I think it is absolutely necessary, but I also understand the WAS's point of view, in that once the A is over, they don't want to feel like they are living under a microscope with someone else reading all of their mails.
My W and I signed a contract in which she agreed to hand over the passwords to all over her email accounts, facebook, online cell phone records, etc etc, and also agreed not to change those passwords. I in turned agreed not to read her mail, etc unless I had reason to believe something was going on (kind of like probable cause).
So far it has been working pretty well, although I still have trouble trusting that nothing is going on (and indeed something may be). As bluerain said - it is very hard to prove that nothing is going on. I always still have my fears and doubts - she could have opened another mail account and just not told me, she could be emailing him and just immediately deleting the mails from her sent items. She could be very carefully catching all mails from him and deleting them and I would just never know....
It's a fine line between transparency and paranoia - believe me, I have been trying to walk it. You have to decide how much you need, and how much you are just willing to trust, where some minimal level of trust without proof is always going to be necessary.
Last edited by Thinker; 04/23/0902:03 AM.
Me 42, W 39, S8, S6, S2 M 11y, A & ILYBNILWY 11/08 Walking away from a bad situation.
