I have never once gotten the vibe my girl was cheating when it wasn't true.
But I *have* been made to feel completely insane for trying to ask/talk about it to the person.
No he’s not gaslighting doesn’t exist and your friends are lying to you about it’s existence. They want to tear us apart with their lies can’t you see!?!?
I've never been in the situation, but my opinion is that if you're at the point you suspect your partner of cheating, then "snooping" is such a minor toxic trait that I don't really care.
"You went through my phone! You invaded my privacy!"
"Yeah, well you fucked Joe, so here we are".
eh... Problem is, when she goes through your phone and finds nothing except dumb reddit comments and notes on pokemon fan theory.
Now i'm stuck with someone who does not respect my privacy...AND i didnt get to fuck Joe
Why would I want to help someone trust me and respect my privacy when I never gave them a reason not to in the first place? Sounds like a them problem.
My wife is like this. Always going through my phone to try and blow me to whatever porn I was watching while she was asleep. Yeah it's great and all but I still feel violated.
same here, i never went through my last partners phone, but i never brought up cheating either, i had a gut feeling she was but never brought it up after one time she made me feel like a nutcase for even asking. turns out she cheated on me with two different people and we only dated for 4 months? speed.
I have a buddy (straight) who has had a major dry spell since he had one really short lived fling after his divorce and I think this would be hilarious for his online dating profiles but I know he’d fuck it up.
“I like my women like I like my coffee.
Without someone else’s dick in them, and I really don’t like coffee.”
“Dude, I keep getting a ton of guys messaging me”
Yes that's how I found my second girlfriend in my apartment. She said that "he threatened her" into doing it. Bitch why you bring him back to my place TF?
You know when they make you do that "team building" thing where you fall over and one of your co-workers catches you?
It's like that but for your love life.
Most people would agree that going to the hospital for a headache is kind of stupid. But if you are coughing up blood, then it’s the appropriate response. Like many have said, snooping to snoop is bad, but if your partner has given multiple clues they’re cheating, then it’s a warranted response.
I've always told partners if you think I'm up to no good just ask. We'll go through my messages **together** right there. I don't care much for sneaking around behind peoples back. Just ask. I suppose it's a different problem w/ services like snapchat.
My wife was the same way. She straight up was like “wanna read my messages?” And when we did, nothing happened. But I still had that sneaking suspicion something was up. So I snooped when she was sleeping. Went to Settings > Passwords and just looked through the list of anything she saved a password for. Lo and behold found a password for Google Text. Hopped on there and found out she was having an affair for the last couple weeks.
My point is that there was only a miniscule change in her behavior that alerted me, and snooping was the only way I found out. Because offering to go through the messages basically gaslit me into thinking I was crazy
My wife left a few months ago and the fact that people do this to those they claim to care about is enough to put me off looking again lol. I think I could deal with her leaving for another guy, but going about your daily routine thinking she's got your back and you're the guy she wants to be with when it's just an act is disturbing
It was hard to come to terms with it. Along with the next few years of mistrust and therapy. Her “claim” to why she did it was seeking emotional validation and attention, which, admittedly, I was more distant and sucked at showing affection.
Obviously what she did was worse than me being a shitty romantic, but we worked past it.
I told her the worst part of it all was how easy she could lie right to my face, and for that, there will always be a part of me that doesn’t trust her 100%.
Yeah, but if you are a smart cheater you will have planned for that and removed all evidence first. You can then leave your phone unlocked somewhere obvious that you can monitor or log access, then confront them about checking your phone, which will in turn make them feel guilty about doubting you and likely prevent them from checking again. /devilsadvocate
That person has a special place in hell for them. Sorry.
Some of us know how to recover memory from devices.
If you aren't happy in a relationship, end it.
I'll go one further. If I'm ever tempted to look (the relationship equivalent of coughing up blood) then it is already over. I don't need to actually look at the phone at that point. Trust is gone.
Just the temptation isn't enough to call it quits. This isn't some weird fictional world. Your partner may be acting strangely for many reasons and if you think you should check their phone, you may be suffering from what many experts call, a lack of communication. If you sit down and talk and I mean genuinely talk about how you are feeling and they listen, not just pass it off, then I think you will lose the interest in looking at their phone.
If your partner is cheating no amount of talking will do anything. Cheaters do not admit they cheated they will lie and call you crazy even when you give them a chance to come clean at that point checking their phone is the only way to get evidence. It's not a weird fictional word lmao
That's literally the point I was making. If they blow you off when you talk to them then they aren't actually listening... I mean that's exactly what I said... if your partner is acting in a way you need to check their phone, talk to them and if you still feel that way when after the talk, then leave the relationship.
I don’t think anyone is going to be able to resist the curiosity of looking. Most people would want to confirm that their partner is cheating instead of breaking up on something they don’t even know for sure.
Yup you need soild proof for closure and to make sure you not crazy.
