Trust issues seem to have become more commonplace, and with good reason I'm being told, due to all the different platforms of social media including Twitter, Facebook and forms of communication such as email and texting. Gone are the ways of sending telegrams and harmless pieces of paper via pigeons flying through the skies- which leads to more routes for "cheating."
I agree with this observation, and disagree with it at the same time, hence the quotation marks. But let me tell you to the real reason I'm starting this discussion with you all.
I was talking to one of my friends about his relationship the other day. Actually, he was opening up to me and venting about certain situations he was experiencing. He flat out told me something which stopped me in my tracks:
his girlfriend hacked into his email account, was snooping around and "found something" which turned out to be something she misinterpreted anyways.
I nearly dropped my bag of jelly beans that I was eating when he told me this “minor” detail of their relationship. She told him in her defense, that she did this only because she had a “situation” happen with her in the past with another guy, and that she wanted to make sure he was being honest with her.
Ladies & Gents,
violation of privacy is never okay! Some people will try to justify that you need to look through a person's phone or email to “make sure they are truly being honest” with you and that there is nothing else going on, but here's my theory: If you can't go by a person's words and trust that, then what exactly does your relationship truly mean at the end of the day?
If you don't know the person well enough to know what they are doing (the truth always comes out, I really do believe that), what does that say about you? If a person says, "I love you," but is doing shady things behind your back, doesn't that invalidate everything else they have said or claimed they felt for you? So what will you really accomplish by browsing through their texts or email account if you are already having a “gut feeling” that something is not right?
People that have insecurity complexes in a relationship may do things like go through phones or email accounts, and put unnecessary tension and strain on the relationship if they are falsely accusing someone of something. It's like the saying goes, if you are looking for something you are bound to find it. If you have the mindset to look for a message from a girl in an email, and have other thoughts going through your mind, you may very well misinterpret anything to be something that may not be in fact what you thought. Personal space exists for a very good reason in my opinion.
I once dated someone who was
possessive and had trust issues. I can tell you from my own personal experience
it is a red flag. Nothing good will come out of that relationship after that personal boundary gets compromised. Some people think that someone checking up on you is a sign of “deep love” from a partner or that they don't want to be without you. I'm telling you it's that they have something which is truly a toxic characteristic which you should run far, far away from.
A relationship should be based on trust, and communication. If one of those two is lacking, you need to have an open and honest conversation with your partner about what's going on- NOT go playing Veronica Mars.
To quote Justin Bobby for "The Hills" fans out there circa 2006, "Truth and time tells all."
So what is your opinion? Have you ever gone through someone's things and then regretted it afterwards or do you justify that behavior?
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Comments (32)
When I was younger, I did occasionally go through the stuff of someone I was dating, although not necessarily because I was looking for proof of dishonesty. I've had exes go through my personal things and find stuff that was misinterpreted.
My boyfriend and I just talk about things. He's offered to let me go through his phone, etc, and vice versa, but neither of us has ever felt the need. Before we were together, he straight up let me know about another girl he was interested in and went out on a couple dates with, and while I was angry at the time, I appreciated the no-frills honesty. I've been the same way with him and we continue to talk things out as they come up, rather than sweep them under the rug, so to speak. It's easier that way in my opinion.
Talk about beating a dead horse.
Curiosity killed the cat.
I am so against looking through someone's personal belongings since i've had someone take advantage of my trust. But I also have violated an exSO's privacy since he "gave" me reasons to believe that he was talking to someone else. I honestly felt worse about having to snoop; going against his trust and to find the shit you really shouldn't know. I ended the relationship cause I knew trusting him would be an issue. So I wouldn't condone invading anyone's privacy.
I believe it is best to ask and talk about it. Just lay it out. If you still don't believe anything the fucker says.. peace out and move on.
I would never do that to someone and I sure as hell wouldn't put up with someone doing that to me. I have nothing to hide so it really doesn't matter but still, anyone who would go to the trouble to hack into an email account to satisfy their own need for control has some major issues. It isn't right to go behind someone's back to satisfy your insecurities. If she absolutely HAD to know she could have asked him but now she's broken his trust because of her inability to trust him.
I think a lot of people get into relationships when they are nowhere near ready to tackle one, often because they feel a need for companionship. If you can't trust someone you should not be dating them though, especially if they haven't given you a reason to feel that way. Communication is paramount in any relationship.
You better watch talking to this guy though, his girlfriend will probably think he's cheating on her with you.
I did not snoop through my last boyfriend's things and trusted him. Turned out that during the last year of our 4 year relationship he was dating someone else the entire time. I do believe you shouldn't snoop through peoples things, but I don't know if this last relationship will change the way I act in future relationships when regarding these things.
