IS IT RIGHT TO CHECK YOUR PARTNERSPHONE/MESSAGES?

Every week, I get asked some variation of the following question:

I know I shouldn’t have, but I looked through my girlfriend’s cell phone. She’s talking to her ex. How do I confront her about it without looking like the bad guy?”…. AND… “He was always stepping away to answer calls and he changes his password all the time… he must be cheating…etc as the list goes on.

There are several reasons partners check each others messages:

1. Suspicion

2. Previous record of infidelity.

3. Insecurity e.g. feeling of inferiority

4. Previous experience with cheating partners.

5. Tired of Relationship and seeking escape.

6. Correspondence with fictional contact by partner.

7. Frequent or unnecessary encryption (locking) of partner’s phone or device.

8. Over indulging in chats or calls and hiding content from partners gaze.

9. Stumbling over chats/messages in an attempt to use partners’ device.

10a, No reason at all, just plain curiosity. (Or could it be the relationship was so rosy and too good to be true… “ahh he’s gotta have some dirt on him”).

10b, He’s always finding faults with me and catching me in wrong positions….I gotta dig for something to hold him with.

And so on….

According to NICKIS LOVE CORNER (ADENIKE) 

You really don’t know a person until you have looked through their cellphone. Nowadays, a cell phone is more than just a device to make emergency phone calls with. A cellphone is a personal and PRIVATE device that stores a plethora of information. You will discover a world of new things about a person when you look through their cellphone if you have never done it before…

 I had a friend who was in a happy relationship UNTIL she looked through her boo’s phone. She saw text conversations she never imagined existed and it caused her to end the relationship with her otherwise near perfect man.

In spite of knowing what you can find in a cellphone, many of us still refrain from looking through our partner’s cell phone. Why?

 Two reasons:

1. You don’t want to know.

2. You trust your partner.

 You don’t want to know

Seek and you shall find. If you are looking for something bad, that is what you will find. People choose not to look through their partner’s cellphone because they have no interest in finding something that may mess up the relationship. It’s not necessarily trust, it is more like avoidance. In the story I mentioned above, my friend learned her lesson early on and has made a lifelong decision never to look through a guy’s phone ever again. There is no way to build a cheat-proof relationship, so focus on the good things about the relationship instead of looking for the bad. Be happy with what you have and don’t worry about finding something wrong. What you don’t know won’t hurt you.

If your partner gives you a reason to doubt with unusual behavior’s, then its best that you confront him/her about it. If you are trying to find a reason to end the relationship that should be good reason enough to end a relationship, you don’t have to wait to find something unbearable.

You trust your partner

Trust is something that is earned by consistent behavior. A woman reflects the love a man gives her. Trust is reflected by a woman who is treated well by a virtuous man. A virtuous man is honest and has integrity. Ideally, a man shouldn’t give his woman the desire to have to look for evidence in his phone. A woman who trusts her man is a confident woman and a woman who feels secure in her position and value in the relationship. This is healthy.

If you DO decide to look through his phone:

Be prepared. Make sure you are ready for what you are going to find and for the reactions that will come with it:

Stress; stress causes sleepless nights, headaches and illnesses; Arguments; Fights, Disturbing thoughts that will haunt you forever….And for what- if you are going to make up with your partner anyway? UNLESS you are ready to make that tough decision to BREAKUP: end it all, let that person go, suffer a loss and start zero with someone new.

My advice…

Think thoroughly before you take action. Do not act out of impulse. Ask yourself a few questions that will assess your real motives for looking through someone’s phone: what are you really looking for and why? What will be the repercussions of your actions? If something bad is indeed happening, it will soon come to light all on its own. There is no need to worry or play detective, “For there is nothing hid that shall not be manifested.” Mathew 4:22

…. OKAY THAT’S ALL SHE SAID

NOW LET ME LOOK AT THIS IN DIFFERENT WAYS

NUMBER 1

Does trust exist if one of you are secretly checking up on the other via their phone, email, social networking sites or by doing a good old-fashioned rummage through the pockets?

The answer is: it depends on what’s happened to trigger it.

If you’re snooping (let’s not dress it up people, that’s exactly what spying on your partner’s personal life is) on a consistent and regular basis, your relationship is going well, your partner seems happy and their behavior hasn’t changed to alert suspicion, you have trust issues or don’t trust the person you’re with.

If you sense something has changed – they are acting out of character, ‘working late’ a little too often, taking more care with their appearance, suddenly taking their phone to the loo and guarding it fiercely, putting passwords on their laptop when previously they had none or any of the other telltale trouble signs of an affair AND you’ve confronted them about your suspicions and not got a direct answer – then I find some discreet snooping understandable.