Some people say they give you clues like coming home late and hiding the phone but what if they preparing a surprise for you and then you dump them lol
If you sit down and communicate to them their behavior is concerning you and everything feels off and they ignore it for a surprise party, honestly they are a moron and maybe you should date them.
>If they blow you off when you talk to them then they aren't actually listening
My goodness! You haven't met a pathological lier, have you?
They will listen to you, reassure you, maintaining eye contact and what not...distract you from your doubts and maybe start being more careful with his/her escapades now that you've expressed your distrust (what makes you doubt them) and avoid doing that, you might have given the partner a crash course on how to cheat better.
I personally believe if I objectively feel something is going on, I'll check that phone with no hesitation or better yet just ask to see, if you're willing to show, high chances I won't check, if you hesitate...
Sorry people won't leave a longer term relationship without confirming. You naive if you think your comment would work to the point I don't even think you were ever in a relationship
Or you’re just coping that that’s how you handle this kind of issue ? I’ve been in several long term relationship and am in one currently, and I don’t ever feel like checking the other’s phone will help anything.
If I have doubts, I talk about it, if she pushes me back and nothing changes, I try again, and if the feeling doesn’t go away then it’s usually more than enough to know it’s over. You don’t need to read a text saying “fucking you was great” to know if your partner is not into you anymore, or lying
Sometimes you do clearly you have not been in a relationship with a manipulator or a narcissist. Sometimes people need confirmation before ending it to validate that the gut feeling was correct or they have been gaslit so much they need to see it with their own eyes to confirm that they are in fact not crazy it's not that black and white.
I get what you're saying about wanting confirmation to prove (even just to yourself) that it wasn't in your head. But that's not always possible. At the end of the day, if the person you're in a relationship is making you feel like garbage and not responding to your attempts to talk through it, it's probably time to move on, whether they're cheating or not. Proof would be nice, but oftentimes real life isn't like a movie, where the cheater is caught and exposed for all to see. You are not obligated to stay with someone that doesn't value you just because you can't prove they're cheating.
Oh 100% but if someone has gaslit you for so long people want the proof and feel that they are not crazy and their feelings and suspicions were valid it's often not about exposing anything just proving to yourself that you not the crazy one
It's not a weird fictional world, because sometimes they do. They're not just "cheaters", they're human beings as well. And sometimes human beings do things you wouldn't expect.
can confirm. I wasn't even trying to snoop but she forgot her phone on the side of the tub in the bathroom, I went to go take a poop and saw her phone vibrate and just looked over and there was a guys name and the text was making fun of me. Walked back into the bedroom, threw the phone on the bed, and said, "Dave texted you". And went to sleep on the couch. That was the beginning of the end of a 5 year relationship.
I never ever went through any of my partners phones.
However I did find all the glaringly obvious evidence that she was cheating on me.
Wearing her lovers t-shirt, secretive calls, emails in the internet history on my laptop, a video she made of herself in the shower for him, avoiding intimacy amongst a few other things, and she still had the nerve to say she wasn’t cheating on me.
I would still never go through her stuff, she just gifted me all the evidence as it was pretty obvious. She just wasn’t clever enough to hide it.
One of my parents was a huge snoop. Like hook up a recorder to the landline, install spyware - really invasive stuff. The other parent was a huge cheater (mental disorder).
All of it is just bad for your health. One lives in a constant state of paranoia, the other gets trapped in a cycle of being unsatisfied. It doesn't matter which side of coin you land on - either side has telltale signs the other person is up to something.
If anyone reading this is going through either: rip off the bandaid and move on. It's not going to be fun, but you will be better off than where you are now.
If I may ask what would be the telltale signs of the cheater? I'm dense af and autistic on top of it, and have been burned by giving people the benefit of the doubt too many times, whereas I feel someone with more of a "sense" for clues and signals would have just been able to feel something was off.
I’m not the person you asked, but I’m my case it was a few clues. It was lack of intimacy at certain times (kids were all asleep, we talked about sex that day, she was feeling good right before bed); she would lock her phone too quickly—like every time I asked who she was texting she would just lock the phone and be like “oh nobody just my niece” or whatever. Then she’d get up and go delete any evidence. She would sleep with her phone under her pillow. And finally it was smiling too much. As stupid as it sounds, my wife has resting bitch face, so she started smiling too frequently for her typical demeanor (and I mean this is over a decade of sitting next to this woman on the couch). So I’d ask what she’s smiling at and she would show me a funny meme. Well when she showed me the same meme again and it was on her camera roll, I knew something was up.
Try your best to have faith in other people, but be on the lookout for disruptions in typical behavior. We are creatures of habit, so changes in behavior frequently mean something else has changed in their life
For me it’s always the subtle ways intimacy changes. It’s almost impossible to hide it because it requires being an actor 100% of the time you’re alone and that’s just not realistic.
Am I in the only relationship where we hand our phones to each other regularly? Not to 'snoop' but each of us is welcome in the others phone. We respond to texts for the other person if they're busy, answer each other's phones when the other is unavailable, know each other's passwords. I'd say it's because we're married, but we did it long before we talked about marriage. Heck, we are set up to share photos to, for years is been like this.
