Would you be upset if your SO went through your cell phone texts and calls, and checked through your emails?

Try homicidal.

Yes

I wouldn’t care about the act of doing it because he won’t find anything. I would care about the implication of mistrust. Just the thought that he doesn’t trust me would be enough to devastate me.

At one point in a past relationship I would have been very concerned because I was a bitch and not loyal and a horrible girlfriend. It’s terribly embarrassing to look back on. Now, I wouldn’t mind a bit. Hurray for self improvement, lol.

@avvooooooo @RareDenver Why?
@jamielynn2328 Yes, I considered that aspect, that it implied he didn’t trust you. But what if it was just an occasional, random thing, not something that he did all the time? Just kind of a curiosity thing.

@deni YAY!

Very angry. And I don’t even have anything to hide. But my correspondence is mine.

That would be an invasion of privacy and a profound breach of trust.
I would be disappointed that my mate didn’t think to ask me directly.

A good relationship doesn’t have these cloak and dagger games.

It would never occur to her to snoop, but I’m certain she knows that if she’s ever curious about anything all she need do is ask.

We often look at each other’s e mails since we both have a couple of different ones. It is no big deal, just wonder if one heard from a relative and forgot to pass it along or whatever.

Neither of us texts much because of the phone plan we are on.

I think if you have nothing to hide and it is not done out of mistrust or snoopiness then why should it matter?

@pdworkin That’s a good answer.
@rooeytoo but what other reason would there be except mistrust OR snoopiness and curiosity?

Nah, I have nothing to hide. I doubt he’d do that though; he isn’t as nosey as I am.

Yeah, probably. Not because I have anything to hide, but because if he wanted to see them, he could just ask me and doesn’t need to go behind my back and do it. And I wouldn’t do that to him.

I agree with @The_Compassionate_Heretic. It would be an invasion of privacy. Call me insane, but I do believe you still have some right to privacy in a relationship. For example, the stories I write are completely private and no one can see them. Not yet, at least. For now, they’re FMEO.

@Val123 I guess if he said that he was just curious, I would have to try to understand. From that angle I guess it would be nice to know it was my inbox he was checking and not some other girls…

@Val123 – We are in our 60’s we forget a lot so, We often look at each other’s e mails since we both have a couple of different ones. It is no big deal, just wonder if one heard from a relative and forgot to pass it along or whatever.

Mistrust and snoopiness have negative connotations so I would not ascribe them to this situation, but curiosity is an okay term to use.

I really don’t think it is a big deal in our case, don’t know about others. I guess it depends on the kind of relationship you have.

Without asking? Yes, that would bother me, if only because those messages were meant for me, not him.

I would want to know why. Intent means everything.

I know I looked at my husbands texts the other morning. He just got a new phone and his text message alarm went off, he was in the shower so I was trying to read it to see if it was work related (it was, but nothing important) I don’t feel I snooped. He doesn’t either.

I had an ex boyfriend who did just that. He also went through my address book and old phone bills from 2002 and forward (we weren’t even together then) and cross referenced them. He had issues. I never gave him reason to mistrust me, I never cheated. He accused me of it anyway. We broke up because he kept making up things that I was doing behind his back. If only I was really having that much fun in real life.
But to answer your question, yes it upset me, but I did talk to him about it without yelling.

Oh see I didn’t really think about how it is an invasion of privacy and stuff…I was thinking more along the lines of “would they find anything that would cause a problem”....and so in that sense, there would be no problems, but I would be a little unhappy that they felt the need to go through my things…because that does point to a trust issue, like someone mentioned above. So, it probably wouldn’t bother me that much, but it could be indicative of a problem in our relationship and might bother me in that sense…

@Val123 see here we got married in May and are now approaching 5 years together in total, and it still stands, we may be a couple but we are also two individuals, if we feel we can’t trust each other then we are not a couple but two individuals sharing a living space

@chyna Ah yeah. If my husband looked through my stuff and demanded an accounting, I’d be upset!

@jamielynn2328 You said, “I doubt he’d do that though; he isn’t as nosey as I am.” That could describe me! I mean, I meander through the phone bill, just for the hell of it! And I know I would meander through his emails if they were easily accessible! I don’t know why, but it’s not an issue of trust. Nosiness, curiosity, I guess.

@deni Good Answer~

I have three areas of privacy, as a male. My wallet, my cell phone, and my email. Everything else is fair.
I once caught a girl snooping in my email, and even though I had nothing to hide, it felt like I had been stabbed in the back.