One guy invaded my privacy and discovered conversations I had with a few guy-friends, and assumed I was cheating on him. (I didn't even think we were dating, so what the heck?) No matter how cruddy or good of a relationship I'll be with a guy, I would never look through his stuff. I know I'd feel terrible for doing it, and I know how hurt I felt when that guy told me he went through my stuff.
My boyfriend and I are honest with each other. I don't hide anything from him because I want him to be the guy I marry in the future with no skeletons in my closet. He's actually very innocent when it comes to dating because he had no experience with girls prior to me (adorable :3 ) while I've had 2 exes and have dated a little bit. If he sees me talking to a guy on Facebook I don't get all indignant like "You shouldn't have been looking!" because that's a stupid soap opera thing to say. I tell him my connection to the guy and that's that. He even has my Facebook password while I can't remember his from when he told me xD We're very honest and have a great relationship because of it :) I love Veronica Mars but damn could she mess up her/other's relationships by jumping to conclusions. It's not nice to invade people's privacy. If you know for a fact they're cheating, leave them or tell them how you feel. I'm telling you, reading the words of what you think are a mistress or whatever can be seared into your brain like a hot iron. Don't do it. Be the bigger person. If they deny what you know FOR A FACT is true, they're not worth the run-around.
if your so's going to cheat, he/she is going to do it whether or not you're snooping through his/her shit. you may as well not stress over it.
You bring up a lot of good points, but also quite a few that I disagree with for being equally as biased and unfair as what you're arguing against in the exact opposite way.
"If you can't go by a person's words and trust that, then what exactly does your relationship truly mean at the end of the day?"
To some, it means they care about you and the relationship more than they can express in words. Insecurity isn't pathetic or in any way detrimental to a relationship when there's mutual patience. That's something I feel compelled to argue when people are so flighty about "owing" a romantic interest anything. Trust and patience deserve trust and patience... looking at it as "owing" is equally as excessively avoidant as feeling as though one is "owed" is overzealous. Like @haigara@xanga said:
"If he sees me talking to a guy on Facebook I don't get all indignant like "You shouldn't have been looking!" because that's a stupid soap opera thing to say."
I'm not the type to feed into someone else's insecurity as an indirect result of my own insecurities, but I disagree with her conclusion though that "they're not worth the run-around." if you know for a fact you wouldn't cheat on them or take advantage of their trust.
I wouldn't let someone I love continue to think I'm not being totally honest and trustworthy if it's negatively effecting them and they openly tell me. I'm not an elitist by any means, especially when it comes to being in a relationship. I don't think naivety is at all a bad thing, I know that taking advantage of it is a bad thing, regardless of how hypocritically common it is.
For many, what you consider "unrealistic" feelings were almost certainly reality to you before someone else convinced you it's not "real life". If someone you care about doesn't trust you there's no reason you can't ask what you can do to reassure them. If it's impractical (e.g. I don't believe you're at work, come home so I know you're not cheating on me) that's one thing but if you feel you're somehow spoiling them by not making them go through similar experiences as your own to become callous when being understanding, empathetic, and logical is clearly better you should consider whether you might be a bad influence on them.
Consider how the following juxtaposition of your own words sheds light on an equally flawed policy:
"I can tell you from my own personal experience it is a red flag."
"It's like the saying goes, if you are looking for something you are bound to find it."
Just because most people are insecure in ways that are overlooked as "normal" that doesn't justify doubting someone with uncommonly good intentions for one's own reassurance, and doing so is tantamount to being possessive and having trust issues oneself.
"A relationship should be based on trust, and communication."
Otherwise you're not going to trust or communicate with the person you agreed to be in a relationship with?
"violation of privacy is never okay!"
Unless you say it is okay?
I feel that if you can trust your partner with your naked body it's pretty drama-queenish to think they're some kind of psycho for looking at your email because it's password protected when you fully require them to "crack your combination" romantically and/or sexually. If you don't trust a person to not immediately and superficially judge you based on insignificant things they could possibly mistake as being significant it can be equally and not unfairly assumed that you're not exactly a very private person.
I would only go through someone's stuff if I had real suspicions and just needed concrete evidence before leaving them. If I'm with someone, the trust is implicit until otherwise becomes necessary. Most people I know are the same way, some people I know are very curious/insecure and would rather just "check up" on what their SO is doing without talking about it.