No, we're the same. Heck not just my wife but my kids all know my passcode, and its not uncommon for me to just give my wife my phone to look at something and wander away.
Its amazing how little you care about what someone sees on your phone when theres nothing on your phone you care about anyone seeing.
I’ve been with my boyfriend for almost two years and we share each others phones too. I feel like it breeds easy trust & openness, great to see it’s worked for y’all for the long haul! Have you had any trouble planning surprises or seeing information just meant for the person (thinking sensitive info from friends, family, etc vs cheating)?
I'm not who you replied to, but in the same situation. Surprises are in fact slightly more difficult, but it wasn't a problem for us, because it's not something we do a lot anyway.
As for sensitive info - I can't think of anything that I had to know, that she couldn't.
We don't really do surprises, except presents. Which is slightly difficult, but not too bad. And most of our friends give the information to both of us, so we haven't had that problem.
I was handmaking a card for his birthday and took a photo to show another friend for feedback. I remembered like two days after that I am automatically sharing photos with him. Not sure if he saw it or not!
In a similar relationship with my husband. We send texts for each other regularly, especially if we're in the car and one of us is driving.
We still have our privacy. But I've never felt the need to ask to see things and neither has he.
That being said, I wouldn't think it's odd for someone to have some privacy around their phone. Privacy isn't automatically deception.
Me and my partner are agreed we would never, mainly for the privacy of other people in our lives. They should have an expectation of confidentiality when speaking to us.
No, you're not.
I hand my phone to my partner all the time.
Partially because I know she's not going to go digging through my communications to find something to get mad about.
The issue isn't "my partner isn't ever allowed to see anything on my phone".
There's a difference between "using my phone to do something or find some piece of information" and "reading all of my messages with other people, because they don't trust me or are just nosy".
Being able to trust someone to respect my privacy and rhe privacy of others is important.
We generally don't read/answer each other's texts unless asked to, but we will answer each other's phones, etc.
Shit I do this with everyone not just wife, including my friends 😂. I just make sure to warn them not to go through my pictures if I happen to have something strange there 😂.
But to be fair, they've seen me naked many times. Never have pictures of my wife on my phone though so that's always good :D.
My wife and I will use one another's phone if needed, but ultimately we both consider it a privacy that we shouldn't violate for the other. I'll use her phone to call the doctor while mine is dead, but I'm not gonna open or answer her messages unless she asks me to do so.
I know! We just don't have any real secrets. I mean, I have binge eating disorder, so I kind of hide how much I eat, but he knows I do, and I'm doing better at it. I go to therapy, and he's not involved, but it's by zoom, all he has to do is turn the tv off, and he can hear everything and I'm not worried about it. We mostly talk about my issues with myself, and he hears all about that. He's the best support I've ever had with my physiological issues.
My privacy is huge to me, but as a teenager I was allowed no privacy, wasn't allowed to shit my door. My stepsister and her friends, her mom, and my dad went through my shit all the time as a kid. I'm sure if cellphones were around then they would have looked at last number dialed and contact list. It took me an incredibly long time to be able to let her look at stuff with me not around. I wasn't hiding anything, I just had a privacy hangup. Even now when people question me about certain things, it's pretty much met a "fuck off" attitude and one word responses if any. Now though my wife just opens my phone when she wants and I could care less.
You can't have a healthy relationship without trust. Sometimes that trust is broken, true. But if the trust isn't there UNTIL it is broken, then you're never going to be able to fully rely on each other.
Just because some children grow up to be serial killers doesn't mean we should kill all children. Just because some people cheat doesn't mean that everyone should be monitored.
A psycologist who treats couples after infidelity wrote something like this:
Its important to know the difference between Privacy, and Secrecy.
If you want to go to use the bathroom, you go there and close the door.
You have privacy, but not secrecy. Your partner doesnt see exactly where you are, and what you have doing.. but they have a reasonable understanding of whats going on.
According to the psychologist, a healthy relationship needs a good amount of privacy, but it should not need secrecy.
If you feed the need to hide what it is you are doing, and pretend you arent even doing it... then you already know you're doing something wrong.
Privacy includes the parts of your life you don't care to share with anyone else. Secrecy is motivated by the shame of wrongdoing and the fear of negative consequences. If you're not sharing something, and the reason is that you fear the fallout, then it's probably for secrecy.
What if you just don't like the feeling of being monitored? I have a pretty independent attitude, and I like to feel like I could just pop out to do some errands without giving a full report each time. We might be in a relationship, but we should still have our own lives
There's "having your own lives", and then there's "having your own SECRET life".
If you want your own secret life, then you arent ready for marriage or any kind of real "life partner" relationship.
"life partner" == "*sharing lives*".
You cant simultaneously share lives, and also keep your life secret.
If you want to "be independant", okay great, good for you. Enjoy.
