Privacy for screen time

Dear Amy: My husband thinks that it’s fair game to read my computer or phone screen over my shoulder, even when I’m clearly writing or viewing something private.

I’ve asked him many times over the years not to do this but he refuses to stop reading my screens. He definitely doesn’t like it when I do it to him.

He is saying it’s OK because my activity is essentially out in the open.

Is it rude to read someone’s screens over their shoulder? Should I leave the room if I want privacy on my own devices?

Invaded

Dear Invaded: I think it’s rude to continue to do almost anything your spouse asked you repeatedly not to do, especially if this behavior is not a two-way street.

Your husband may be aggressively trying to send you a message that he doesn’t want you to use screens when you are around him.

If you take a close and objective look at your screen usage and see that there is a genuine imbalance in the amount of time you and he spend on your screens, this gives you an opportunity to perhaps change your behavior to demonstrate that you have received his rudely delivered message.

Otherwise, when he does this, you should take your work into another room.

I have seen privacy filters for laptops, although I’ve never tried one. These screens allegedly block a screen from view unless the user is directly in front of the screen. This would also be useful when working in a coffee shop or on public transportation — or your kitchen.

Dear Amy: My niece from my husband’s side of the family recently had a baby.

She has been seeing a counselor, due to the fact that the father of her child left her for another woman before the baby was born.

Her counselor has told her to do small things for herself like grab a coffee and write in a journal. However, she has not been taking care of her finances very well.

She still asks her mother for money each month, but she is getting her nails done, recently got a tattoo, and is charging things on credit cards that she can’t afford.

We have given her advice on her finances, but she is still not putting forth the effort to get her bills under control. What can we do at this point?

Concerned Aunt

Dear Concerned: Your niece seems to have misunderstood the concept of “self-care.” But she doesn’t have to get her finances under control because her mother is subsidizing and enabling her overspending. If her mother continues to do this, and the spending is out of control, your niece could sink her mother’s finances as well as her own.

Many enabling parents have protected their overspending offspring from the consequences of diving into debt, until the debt swallows other family members.

When young parents are raising children alone, grandparents often feel compelled to help with expenses out of concern for the grandchildren. But grandparents must be extremely careful not to do too much, lest they impede the progress into maturity that all young parents need to make.

What you can do is to encourage the mother to be extremely careful with these financial bailouts. The young mom might be using her spending to try to self-medicate her sadness; unfortunately, this will make things worse for her.