Honestly no- there is nothing he can’t see. we both pretty much use the same passwords for things. we forward things to each other all of the time, we’ll tell each other you’ve got a text msg on your phone. i wouldn’t ever demand his password though because I trust him. I think if you let the person know the password (without it actually being demanded) i think you are communicating its ok to look. Like an older person mention they forget to share/forward emails sometimes. the only time might be a problem is if you were arranging a surprise party or gift for them or something along those lines. he is my soulmate, husband, best-friend and we love sharing with each other. it would bother me if a password was demanded because that carries and implication of mistrust but we don’t have that so i say if he likes look away because i don’t hide things from him and talk to him about everything anyway.

I have nothing to hide, but it would bother me if it was something he did on a regular basis. I trust him and I expect him to do the same.

I couldn’t carw less if my husband wants to look thru my phone or email. I have nothing at all to hide. He has never looked thru my stuff because he trusts me. I get mad when he digs in my purse looking for change tho.

Upset ? You are joking of course, I would feel completely violated (with a capital V )! Whether or not I had anything to hide would be utterly beside the point.

Would not upset me one bit.

Nope… I believe in honesty and transparency between partners.

There are a few things that are mine and mine alone. Other than that, whatever. My personal correspondence is one of the things that’s private. Going into them is a breech of my trust in them and an implication that they don’t trust me. Neither is acceptable without cause.

Nope, she is welcome to look at anything on my cell phone or computer that she likes. I’ll even give her the passwords to my private sites. I have nothing to hide from her, and even if I did, there are more important things to get pissed about. Like not telling me that a certain relative and her damn brats is stopping by.

I have to say I would be pretty annoyed if my husband was protective of his communications with others. I think that would be cause for me to be suspicious. I never think to check or spy, but if I had to go into his computer or phone to get some sort of info or phone number and he jumped all over me for it, I would not be happy and I would start checking.

It surprises me how many say they would be upset.

There was recently a question where you rate your relationship and there were so many 10’s and I was surprised by that.

Obviously my thinking must be flawed if we use these questions as models. I would have assumed that if your relationship is a 10, you wouldn’t have a problem with your partner having access to all aspects of your life.

And why is it snoopiness or mistrust, why can’t it just be curiosity and what is wrong with that?

@rooeytoo when people say their relationship is a 10, and then answer this question that they’d be upset by their SO doing this, well that just reminds me of all the people that exclaim that they are good drivers, when in fact, they really are only fair drivers.

I would be absolutely livid!

@arpinum I agree 100%. My purse, my cell & my emails are mine & mine alone. I don’t go snooping through hubby’s personal stuff & I don’t want him going through mine. And I don’t want to hear any of this “if you have nothing to hide, it shouldn’t matter” bull shit. It matters to me! That’s part of MY private world. Period. There has to be respect for the other person’s property. When I want him to see something, I show him. He doesn’t ask, so it works out fine.

@jbfletcherfan I wish I could give more than one GA

@rooeytoo

Different people have different views on relationships. Some people believe that when you’re in a relationship, you’re still two separate individuals, rather than becoming part of one conglomerate individual. It has nothing to do with how high of quality you’d rate your relationship. My parents have been happily married for 24 years and they still don’t go through each other’s stuff like that.

Eh. I can see it from both perspectives, honestly. I completely understand some people wanting a sense of privacy – because it ultimately leads to a sense of individual self. Plus, if your SO goes through your things simply because they’re paranoid, yeah, that would be really annoying and kind of screwed up.

However, I wouldn’t object at all to sharing passwords, letting them look through stuff for information they might need, etc. If they wanted to look, I would appreciate them letting me know first, at least – just because it’s the nice thing to do. If they ever wanted to actually snoop, I’d much rather believe that my partner was comfortable enough with the relationship to first approach me, voicing any concerns they might have, before feeling the need to snoop.

@Psychedelic_Zebra To that end, I once posted on wis.dm “Do other people tell you you’re a good driver?” The vast majority said, “No. No one’s ever told me that.” But I know that if I’d posted, “Are you a good driver?” the VAST majority would have said yes!

@DrasticDreamer Shoot! I wish I’d run this past you before I posted it! I could have written the question so much better! Will you be my editor from now on??

@Val123 I think you did just fine. :) As a matter of fact, the way you worded the question probably resulted in more responses than it would have, if you’d worded it like I did.