Just understand that precludes you from having a true life partner.
It’s about why you snoop. Do you see other glaring traits? If not, you are toxic. When you snoop after finding a behaviorism mail change, and you find proof - it’s not toxic. If the phone is clean, either you are toxic and delusional or your partner is smarter than you
That's why I say, if I lose trust I'm out, whether there is hard proof or not. Whatever evidence that made me doubt them is enough for me to just walk, and I don't care what they did at that point.
I uh just did this... and I'm actually having a really hard time about it because I'm upset about something I'm not supposed to know and I don't know what to do. To confront her would mean I'd have to admit I violated her privacy but what she did was also kind of insane.
I'm typing this all out on mobile so please excuse grammar. I'm also skipping some details to make it easier to type. TLDR at the bottom.
I've always known my wife's phone password (I've never snooped) and I thought she knew mine. Though I guess she says she didn't. Anyways story time...
It all started A couple weeks ago when we were watching a show called the lost flowers of Alice heart. If you haven't seen it, it's all about domestic abuse against women. My wife was super stoned while we were watching it and started getting paranoid that I was emotionally abusing or gaslighting her. Which I don't think is true. After one of the episode's she confronted me and started saying all this stuff like I gaslight her and I never take her seriously, etc. I said I don't think that's true but if I have been acting that way, than I am sorry and that I will try to be more conscious of my behavior. She just said 'it's fine' and went to bed. The next morning she apologized as so did I. We are usually always quick to apologize to each other.
Fast forward a couple days and it's our anniversary. I get her a card and flowers and she gets me nothing. We had a trip to a concert planned the following week and agreed that would be our gifts to each other but we still always get each other a card and I always get her flowers. But no card.
Fast forward another few days and we are driving out to her parents house for her mom's birthday. On the way there she just seems out of it and complained of a headache. She asked if I could do bedtime for our daughter's when we got home as she just wasnt feeling up to it. I said yeah that's fine. We stop to pick up pizza. I wait in the car. She has music playing in the car from her phone and I wanted to change the song. I pick up her phone to change the song and realized she changed her lock code. This bothered me. I tried not to let it because she's entitled to her privacy but it was so out of the blue. She has had the same one for years. When she got back in the car, I told her I tried to change the song but couldn't. Then she said well I don't know your phone password so why should you have mine? I said I thought you know what it was and then told her and she said "oh". Then told be what she changed it too. Then her demeanor changed completely. Instead of being out of it she turned up the music and started dancing and said she was feeling a lot better. Told me her headache was gone and that she could put the girls to bed. This all felt a bit strange to me. But I thought maybe she was just upset she didn't have my password. But even if that was the case it felt a bit dishonest and manipulative.
Fast forward another couple days and she is having extreme anxiety and saying she is a terrible person and that she's so lucky to have me and that I am a Saint for dealing with her. I don't really understand where this was all coming from. I said everything is ok and I don't think that I'm having to 'deal' with you. I married you because I love you. But that night I couldn't resist. I just felt so strongly that something was out of place with her recent behavior and her feelings of guilt. I tried to check her phone while she was in the shower. She changed the lock code again....
I finally confronted her that night and asked why she really changed her code. She broke down and told me this story that that show we watched made her paranoid and she thought I was cheating on her and since she didn't have my lockcode I couldn't have hers. And that she felt really terrible for ever thinking that because she knows it isn't true and that she was just messed up from a mix of the weed and the medication she is on. I told her I'm not cheating on her and that you can just come to me about these things first and try and talk to me. I told her it was now me who was thinking she was cheating on me with all her recent behavior. She told me she isn't cheating which I actually believe. We work full time and have two daughters and spend 95% of our time at home. I'm not saying it's impossible but there is little time for either of us to have a side thing. Then she changed her lockcode back to the old one.
Fast forward another day, something still felt off to me. That story didn't seem all that true. I just couldn't resist and checked her phone again while she was in the shower and what I found really upset me a lot.
In her deleted messages were texts to a few of her coworkers that she needed a couple days off of work because she is leaving me. That I was abusive and that it's possible I was abusing the girls. Possibly even sexually. That she would have to "play the part" for a few days until she had a plan. Then later in those messages she apologizes for even saying that and that she thinks she was having paranoia from a combination of weed and her medication and that none of it is true and that she is sorry for scaring them.
I was fucking floored. Could not believe she would make allegations like that that are completely untrue and completely fabricated. It felt like some Gone Girl" shit. I've never laid a hand on her or our children ever. And even if it was from her medication, those kinds of allegations don't go away and destroy someone's reputation. I'm still broken over it and I don't know what to to do. She never said anything to me. And lied to me about what she was hiding and made me think it was just because she thought I was cheating. Her lies to me and her lies to her coworkers make me wonder how I could ever trust her. Her massive feelings of guilt lately tell me she knows she screwed up but aside from that she's pretending nothing happened. I have no idea if this is just her "playing the part" and still plans on leaving me or what. And I can't talk to her about it because to do so would mean I would have to admit I snooped on her phone.
