Does this mean that she trusts me or not?

I don’t know about trusting YOU, but it sounds like she has been burned before and has problems with trust in general. It is also an indicator that she is a control freak and does not understand personal boundaries. You’re looking at a red flag, my friend.
I would correct that behavior before it escalates. Trust is earned, and not by searching for something she would bitch at you about.
If this is the same girlfriend you asked us about with her drinking, I suggest you sit down with the coolest parent among yours/hers and ask them to talk to you about attempting to control one another and how they developed healthy boundaries themselves. It’s a common young romantic relationship mistake, and your parents can help guide that initial urge to control someone you care for.

It depends on how she does it. Does she smile and say “let me look at your phone”? Or does she wait for you to leave the room, pick it up with an unpleasant look on her face? Does she demand it or is she being playful?

That will tell you if she is curious or suspicious.

Curiosity is okay to an extent, but it is not a right to inspect your privacy.

@zenvelo Yeah it’s more on the lines of, she waits for me to leave the room, then she picks up my phone and looks through it. Other times it would just be, let me see your phone and then she starts looking through it. Sometimes she just takes advantages of the moments I give her my phone to take pictures and then starts looking through. So honestly, the one I find most uncomfortable is, leaving the room and then her looking through my phone. I just don’t see why she needs to do this, I see it as invading my privacy and I don’t like it. As I mentioned before, I have nothing to hide, so I just don’t pay attention to it but it bothers me you know? I don’t look through her phone, and if I do have her phone, it’s to take pictures and if she’s busy, I reply to her friend’s messages for her. Or I just drop in to say hi. I don’t look through her messages or anything so why does she feel she needs to do it to me?

In my opinion the way or reasons for searching through your private communications is irrelevant. If she saw any communications with another cute female don’t pretend she wouldn’t ask you about it or begin being passive aggressive or searching more often. Then pretend it was “no big deal” and she “wasn’t really worried” when you tell her that cute girl is your cousin that lives 600 miles away… I’m telling you, red flag. Set your boundaries.

@GloPro How do you suggest I engage this? Should I sit her down for a talk? Should I explain to her I don’t feel comfortable when she invades my privacy?

I was thinking sitting her down and respectfully explaining to her that if I don’t do it to her, there is no reason for her to do it to me. I trust her, she should trust me as equally.

@jeremy0207 Umm, she doesn’t trust you. It may not be just you, but she is not a trusting person. If you want to stay in a relationship with her, time for a conversation about how that behavior can poison things.

My last girlfriend and I would joke around when we were out having coffee or lunch and had our phones out, and we’d look at each others pictures, and who we’d had calls with. That was actually bonding, because we had nothing to hide.

Having a relationship with anyone, including a spouse, who felt entitled to snoop anywhere in my life without an invitation, is not good.

We are all allowed some privacy and we get to decide, unilaterally and individually, how that is defined.

@jeremy0207 I think the best approach is to give her examples from both sides of things you see that are red flags and an attempt to control one another. You are young and still developing your style of a romantic relationship. Your parents would love to help guide and develop positive traits. Ask the coolest one to sit down with the two of you and talk to you about the way loving, caring people treat each other and support each other. Your parents have no doubt made mistakes you can learn from and also no doubt have learned great positive relationship tricks, too. It may seem uncomfortable at first, but parents are there to guide you. Ask them. (If I remember you’re about 20? It’s the best age to transition into adult conversations and relationships with them.)
To be clear – you don’t have to air your dirty laundry to your parents. Discuss that with girlfriend. Then just ask global questions to the parents. Like “how did you learn to trust your partner? How did you learn not to control your partner?

Never break others trust in you. This happens so easily in society and in personal relations. This the first ‘rule of life’ my parents tought me, this is how I live my life. Even when it takes extraordinary effort to keep that trust.

I know this doesn’t answer your Q, but it’s the right way to live because then you won’t be bothered by her interest.

Thank you all that answered. I know what I need to do now, thank you very much. Have a great rest of the day, I will let you know how things went if I can.
@herculies @GloPro @gailcalled @zenvelo

Being interested in you is one thing; pre-internet this behavior would have been akin to opening your mail, eavesdropping on your phone calls and reading your private diary. Everyone is entitled to have some privacy, an issue defined by each individual.