On the other foot, I don't give a shit if my SO digs for dirt on me, because there won't be any. I would only have a problem if there was something I was hiding. I think anyone who feels so strongly about "privacy" from the person they should be closest with, is definately keeping secrets. Before cell phones and computers, what was most private? Bills? Dirty underwear? Farts? If you are close enough that the person can have access to those things, what makes your cell phone so special and sacred? It's an electronic used for calling, texting, and now the internet. It's not the Pentagon, and you aren't the Department of Defense.
If you've ever been cheated on, most likely you know the feeling of KNOWING something is going on, but having no proof. Rarely will a person who is already hiding infidelities fess up when confronted. That is frustrating as hell, on top of the hurt you probably already feel. If you can find out for sure, know for a fact you aren't crazy or insecure, fucking FIND OUT. Without snooping, I wonder how many men and women would still be ignorantly walking around being cheated on.
Side note- my last ex went through my shit all the time. It was annoying, but at the same time I felt good knowing there was nothing there to upset him. Meanwhile, he deleted EVERYTHING from his phone, all the time. I only looked at it when I was sure he was lying, and I never did it without askig. HMMMMM....
Maybe your friend is just giving HIS side? I'm sure his girlfriend told a much different version to HER friends. Maybe she had very good reason to look through his stuff, and maybe what she found wasn't so trivial to her. Stop being such a judgemental bitch and mind your own relationships.
i snoop through my hubby's stuff all the time.. and he does mine.. i trust him more then I trust almost anyone else.. we use different internet browsers on the computer so sometimes we just wander through eachother's stuff... it happens.. its not like im looking for dirt. and we dont have anything to hide (ok the only thing we never snoop is Amazon.ca accounts =)
one guy from my past from years ago stole my identity and used my pic to talk to guys
he shouldn't have posed as me on what was a popular site at the time, because I was browsing the site and saw my siamese twin
he put a fake common vietnamese name, but I'm not vietnamese. at least put a cuter fake name
I confronted him and asked him why he pretended to be me
he said that he was curious or something. I don't remember his exact words since it happened a while ago-not that long since I'm not that old. anyway, he copy and pasted a few messages that these guys sent to "me" while he was me
he expressed his jealousy and said that he wished that I was his gf. he previously wanted to be with me but I didn't want to. I think it turned into a weird case of obsession and instead of him stalking me and harrassing me, which he didn't, he stole my identity and lived vicariously as the very woman, who he couldn't have, but he got some sort of sick fix from seeing messages from guys and feeling flattered that these guys are hitting on his "gf," so he already believed that we were together or something
you people are probably wondering what this has to do with anything; well, I sent him a bunch of pics. they weren't flashing boobs or anything that risque. he actually posted pics of me during my chola days
looking back, it was pretty embarrassing how thin my eyebrows were-_- I had the smokey eyeshadow and way too much eyeliner and my eyebrows arched in the bitchiest way
he posted that pic as the main pic on his fake profile. he likely found that to be sexy at the time. I remember getting messages from cute cholos(since they would be the target audience to be attracted to cholas-birds of a feather
) he said that he thought that I was FLY. who actually uses that word nowadays:D I'm not attracted to cholos anymore nor do I look that way. I'm the opposite and resemble an innocent schoolgirl
My boyfriend(and also maybe surprisingly-male friends of mine) have looked through my phone/gone through my things before. If I have a journal out, my boyfriend will read it. He plays games on my phone, uses the internet, posts silly Facebook statuses on my account, looks at texts, texts my friends things to mess with them sometimes,etc.
However, when I touch his phone even accidentally he jumps at me. I've only actually looked through it once before, because of how he acted when I got near it. I don't remember going through texts, or maybe I just didn't see anything *important*.
But yeah, my boyfriend had a tendency of uploading his favorite porn to his phone, so maybe that's what he didn't want me seeing, I don't know. He still jumps at me, but doesn't even have a password anymore so I assume it can't be too bad(especially since there wasn't anything that I wouldn't have expected when he did have it locked-and to be honest, I never have anything bad on my phone but I get super nervous/hate it when people look through my phone anyway).
I also logged onto his Facebook a few times a couple years ago, which he said he knew about but didn't know why. Basically at the time I knew there were 3 girls interested in him, he was hiding our relationship from everyone(we worked together and they'd ask me if we were still dating- I said yes and they said he told them no or that he didn't know), blowing me off to hang out with said girls(they had Friday, and Saturday nights, sometimes Sundays but I usually got Sundays because that was his day to play video games before Monday's classes), and even when they'd flirt with him or say suggestive things, he supposedly had no idea, so he didn't stop hanging around them. They'd invite him out places, while talking behind my back(and I am the type of person who doesn't talk to anyone most of the time because I'm horribly shy and I don't feel like I need a lot of friends anyway), and never inviting me as well.So yeah, it was really awkward and my boyfriend is a notorious liar, so I didn't feel like I had any way of really knowing but I didn't want to break up with him just because he might be cheating on me.