A couple days ago, my husband gave me a sizeable check for me to deposit into my checking account. My checkbook is in a drawer in the dining room. I asked him if he’d checked my balance & he said “no, I just thought it was time to put some more money in there.” I told him he could look any time. For some reason, our money situation is an open book for me. But emails & cell phones….no. And I wouldn’t dream of going through HIS stuff, either.

I honestly wouldn’t care. I have nothing to hide.

My boyfriend and I know each others passwords to pretty much anything, just in case one of us has to check the others account if we’re away from the computer, or if my boyfriend needs to deposit money in my bank, he knows my passcode. People object to that, but honestly, it doesn’t bother me.

I just wonder if the people who are against the idea picture your SO spending hours looking through emails and going through phone history? I am not even thinking like that, and I would guess most people who said they would not care aren’t either. Just the other day my husband said he went in my phone to get a phone number, for some reason he felt compelled to tell me, which I actually like. The point is I am not talking about my husband or I snooping, just that I don’t have anything I need to hide from him.

@JLeslie That is exactly what my ex did. I was out of town for 3 days and he was staying in my home with my dog and went through 5 years of phone bills, found all my passwords and got on all of my accounts on my computer. That is out of line. I had nothing to hide and would have let him look at anything, but since he snuck and looked, I was pissed.

@chyna I wouldn’t be pissed. If for some reason he was feeling uneasy and that made him feel better I would be ok with it. Did he tell you afterwards? Or, did you figure out later that he had rifled through everything. And, Why are you pissed? Because he isn’t trusting you, or because he found some things you would rather he did not see? If my husband felt compelled to do it because he just started to wonder about something I would not be angry, but would want to talk about why he felt that way. If it was a daily occurance of insecurity I would be worried about the relationship.

@JLeslie Yes, I guess I kind of left it open to interpretation. Not sure if I did that on purpose or not. I, of course, would be upset if my husband obsessed on HAVING to see what calls I made that day, WHO I sent emails to and why, WHERE did I go today….anyone who would do that doesn’t deserve to have an alternate SO! People like that can read things into the most innocent transactions. “You called 316–555-1212 three times in a row! Who’s at that number!” Well, actually, if he were to dial it, it would be directory assistance for the 316 area code.

i wouldn’t care because i have nothing to hide. if i had something to hide, i would be upset. however, whether i had something to hide or not, if he looks at mine, i would have the right to look at his. if i told him i wanted to look at his and he said no, i’d be fuming. what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. i’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

@jca As so many people have responded, it really breaks down to WHY would they want to do that? Simple curiosity? Or mistrust? Mistrust, especially when there is no reason not to trust the other person, is definitely not good.

I was pissed because he had no reason to mistrust me, that if he had asked, I would have given him anything he wanted to look at. He wanted to believe I was doing something I wasn’t and he killed the relationship with his doubts and accusations.

My fiancé has done it before and I did get very upset about it. I had nothing to hide but the fact that he went behind my back hurt me.

@chyna Yep.
@ItalianPrincess1217 How did you find out he’d done it?

@Val123 He later asked me who Adam was. (He is my gay friend) but my fiancé assumed the worst. So he felt pretty silly after he found out.

Mine did. I always get great jokes from another friend, so he knew he was welcome.

I think it really depends on their intentions in doing so. If they are purposely looking for something to start a fight with then that’s a big no no. But if they are looking simply out of curiosity or boredom then that’s a different story. Like I said earlier, it wouldn’t bother me if it was a once in a blue moon type of situation.

I also agree with @JLeslie. If my SO made a big scene because I was looking through his phone or email then I would probably just assume he’s trying to hide something from me.

@ItalianPrincess1217 So are you guys still together? Was it just a random, one time thing early in your relationship?

@Val123 Oh it was a long time ago and yes we are still together :) Getting married in July! The most important lesson we’ve learned is to always communicate with each other. It works wonders!

@ItalianPrincess1217 :) Cool. You just added a whole other dimension to this discussion! My birthday is in July! So…July what??

@Val123 Is it? The wedding is July 30th. Does that happen to be your bday??

@ItalianPrincess1217 Well shoot! No. BUT it was like a lottery….if you’d hit the 4th, my grandson, the 12th, my daughter, the 14th my son, the 18th my X’s, Mine….the 24th. I don’t suppose you’d consider changing the date, would you!? Thought not!

@Val123 Oh! My original date was set for the 24th! No lie. But the site was booked :( So we had to settle for the only one available in July.

