Do you not see a bit of arrogance in the fact that you not only judged your sister based upon youthful writing but that you continued not to trust her based upon your violation her of privacy?

Then, you searched her husband's house without his permission looking for writings to which you had no right. Were you her primary heir? I suspect not. I suspect her husband and her children were her heirs. They also had every right to her writings, to discover them or not at their own leisure, to read them or save them or burn them.

Or perhaps you don't think people's own writings are actually property? You would be wrong. Why else are there literary executors to take charge of an author's work, both published or unpublished?

Ted Hughes burned one of Sylvia Plath's journals. While I find his motives questionable, he, at least was her legal heir.

And what do we call people who outright steal?

Your sister had every right to compose her journals as she chose -- even as a child. She had every right to expect that, upon her death, her heirs would use or dispose of her writing as they saw fit. Undoubtedly, she did not think ill enough of you, or she would have anticipated your behavior and hid her journals even more carefully.

What she may have written about her experiences, be it with her husband, her children, her parents or you was hers to own and not yours to censor! Her literary legacy was not left to you!

I have a brother from whom I am estranged. There is almost nothing I like about him and I have not only written about him but I have, in writing, warned my daughter -- my legal heir -- about tricks he may pull after my death. All in his own interests of course.

Truly, your letter has convinced me that people can rationalize any crime.

Four years ago I found my girlfriend's journal. This was after she had stayed at my house for a prolonged period. Being a good boy, told her i had found it, and asked if I could read it. She said 'of course', and that she hoped I enjoyed it. Little did we realize that what i had found was in fact her DIARY, and not her journal, in which she sketched and wrote poems.

It was brutal. Among other things, she wrote that she found me unattractive when we first met, and that she was embarassed to introduce me to her family. There were other things, which I won't go into. And I was furious. We had been going out for a year since these entrys were written! With her lying to me all that time!

I was very fortunate in one regard, because before I broke it off, I called my father. My father is an incredibly wise man, in large part because he has had an absolute train wreck of a life, and he gave me this advice:

Before you dump her, do one thing. For one day, whenever you meet anyone, talk to anyone or have nay type of interaction, you have to say what you are REALLY THINKING. I don;t think he expected me to actually do it, but I tried, and I didn't make it six hours. There was the fat woman working a Subway, the call from my mom when I really wanted to hang up and go back to my video game, and on and on.

If your husband will ACTUALLY TRY THIS, he will very quickly come to the realization I did: that virtually nothing we think is fit for public consumption. Nothing. I really hope you're still reading these responses, because I think this will help, my girlfriend and I are together today, four years later. Our thoughts are sick, cruel and unfiltered. Thank god that in life, it's not the thought that counts.

A an 9 year old I read my, 8 years older ,sister's diary.I had no idea what the book was for. I just thought it was pretty,there must be something good in it.

Wrongo. In it, she detailed how much she hated our parents.Using words I'd never seen in print before and some,of which,I knew not what they meant.Yikes .Talk about a breach of trust. I had a hard time trusting my sister. Happily ,she never found out. Even in adulthood,I failed to fess up.

she died at 48,unexpectedly. All I could think of was to get into her house to find her journals.I just had a feeling there would be more journals to be found. Under false pretense,I managed to get a chance to look for the material. Eventually,I found the them,on the bottom shelf of her linen closet,under a pile of old unused fabric.

The perfect location,where her idiot-husband would never find them.

I packed the journals out of the house under my winter jacket,unseen.The journals were incinerated unopened.Her IH,would have definitely read the journals.I couldn't allow that to happen.

It was the final gift I could give my sister.

Oh God, I just read your post from Wednesday and was cracking up. Wonderful stuff. Thanks, many thanks, for the many laughs!

The LW says: "It contained all of my fears about our relationship --- many in unflattering terms -- it was basically my place to get my worst thoughts out and then let them go."

About that "let them go" part: That's where the delete function would have come in handy. Spill the vitriol, then dump it. I can't imagine why the LW didn't edit out this stuff once she was married (if not before). I'm sure it was hardly literature she'd prize for her old age, and I'm surprised it didn't at least occur to her that she was risking her husband someday finding it. He simply found it sooner than later.

Good luck to these newlyweds, and may this serve to caution others. Privacy? There's no stinkin' privacy.