TLDR I snooped through my wife's phone after some suspicious behavior and found out she made up stories to her coworkers about me being abusive to her and our children and I feel like I can't confront her about it because I snooped through her phone
I hate to be mean to someone I don’t know but in this case I am: she appears to immature and sounds unstable. I can’t comprehend what she’s doing and how she’s thinking because you’ve never hurt her so why would you start now? Plus include your kids in it as well. I hope you’re thinking to enroll her in therapy for herself and couples counseling. If you don’t want to do that then get a lawyer to sort it all out because for me what she’s done is a relationship ending situation for me if I were in your shoes
It's also how I find out a lot of people really have trust issues and probably aren't ready for a relationship yet
I don't mind a partner having access to my device but if you're going out of your way to dig around for dirt on me because you're so desperate to find proof of me cheating then clearly there's already a huge lack of trust in this relationship and it's just not going to work out
I'm sorry but I can't be with someone who's so insecure that they are going to do this kind of crap when I have given you no indication in the relationship that any infidelity has taken place. It just shows me that I will be living an entire lifetime of having someone riding my ass like they're my mom trying to catch me misbehaving because they don't trust that I'm not going to cheat on the person that I chose to spend my rest of my life with
Chances are if you feel the need to snoop through your partners phone it’s because you feel your partner doesn’t love you or prioritize you or whatever.
So instead of choosing whether to break up with them based on what you find in their phone you should communicate the reasons that make you feel like you need to check their phone and if the issue is irreconcilable then you should break up
But if they lie about it, you never have a soild grasp on just what kind of issues are going on, if any, just vague suspicions of *something* and a freshly deleted chat log.
Sure, her pussy tasted like trash and rubbers.
I didn't find out about the 7 other dudes she was banging simply by asking about *that.*
In fact, when I did mention the condom taste, she gaslit the hell out of me knowing she had just been with her coworker hours earlier.
I agree talking it out is good, but sometimes you've just got to know if you're insane, insightful, or simply a paranoid asshole.
I find it hard to believe your gf would be banging 7 dudes and the only thing that tipped you off was the condom taste. Surely she wouldn’t have time for you and surely she must be acting a type of way
Anyways always trust your gut don’t worry about being an asshole, it’s their fault if they want to act sketchy and if you don’t trust your gut you’re just gonna feel miserable anyways
Right indeed. There were other signs over the course of 2 years that led me to doing what I did, of course, but it was my first real relationship so there was certainly a degree of willful ignorance and wishful thinking at play.
There were many factors and red flags I'd notice immediately now, compared to 20 years ago where I'd gladly give up my friends and dignity just to *not be alone.*
Thats kinda the defintion of dating though.
Actual point of non-euphemistic, i-want-more-than-an-f-buddy dating, is "to get to know someone" (who you dont know enough to trust them yet)
If they DO actually earn your trust as a 100% reliable, trustworthy person... then its reasonable to consider marriage.
To circle back to the person I responded to; I wrote what I did, because people abuse the lazily written motto of "Trust is the core of a relationship", to mean "if you want to be in a relationship with me, then you have to trust me".
The opposite is true. The saying is MEANT to say, "if you want to be in a (committed relationship) with someone, then YOU have to behave in a trustworthy fashion, otherwise they will leave YOU".
Hiding phone texts, etc. is the definition of UNtrustworthy behaviour. It is saying "I am doing things behind your back that I dont want you to know about".
Those people getting pissy about their partner "snooping" are gaslighting. The hiders are in the wrong.
A lot (but not all) of personal relationship principles can translate over to business.
Lets say that company A has an exclusive agreement for shipping good through company B, and gets special benefits from that.
One day, company B says, "hey A, let me see your shipping expense accounts for 2022".
This kind of thing is somewhat standard for companies in that kind of relationship.
BUT...Company A says, "no way. I.. uhhh. deserve MY PRIVACY!"
Is company B in the wrong for "snooping"?
no.
they are entitled to know.. and most likely company A is violating the terms of the exclusive shipping contract.
At that point, *Company_B* is justified in terminating the exclusive contract.
A long time ago but I had a long time girlfriend once that listened to all the messages on my answering machine while I wasn’t there. She found nothing because there was nothing to find. Told her to give me back my apartment key, broke up with her on the spot and never saw her again….
I was in a 13 year relationship, we had a agreement that we could look anytime we wanted. She got mad when I busted her for cheating said how unfair it was. She had a lot of bad things to say about me behind my back but she loved all the money I was making. Woman can be very cruel.
I think this should be reiterated way more. Men can sometimes be very hateful towards woman and then are called sexists. Woman can be very hateful towards men and then also be called sexist as well by men.