@ItalianPrincess1217 ROFL! OK. I’ll settle for that! But think of me, from now on, till death do you part, on July 24th! And you will, too!!

@Val123 Ok I will! Or should I say, I do!

@ItalianPrincess1217 LOL! You will!

What if by doing this you discovered that your partner had cheated on you?

I have no problem with him doing that and if he wants to see my phone or emails then he is welcome to if he asks. I have absolutely nothing to hide from him and so he is welcome to do this. I would be upset if he went behind my back and did it only because this would mean that he doesn’t trust me and I haven’t given him any reason to trust me. If there is a problem I would want him to talk to me rather than doing something like that behind my back even though he won’t find anything in either to cause more mistrust.

However I agree with @rooeytoo that if he is just looking for something innocently (ie: he’s not trying to find something to hold against me) then he is welcome to.

I really wouldn’t have a problem with him looking through my stuff, because I have nothing to hide. But, it is the issue that he didn’t trust me. Why didn’t he trust me? Why did he feel he had to sneak around to make sure I wasn’t a liar?

@jeanna has a good point. if the roles were reversed and you (hypothetical “you”) did this and found out your partner was cheating, then would this not have been an effective way of finding out? like if “you” checked his phone and found excessive calls to/from a woman, and then researched further and found out this was someone he was fooling around on you with, then trust issues for looking in his phone would be the least of your problems because it would have yielded something more critical.

That would seem to me to be a case where ignorance is bliss.

@pdworkin I really think that if my SO were cheating on me consistently with another woman, I’d know it. I’d feel it. I sense it. I think most others would, too.

@Val123 My best friend of 30 years had a feeling that something was wrong in her marriage. She looked at her husbands phone the other day and he had naked pictures of himself that he had sent to another woman. He was one of those that would get upset if anyone even touched his phone. You are right about that gut instinct. I think most women know.

I belong in the group that wouldn’t be upset and I completely agree with @JLeslie. I think if someone gets very upset, like my best friend’s husband, they might possibly have something to hide.

Maybe the Q should have been, “If you thought your SO was cheating on you, would you go through his stuff?” I’d say “Hell yes!”

Here’s the thing, if he/she does have something to hide you have to do it behind their back.

Another point, people before they cheat and people while they are cheating have the same “symptoms.” Like @jonsblond mentioned a woman usually knows, probably a man does to. When someone begins to be emotionally absent from a relationships the partner perceives the distance. Let’s just say it is the man in this example. He begins to be shorter tempered, the wife feels like she can’t do anything right and the man is overcritical. He might be less interested in sex. He is annoyed when his wife requests he does things. He might be coming home later, because he is not having a good experience at home. He may want more privacy and less questions in general. This guy might be moving away from the relationship and more open to affair, OR he might already be having an affair, it could be either. If the woman has been cheated on before by her husband or someone in the past she is very in tune with these symptoms, and even if the guy has done nothing outside of the marriage, she might feel compelled to check. He might be upset at the mistrust, because he has done nothing, nothing yet; but really they need to talk about what is wrong in the relationship. Sometimes these things pass, every relationship has tough spots, and may not need a big therapy session, but when things are tense in a relationship it would be wrong to deny it.

I am not talking about crazy jealous possessive controlling macho men or jealous neurotic women, that is a whole different thing that would drive me ‘round the bend. But, normal people who go through ups and downs in relationships.

That and he starts making unusual references in the heat of sex….or he slips and calls you by another name.

@Val123 or that.

@Val123 I hate when that happens.

@chyna Yes. And it happened to me. With my X

@Val123 you had said you would sense it if your SO was cheating. I just wanted to add that in my opinion it is a gift when you get to know for sure and have evidence…if you want to know.

@JLeslie Yep!

I would be upset but more for them than me because:

* It would tell me they are insecure with our relationship which means I’ve not been a good SO. I’d hate hate hate for them to have any reason at all not to feel like they’re “the cream in my coffee”.

* They’d be bound to find things they don’t have the back stories to understand perspective

* They’d be curious about what role particular people play in my life and they’d probably imagine the worst

* They’d find some of my shopping stuff and my surprises would be spoiled

* The time spent answering any inquiries of theirs to clear up any fears, suspicions, whatevers- that time would take away from our positive/limited time together and I also know people ask far fewer questions than they really have when bothered about things.

