about was so jarring that I could no longer downplay the abuse. I understood then that it would be so much worse for my kids to grow up in a household like that than to grow up with divorced parents.

I did want to take this opportunity to talk to the people who seemed flabbergasted that I had not left him earlier. I know the internet can be cruel sometimes, but to shame someone for staying in an abusive relationship is just so ignorant.

A person stays with an abuser for a myriad of reasons: fear, shame, mental health issues, lack of resources, lack of support, lack of money, the partner's coercive control, etc. Please educate yourself on abusive relationships before writing judgmental comments.

In my case, I stayed because he was so good at manipulating and gaslighting, at sowing doubt and confusion, that I started taking notes during arguments because I felt like I was going crazy. He would say things and then deny up-and-down that he said them.

He would tell me that I "misinterpreted" his words or that I had a bad memory or that I had anger issues. Meanwhile, he was the one breaking things, lying, and following me from room to room as I was trying to get away from him.

After years and years of this, I left only when I saw how much staying would hurt my kids. To those in emotionally abusive relationships like mine, I want you to know that I see you. This is real abuse, even if it doesn't leave physical scars. <3