I hacked into the OP's account. Wow was there some juicy stuff in there!
I definitely agree. I have looked through an ex's phone, because he was treating me differently, and I was right. It wasn't the best feeling to have to result to that, but I guess I was grateful I did. I was pretty open on what was on my phone, and he seemed to himself all of a sudden. It wasn't fun to not trust someone you have feelings for. So it's better to just end it.
Eh I'm smart about when I snoop. When I sense that a boyfriend is hiding something, I'll be honest and talk to him about it, expecting honesty. In that case I wouldn't snoop.
I DO snoop, however, when he's showing signs of infidelity, e.g., always being on one girl's Facebook, closing her windows and chat the second I enter the room, always having the last window he closed be her profile, while acting just really off in general. This is because in the past, I've made the mistake of asking the boyfriend when I just sensed something was off. The more honest I was about my thoughts, the more easily he could hide his secret. I was lied to on and off for 3 years. Never again. My plan is to start delving if he's giving off very obvious signs of infidelity, gather enough evidence without his knowing to confirm it, and then leave him.
If you're that suspicious all the time you shouldn't be with someone, it just means you can't trust them. Not to mention that when you snoop more than likely you're going to A) Find something that really hurts you or B) completely misinterpret something that could be absolutely nothing. I haven't ever snooped through someone's things and I refuse to do so because I don't like it when someone goes through my things, either, even though I never have anything to hide. Sometimes there are personal conversations between you and someone else where someone ELSE'S personal information shouldn't be known. I share everything with my significant other for the most part, but I tend to keep other people's business to myself. My ex used to go through my things to find out what my friends' problems were because I wouldn't share them with him, and I think that's entirely inappropriate.
I don't search for stuff that could hurt me, I would gladly share my inbox with my partner though but I wouldn't expect him to show me everything or tell me every lil think in his life...I'm not very suspicious thoughm that's why I ended up being the last to know my husband was in love with someone else :(
No I've never snooped. If someone wants to slut it up behind my back, go right ahead. I'll just leave them once the truth surfaces, and it always does.
Me and my girlfriend tell each other everything. There are no secrets. We even talk about the silly stuff. It works out better that way and oftentimes helps as something we might keep a secret from someone else, but it is something we can work out between ourselves. Φ ≡
Oh, Justin Bobby...Haha. I don't think it's as severe as this post makes it out to be. Sure there are some extreme cases, but my boyfriend and I have each others passwords to mostly everything. It's not a big deal. I would gladly share my embarassing emails to friends if I was asked.
I get on his facebook sometimes when I miss him because we're in a long distance relationships, and really, to laugh at the statuses on his newsfeed when I've gone through all of mine. I respect his turf though, and I trust him with everything.
My philosophy is this: if you're stupid enough to leave your email or anything else out in the open, I just may be stupid enough to look through it.
Curiosity mostly.
yeah that's not cool, me & my boyfriend leave our phones lying around & twitter/fb open all the time cause we have nothing to hide, but neither of us would intentionally snoop through each other`s shit, that is pretty shady. i do agree 1000% tho , i've seen a LOT of relationships end because of social networking and it makes me sad that a tweet can actually come in between a relationship..
I disagree. I have trust issues. I try my best to work on them, but they are still there. My boyfriend also has a habit of not answering phone calls and sleeping at odd hours so it always just gets me paranoid when I dont know where he is or what he is doing for a couple days in a row. He gave me all his passwords just to ease my mind. He has my passwords as well. I have nothing to hide, if he wants to, he can look through my things. I also tell him every time a guy tries to hit on me just so he doesnt find out some other way and questions why I hid it. I really dont see the problem. Why make your S/O worry and doubt your relationship when you can just let them get the anxiety out?
@gilly_owens@xanga - I mostly agree.
I personally don't have a problem if my girlfriend wanted to look at my things (you would have your doubts about trust though; but that could come from a lot of things: past issues, relationships or childhood) either way, I wouldn't ever want to look at her personal stuff.
Like a lot of people have mentioned before, if you can't trust their word then you shouldn't be with that person.
But I also believe that if a person wants to cheat on you, they will, and you can't do anything about it. If they feel like cheating on you is what they want, then the chances of you actually finding something (unless they're stupid cheaters) is small, so technically, no matter how much you 'snoop' around, the person can still cheat on you just is smart enough to hide it all pretty well.
If you trust the person you're with there shouldn't be a problem