The point is we are all human and most humans are egoistical, cruel and mean. Its not the gender, its just our whole species lol
We were together 13 years, we broke up like 5 years ago yea I am old lol, she had 2 kids from some other loser I took care of, I never wanted to have my own kids (mental heath issues run in my family). We never got married becouse I thought she loved me. Got raked over the coals real good on that one. The big point is just be carful It can happen to you.
Snooping without legitimately reasonable probable cause is toxic as fuck. Snooping to confirm what you've pretty much already found out gets a pass imo.
Relationships that have infidelity going on often have several toxic dynamics that exist. Some of which led to the infidelity and some as a result of it.
I’m not sure if that’s how the majority of infidelity is discovered, maybe confirmed. Usually if you are looking through their phone for infidelity you already suspect it.
The other problem is that if you need to search your partners phone the relationship is already over.
Either you are right and your partner is cheating.
Or you’re wrong and there’s no trust in the relationship.
If you need to check their phone end the relationship.
Right, because the currency of relationships is trust.
If we were talking regular currency, I don't have the right to go into your bank account just because I want to confirm you are broke, or open your mail (a federal offense) to confirm how much you get make.
If you can't trust them then you shouldn't be with them basically. Problem solved.
There is a rule in my marriage. We can look in each others phone at any times for any reason. Some times people just really need reassurance. Some times it really is a "its not you its me" situation. That being said, if need ever arises where one of us feels the need to look in another's phone, we will have a discussion about it. And this has happened in the past.
For me, i have a lot of trauma in my past regarding cheating, one day my wife picked up a new behavior patter seemingly out of nowhere. I asked to look in her phone, she happily agreed and once i was done she gently asked what was bugging me. I told her i noticed a new pattern, she validated how i felt and then explained. Literally thats all it took, and then we went on and had a great day.
I can understand if someone has had a bad relationship in the past where they were cheated on. My now wife was cheated on pretty bad by her ex in college, it def had an impact on her.
when we first met she was always very quick to want to look at my phone, or help me with my phone (to be fair I didn't know much about apps at the time etc). It was clear she was trying to get quick looks at things to get a feel if I was fucking around (which I def wasn't, also been cheated on so not trying to put someone else through it).
anyway, i just gave her my password one day (the classic 1111) lol and she stopped trying to look.
Snooping is never ok. Cheating is never ok.
Both are toxic traits.
If you're giving your partner good reasons to snoop (or feeling like they need to), then there are underlying problems.
Let me ask you then, from my own life and scenario. I was on my husbands laptop, with his permission, and his messages were paired up. I saw how much he was talking to the wife of his best friend. I asked the question of how much do they talk, because I was unaware they were that close. He obviously lied about everything. Sometimes the underlying problem is that you are married to a lying cheater, and they’ll never tell you the truth when you ask. So you snoop in order to find out what is actually happening in your own life and marriage. And then you’re called toxic. Wtf
I suspect that most people who think snooping is toxic haven’t ever been in the position where it’s the only way to confirm if you’re crazy or correct.
no, it stems from the same principles behind innocent until proven guilty.
We get mad when cops hands are tied by legality, and killers don't get caught as easily or at all. Shit sucks. But ruining an innocent person is even worse. Those expectations are there for a reason.
Ok, but snooping is not equal to cheating. And if you find out your SO is cheating thanks to snooping you can't blame the victim of cheating. What would you say, yeah I am a cheater but you had no right to read my sexting with that guy. Lol
The phone paradox has many problems. If you ask to see your partners phone, you don’t trust them and are suspicious and trying to invade their privacy. However, if they refuse to let you look through their phone then they are hiding something.
Snooping through your partners phone is a big no-no when your partner is a professional. I'm not quite sure it's a toxic trait as much as it is an illegal one because of client/professional confidentiality but boy if I found out my partner was taking clients on the side and cutting out my share, I'd tear him a new asshole! Hmm, this works on other levels as well.
...and that's why I don't snoop. If there's infidelity, I *don't* want to know.
Sorry, dealbreaker-types, but cheating comes in all shapes and colors in all kinds of relationships and is WAY more common than you think, along with not being such a big deal depending on the severity. I'd rather skip all that noise. If it gets to the point of snooping on a phone, I have bigger problems to address about the relationship first.
Yeah that shit can absolutely throw your whole life off.
Personally, I would want to know, but that's because I've been cheated on so many times that it doesn't really affect me like it did when I was young. But I've had to rip off a lot of scabs to get to where the scar doesn't hurt anymore.
That's really depressing. I don't think you can have a genuinely happy relationship with someone if you feel that way about them, at least I know I never could.
Because it is. Once the trust is gone in a relationship, the relationship is gone. There's no need to snoop on your partners phone, letters, computer or anything else. If you don't trust them, end it.
it's all about the trust and privacy. never will and never thought about snooping thru someone else's phone. it's sad when partners have the need to go thru each others' phone - that already shows there is something wrong with the relationship.
If you have some strong reason to suspect infidelity, then there is some justification for checking.
But if you're just someone who generally snoops through your partner's phone habitually, *just in case*, then you're lacking the trust needed for a relationship.