In that scenario, you are checking up on a partner due to a real fear that something is happening to threaten your relationship. I think most of us will hold our hands up to admit to doing it under those circumstances at some point in our lives, even if we do trust our partners the other 95% of the time.

The problem is, even innocent things take on ominous overtones when you can’t ask for an explanation. What seems like outrageously flirty texts from a workmate, might just be ‘Jane’s’ way: she sends texts like that to everyone in the office, dramatically diluting the danger factor. But you don’t know that because you can’t ask.

Emails from an ex pouring their heart out also mean nothing. That’s their perspective on the relationship, not your partner’s. Most of us have exes we have soft spots for. Your partner’s kind reply that says ‘I admit I do think of you often’, could be nothing but them trying to console/comfort someone who was once dear to them, gently. But unless you admit you snooped, you end up plagued with fears that could be groundless.

The only way to truly curb suspicion is to sit your partner down and be honest about how you’re feeling. Tell them specifically why you are unsure of their feelings for you. If you can’t pin down the feeling, tell them it’s just a gut instinct. If they’re innocent and love you, they will leap to reassure you everything is fine. (If they sigh or roll their eyes, it could be they’ve done it once too often and it’s time to take yourself off to see a therapist to work through the root of your insecurity.) If, instead, they look uncomfortable, get defensive and don’t instantly envelope you in a huge hug, watch their face and body language carefully. Do their eyes slide away from yours? Do they move their hands out of the way or take a step backward? Very few people are able to lie to a loved one while touching them. Are they touching their face a lot or leaking anxiety by jiggling a foot or a leg? All these things are far better indicators of their feelings for you and more accurate relationship alarm bells.

NUMBER 2

It is not healthy to check your partner’s correspondence – unless, the two of you have agreed that it is ok and the same rule applies to you both.

All couples have different boundaries around privacy and hence if a couple agrees that open sharing of correspondence is what they want to do then clearly that’s fine. But for those who do not have that agreement in place, being checked up on could at best feel like an irritating invasion of personal space, and at worst, be perceived as controlling, disrespectful and abusive.

It’s important to recognize that there’s a difference between privacy and secrecy.  There are many reasons why we may prefer to keep some aspects of our lives private from our partner, for example for reasons of modesty, independence or respecting the confidentiality of others.  But if we insist on some things being kept secret, then the motivation is more often about protecting oneself from guilt. Guilt that is most often caused by knowing that a partner would be hurt if the secret were found out.

Trust is the bedrock of any relationship and trust is built on transparency, honesty and open communication. This means that couples should talk about their needs for privacy and also agree what kinds of communications with others are ok, and not ok, within their relationship.  When boundaries are negotiated and agreed, there should be no reason to ‘check up’ on each other.  One exception to this might be when there has already been a significant breach of trust such as an infidelity, but even in these cases, spot checks should be done within an open and mutual spirit of accountability and reassurance, rather than suspicion and control.In a technology-filled world, the temptation to read your man’s Facebook messages or snoop through his texts and call records is overwhelming. But are you in the right to do so?

When Jane logged onto her husband’s email, she was hoping for the best right?  Instead, she was met with a rude awakening: clear cut evidence of her husband’s affair scattered throughout his emails. Love notes, song lyrics, photos of the two of them together, but that wasn’t all. The worst was a pro/con list, written by her husband, on whether or not he should leave her. “It was the worst thing I have ever seen with my eyes,” Jane said.

She’s not alone: according to a 2011 study, 41-percent of women have snooped through their man’s phone or emails. Modern technology offers a whole new variety of ways to spy on your partner. Looking through drawers and checking for lipstick on the collar is a thing of the past. According to a January 2013 poll by the Daily Mail, going through your partner’s cell phone is now the top reason why cheating and affairs are exposed.Why do we snoop? When Olivia’s boyfriend left his cell phone at her house, the temptation was too much to resist. “Of course what girl would not wanna look at everything that was in there?” she told me. Of course, giving into temptation can have some drastic consequences. When Prince was reading through his phone one night while they were in bed, she saw that he had been texting quite a few other girls, which led her to end the relationship. All this sneaking around raises a big question: Is it wrong to read your man’s texts or emails if you end up learning he’s been hiding things from you, or does snooping bring you down to his level?

Snooping may be a breach of trust, but it can also expose some untrustworthy behavior. The most common of this is evidence of cheating. Steamy emails, declarations of love, notifications from dating sites, and worse. Hannah found naked photos of other women when reading through her boyfriend’s text messages.