I don’t have anything to hide at all, but it would really bother me because it would show that he doesn’t trust me for some reason, or can’t communicate with me to ask questions or voice concerns he has. That being said, I trust him completely and always leave my phone laying around and my email accounts popped wide open on my computer.

But the email specifically, I would be incredibly incredibly furious about mostly because it invades the privacy and trust of everyone who writes to me. If my SO had an issue with me, he could discuss it but raiding other email in which very private things were discussed on someone else’s end would be totally wrong.

@hungryhungryhortence It would tell me they are insecure with our relationship which means I’ve not been a good SO

Why would you blame yourself for somebody else’s insecurity? There are people who feel insecure regardless of how secure their situation might actually be. To describe yourself as not being a “good SO” suggests you have made yourself responsible for another person’s feelings, that strikes me as a very unhealthy not to mention unhelpful to the person concerned thing to do.

@Adagio X100! It wouldn’t be your fault @hungryhungryhortence. It would be theirs.

I agree with @hungryhungryhortence to the point that if I have done something that causes my husband to feel insecure I want to know what it is so I can correct it, I would feel badly I had communicated poorly with him about a stress I might be under or other situation that is causing me to be different than usual.

@JLeslie That could be true if you’d been together a long time, and he suddenly started doing something like that, out of character for him. But not if you’d been together for a relatively short period of time. In that case I think it would be a character flaw on his part. Insecurity on his part, which is nothing anyone else could be responsible for.

@Val123 it depends. You could be right, or it could be he has been burned before and relates certain behaviors with his cheating x.

@JLeslie All of the answers have made me re-think my original reasoning for asking the question. My original thought was, “I wouldn’t care, ‘cause I have nothing to hide!” but if he really WERE to do that, to the point that I realized he was doing it deliberately, I guess I’d be agitated and worried…..I do know that our home email is mostly, 100% “mine.” He’s not an email person and for him to actually read an email that he knows is probably addressed to me means he’s “checking.” But there have been times when, in discussion, I’ve said, “Al sent an this email about chicken wings…” and he’ll interrupt and say, “Yeah! I saw that!” So…to an extent, he sorta was reading “my” mail…but…well, it’s complicated. I don’t feel threatened. But, of course, he’s also never confronted me with “What is THIS??!!” So. Thanks again everyone!

@Val123 & et al: I answered the way I did because in my experiences, I’ve never had an SO doubt me or become insecure in how I felt about them, they always know they are the end all and be all in my eyes, sometimes to the point of taking for granted but rarely. Also, I’d not ever get to the point of having a person as an SO if they were by their own nature so insecure and squirrely. Now, I do know what it’s like to become so insecure and suspicious of another but I also know reasonable people don’t go there unless there’s a concrete reason. Your gut will tell you when someone’s dicking you around.

if he insisted, i would say here’s my phone, now give me yours. you can look at mine, only if i get to see yours.

I would if they were sneaky about it. However, if they just asked me I would let them read my emails and texts. The boredom of it all would be their punishment!

I think I know how Tiger would answer this question!!

Yes I would care. As has already been said, it is an invasion of my privacy and it suggests he does not trust me. That, rather than any concern he might find something I might not want him to see, would upset me.

My son’s birthday is July 11th, my oldest. And that means it’s 7–11, hahaha.

And my wife used to do it, sneak around on my computer snooping, a lot. I’m not sure if she still does or not, but she better not be anymore, that’s all I’m saying. Nothing bad going on, but that would dig up buried memories. And I’m not the one who cheated (different story). One time, she went snooping through my car, and found a fifth of Dry Fly (local people in Spokane) Vodka in the car, and dumped it out on my seat. I called her up and gave her the biggest tongue lashing I have ever done in my life (she did this while i was taking a nap, then left for the weekend to her parents). I told her if she was going to pull this childish bullsh*t and be all sneaky like that she could stay at her parent’s house. Needless to say she walked around on pins and needles for a while when she got back. God, I have never been that pissed in my life and haven’t since. She acted like that a lot, a long time ago, and for her to do it again so much later in life, was irritating to say the least. This happened like 3 years ago and she supposedly hasn’t been through my stuff since. I have no reason to think that she has, so I’m not wondering about it. But just typing about said incident has riled me up a little.

Ok, better now.

@ZAGWRITER None of that sounds good. Your story had: lack of trust, cheating, and alcohol in a car.

lol, the alcohol was for later that night. It wasn’t opened.

Well Zag, she cut her nose off to spite her face there didn’t she :-)

People sometimes, right?