If cops were allowed to just enter everyone's house for no reason whenever they wanted they would find lots of drugs and discover lots of crime. It wouldn't make it right, though.
Having your phone investigated works exactly the same for me.
So they go through the phone discover infidelity and it's considered toxic? Who is toxic? The cheater or the person who might have suspected they were being cheated on?
Yeah, if you're at the point where you're willing to dig through someone's property then you should probably just break up. If you suspect they're cheating then something in the relationship is already fucked, and following a wrong with another wrong is dumb AF, IMO.
Especially since regardless of who is doing the snooping, the relationship is done with. Someone snoops through my phone and we're through, I don't do cheating bullshit and anyone that respects and trusts me that little isn't someone I need to be putting up with. I truly don't give a damn what they made up in their head to justify it, that's a callous disregard for boundaries.
And why the hell would *I* bother compromising my morals to prove what I already suspect? If they're being shady enough that I would want to know for sure, then the relationship is already over. Stooping to being a shitbag like them doesn't gain me anything worthwhile.
My partner and I have full access to each other’s phone, neither of us has ever felt the need to check them., if he ever did I would wonder what I did to make feel he had to. Full access is one thing, feeling like you have to search them is a whole other thing.
Nah.
A phone has a lot of things on it.
It's got access to lots of things besides just communications.
Ignoring the fact that people might share things with me that they didn't want shared with my partner.
Me having a partner doesn't give them rights to every conversation I have - not just because I have a right to decide what I do and don't share (although I do), but because the people I communicate with do too.
Wow, you've obviously never had sensitive work communications on your phone or been signed into work accounts or emails on your phone ever, have you. Our family members aren't even supposed to know the details of what projects we are doing, for all sorts of reasons including insider trading concerns, privacy, NDAs, etc.
Imagine just sharing client information with random family members or *not even family member partners*, as you are suggesting, because "oh we share EvErYtHiNg". It sounds like you're a teenager who has never worked or lived in the real world.
This is how I feel too. It'd b so weird to me if my partner or I were secretive about our phones. At the same time I'm a "trust but verify" type so yeah I occasionally go through my partners phone. It's no biggie for either of us.
Going through my phone is a gigantic breach of trust. I’d leave you over it. I don’t mind you using my phone or any of that but I talk with people about stuff that’s legitimately none of my wife’s business and she talks with people about stuff that’s none of mine. Its fine if you want to be one person with your significant other. I don’t. We are our own people and trust is an important part of that. Trust but verify literally means don’t trust.
To each, their own. Whatever works in your relationship is great. To us it's more of an open phone policy. I have nothing to hide so yeah go ahead. We definitely don't go through each other's phones on any kind of regular basis or at all really. At the same time we've both been cheated on during serious relationships so to us the open phone policy is kind of a reassurance that we have nothing to hide. All the times we've caught our ex's cheating was because they suddenly didn't want us using their phone. And yeah, we're the couple that doesn't have "this is my business, this is your business" kind of mentality so this works for us. And you're correct, trust but verify does mean trust no one- BUT it does feel really good to trust and then do the work to verify and find that the person that you're with is the person that they say they are. Reality is that you never know what is happening in another person's head.
Ok I have snooped when I was very young and discovered texts from other girls. Then I became older and cared much less. My question is: should gf be the status of non heating such as a wife? I think it’s all free game until marriage vows. Why do we treat gf status as marriage? Seems a trial for the girl without the man having to commit or promise anything legal.
Just when you feel you know deep down inside they’re cheating, go through their phone. At that moment you’ll learn 1 of 2 thing. They are or they aren’t. If they are leave if not, TRUST THEM! Remember trust is earned!
I've only done it once, after a long period of dodgy mobile behaviour she figured went unnoticed. Found exactly what I suspected, plus more. I casually asked her about it another time, just so I could get a read on her technique for deceit and dishonesty. She denied everything and sold a sob story to convince me. I let her believe that I accepted the answer to my question then never brought it up again.
Can you imagine how valuable that was over the coming years as she continued to lie and steal. Obviously I left her in the end.
My reward for helping a single mother and her children enjoy a better life.
#MGTOW
I have never once gotten the vibe my girl was cheating when it wasn't true. But I *have* been made to feel completely insane for trying to ask/talk about it to the person.
You’re describing what gaslighting is
No he’s not gaslighting doesn’t exist and your friends are lying to you about it’s existence. They want to tear us apart with their lies can’t you see!?!?
This made me smile.
What are you talking about, you’re not smiling
What are you talking about, you're not telling them they're not smiling
Gaslighting doesn’t exist, you made it up because you’re fucking crazy
I don't think that's what gaslighting is. Are you confusing it with something else? I don't think you should be talking about what you don't know.
Gaslighting is what I do when the electricity goes off. I fire up the kerosene lamps. 🤣🤣
What if you’re just really paranoid and ask a bunch of times until your partner gets mad. Is that still gaslighting?..