Sometimes, you just have a sixth sense, a feeling that something is up. When your senses are tingling and a phone is ready for snatching, controlling the urge to snoop isn’t easy. Such was the case for Tochi, who became wary of her boyfriend’s relationship with his ex. After he refused to say her name and bitterly reminisce about their time together, she knew he wasn’t quite over her yet. When he started mentioning her more-and-more, warning signs went off. Tochi’s snooping started innocently enough: looking through his Facebook to see if he had added her again. As her lurking continued, she discovered that they had been talking again and were planning on meeting up for coffee. She broke up with him soon after.

While her snooping was instrumental in the demise of her relationship, Tochi feels that snooping is sometimes necessary to find out the information you deserve. “I would snoop again only if I felt something was off,” she said. “Otherwise, I understand boundaries. I’m not that interested in what my boyfriend talks about with his friends.”

It’s not always infidelity that women catch when they snoop around. Sometimes, you learn that they’ve been doing the same thing to you. When Cindy’s boyfriend gave her his password, she started reading his emails. The snooping didn’t end there: When he borrowed her laptop and forgot to logout, she was able to search through his Facebook, as well. She discovered that he had subscribed to her check-ins in order to receive notifications about her whereabouts. Tochi stressed the fact that if you’re going to snoop, you need to prepare yourself for what you may find. “I guess when you’re looking for something, you’ll find it,” Tochi said.

When women find incriminating information through snooping, as you might expect, they oftentimes won’t stand for it, and they act out. Such was the case for Vanessa. She had a bad feeling about the man she had been seeing. One night after he had fallen asleep, she grabbed his phone and quickly scrolled through his text messages. Turns out her intuition had been right-there were texts from three different women in his inbox.

Instead of confronting him, she quickly wrote back to the other women in his phone, telling them that he was ending it with them, and he was getting serious with another girl. She then proceeded to delete all of his contacts-her own number included. Maybe it’s true what they say-hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

But perhaps the best way to satisfy your curiosity is simply to ask. Men with nothing to hide may be more willing to share the contents of their phone or email with you. “The easiest way to find out if your boyfriend is hiding something is to simply ask him if you can look through his phone and if he says no, well then there’s your answer,” Susan said.

I’ve lived through this scenario, I’ll start out by saying that we’re missing the point.

You looked in the cell phone for a reason, right? Perhaps your girlfriend suddenly added a password to her phone. Perhaps she’s been spending time with friends more often, or is being secretive and vague when you ask her questions. You know something’s off, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. So what do you do?

You look for proof.

Your girlfriend goes to the bathroom, your eyes laser beam over to her cell phone, and before you know it, you’re scrolling through her text messages, looking for the reason you feel a knife twisting in your gut every time she says she’s going out with friends.

Well this same theme plays out in many different ways in relationships. Maybe you don’t check her phone, but you look through her emails instead. Maybe you feel sick to your stomach every time she goes out and you don’t know where she is. Maybe you’ve even gone as far as following her to places and spying on her.

The bottom line is that you don’t trust her. But more importantly, you don’t trust YOU! Something’s up and you can feel it in your gut.

It’s not about whether or not you found someone in your partner’s phone. It’s about trust. You must be able to trust your partner, and you must be able to trust yourself.

So for all of you considering checking your partner’s phone that haven’t yet pulled the trigger: THINK!!!

Stop trying to control the situation and start taking responsibility for what you can control.. YOU!! 

Why do you need proof that cheating is occurring to acknowledge that you don’t feel safe in the relationship?

Speak up, confront the issue head on, and have a conversation about it.

For all of you that have already checked the cell phone, and that stumbled upon some suspicious text messages or phone calls, I gently say to you wake up.

I’m not saying to approach your partner with boxing gloves on, ready to fight. But I am saying that if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck: It’s probably a duck.

If you’ve checked the phone and there’s nothing there, this is still your issue. What really prompted your concern? Was it an old wound? Self-worth issues? Fear?

Be honest. Go and have a real conversation about that twisting feeling in your gut. Figure out what’s really going on, and if that twisting feeling won’t go away do not ignore it.

Trust yourself to make the right decision. Trust your gut.

Have you ever checked your partner’s cell phone? What did you find? Share your story below.

And i’ll talk to you again soon…

Your Friend ,

……..Leonhart

BBM PIN: 7514F89CTWITTER: @chrisxleonhartFACEBOOK: Chrisking LeonhartFACEBOOK PAGE : Facebook.com/chrisking.leonhart.dene-Mail: chrisking4u@yahoo.com , lordcommanderleonhart@gmail.com

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