…why does she feel she needs to do it to me? Discovering her reasons might be an interesting exercise in psychotherapy but is irrelevant here. You simply say, “Please do not do that, ever.”

A lot of people, mostly young and insecure types, seem to feel that being coupled up means you somehow have a right to be privy to all of the others personal business. You do not.
Your girlfriends behavior is not acceptable, and if you have never given her a reason to not trust you it is her own insecurities she is acting on.
Even if you were untrustworthy, monitoring another for signs of deception is not healthy and if one feels the need to resort to this kind of behavior the relationship is already over.

It doesn’t exactly matter, rulewise, that you don’t do that. She might wish you wanted to. But you don’t want to, and she does want to. So yikes, you’re different from each other. You need to be friends about that. You need to be friends about having dissimilar preferences. It’s not up to us to decide one of you is “right”.
Your girlfriend might be offended that a) you don’t want her to look at your phone records and b) you don’t want to look at her phone records. She might be online right now asking some focus group if a boyfriend who doesn’t care who else she’s talking to might just plain not like her very much/might be untrustworthy. That group of advisors… who cares what they say? who cares what we say? This is YOUR relationship and HER relationship.

TALK TO HER.

love, Auntie susanc

FWIW, I have full access to my husband’s cellphone and email. I’ve never checked either. I trust him, and I also won’t lower myself, or him, to the indignity of snooping and spying.

It’s probably like people looking through the medicine cabinets of friends, and other aquaintences. Some people just have an urge to snoop through people’s personal stuff. I never understood that behavior, but I hear it is very common.

@Jonesn4burgers wait… medicine cabinats are taboo? I think I am a snooper. First, I look thru their book collections, then I check their out fridge, after that I go to the bathroom just to look in the medicine cabinet… Maybe I need snoopers anonymous.

But I don’t look thu their underwear drawer.

There was a time that I was very insecure and I was prone to snooping, and that is what I see being the issue with your situation, @jeremy0207 – this girl is untrusting, which often degrades relationships in one way or another. It could be that she’s been burned in the past, or maybe she has self-esteem issues and doesn’t feel deserving of your affection. I’ve been on the other side with a jealous ex, and always felt that I was on trial and had to prove my devotion to him and it was never good enough.

Like @SadieMartinPaul, my fiancé and I have full access to each others digital media – we even share a password-security app, so we could literally go anywhere in each others’ digital life. The key factor is that we DON’T. For us there is no need for privacy between each other, because we are each others’ best friends. I don’t understand how one could be choose a life partner with someone unless they feel 100% safe and “at home” around them. Of course, the OP is probably not at that stage of life just yet; but finding a life partner is generally the ultimate goal of dating.

@herculies, yes, you definately are a snooper. That’s not uncommon though, as I said before. As I hear it, the snoopers are more common than the people like me, who would never think of looking inside someone’s cabinets unless they asked me to get something for them.
Knowing other people’s business bother’s me. I quit being a housekeeper because I was vaccuming the bedroom floor at a very nice family’s house, and bumped something under the bed. I looked under to move it so I could clean better. It was a guidebook. I was so embarrassed! I went there two more times, but seeing the wife,then seeing the husband, and I didn’t want to know that much about them. I quit. I wouldn’t give them a reason.
I would imagine most of my friends are snoopers. I don’t hold it against people who are. It just makes people like me uncomfortable..I don’t have things to hide, I just like my intimacy to be invited, mutual.

If she checks it only once, she might just be curious. If she checks it more than once, she doesn’t trust you.

@kritiper I didn’t think about that. Makes perfect sense. You’re a genius!

Like me… except more.

@Jonesn4burgers You mean you found a sex guidebook? I think that is so cool… a married couple should enjoy each others company. Everything is so much better when you have a healthy sexual relationship, it increases your quality of life.

Yes I am now a super snooper!

Lock your fridge, hide your medicine cabinate… and…

Let me call my mother and tell her the good news.

@herculies, of course a sex guidebook. What else would be under their bed, their owners manual for the stove? Sure, a healthy interest in keeping things fresh is great. I just don’t want to know that much about specific people.
The couple next door may keep things exciting by playing naughty student, bossy teacher, and if they do, I hope they never run low on chalk, but I want to be blissfully left out of any knowledge of it.
I think the comments we are sharing perfecrly express my point. Everyone has their own feelings and views about privacy.