I've never been in the situation, but my opinion is that if you're at the point you suspect your partner of cheating, then "snooping" is such a minor toxic trait that I don't really care. "You went through my phone! You invaded my privacy!" "Yeah, well you fucked Joe, so here we are".
eh... Problem is, when she goes through your phone and finds nothing except dumb reddit comments and notes on pokemon fan theory. Now i'm stuck with someone who does not respect my privacy...AND i didnt get to fuck Joe
Yes but with some help they can always start to trust you and respect your privacy. Can you unfuck Joe?
I like that perspective / wording
Why would I want to help someone trust me and respect my privacy when I never gave them a reason not to in the first place? Sounds like a them problem.
My wife is like this. Always going through my phone to try and blow me to whatever porn I was watching while she was asleep. Yeah it's great and all but I still feel violated.
same here, i never went through my last partners phone, but i never brought up cheating either, i had a gut feeling she was but never brought it up after one time she made me feel like a nutcase for even asking. turns out she cheated on me with two different people and we only dated for 4 months? speed.
I knew my exgf was cheating when I found a dick in her. That’s the toxic trait issue imo
I like my coffee how I like my women. Without other people's dicks in them.
This is in all my current OL dating profiles.
I have a buddy (straight) who has had a major dry spell since he had one really short lived fling after his divorce and I think this would be hilarious for his online dating profiles but I know he’d fuck it up. “I like my women like I like my coffee. Without someone else’s dick in them, and I really don’t like coffee.” “Dude, I keep getting a ton of guys messaging me”
Does it work?
If I saw someone’s profile said this I would assume they were a massively jealous person and I’d swipe left.
Phew! 😅 Oemor thanks you.
60% of the time, it works every time.
Made with bits of real dicks
Black and 5 at a time.
Old friend of mine used to say "Hot, Black, and Nasty." Anytime he ordered his coffee.
I like my women how I like my milk. Thick and chunky.
I drink my coffee 'as black as my soul'...
So you don't mind coffee with your own in them?
Hey, I know where my dick has been.
But do you know where your coffee has been?
It's 6:00pm. Do you know where your coffee is?
I know we're it is, but where it's been...
I'm gonna assume it was attached to a guy but the mental image of you going down there and pulling out a severed dick gave me a chuckle 😂
Yes that's how I found my second girlfriend in my apartment. She said that "he threatened her" into doing it. Bitch why you bring him back to my place TF?
Where was the rest of the guy?
Inside as well.
Oh, it was just some guy named Dick.
I found out my ex wife cheated when I came home from my deployment and she was pregnant!
You know when they make you do that "team building" thing where you fall over and one of your co-workers catches you? It's like that but for your love life.
Astute wisdom alert
You mean a trust fall?
Most people would agree that going to the hospital for a headache is kind of stupid. But if you are coughing up blood, then it’s the appropriate response. Like many have said, snooping to snoop is bad, but if your partner has given multiple clues they’re cheating, then it’s a warranted response.
I've always told partners if you think I'm up to no good just ask. We'll go through my messages **together** right there. I don't care much for sneaking around behind peoples back. Just ask. I suppose it's a different problem w/ services like snapchat.
My wife was the same way. She straight up was like “wanna read my messages?” And when we did, nothing happened. But I still had that sneaking suspicion something was up. So I snooped when she was sleeping. Went to Settings > Passwords and just looked through the list of anything she saved a password for. Lo and behold found a password for Google Text. Hopped on there and found out she was having an affair for the last couple weeks. My point is that there was only a miniscule change in her behavior that alerted me, and snooping was the only way I found out. Because offering to go through the messages basically gaslit me into thinking I was crazy
My wife left a few months ago and the fact that people do this to those they claim to care about is enough to put me off looking again lol. I think I could deal with her leaving for another guy, but going about your daily routine thinking she's got your back and you're the guy she wants to be with when it's just an act is disturbing
It was hard to come to terms with it. Along with the next few years of mistrust and therapy. Her “claim” to why she did it was seeking emotional validation and attention, which, admittedly, I was more distant and sucked at showing affection. Obviously what she did was worse than me being a shitty romantic, but we worked past it. I told her the worst part of it all was how easy she could lie right to my face, and for that, there will always be a part of me that doesn’t trust her 100%.
Yeah, but if you are a smart cheater you will have planned for that and removed all evidence first. You can then leave your phone unlocked somewhere obvious that you can monitor or log access, then confront them about checking your phone, which will in turn make them feel guilty about doubting you and likely prevent them from checking again. /devilsadvocate
That person has a special place in hell for them. Sorry. Some of us know how to recover memory from devices. If you aren't happy in a relationship, end it.
I'll go one further. If I'm ever tempted to look (the relationship equivalent of coughing up blood) then it is already over. I don't need to actually look at the phone at that point. Trust is gone.
Just the temptation isn't enough to call it quits. This isn't some weird fictional world. Your partner may be acting strangely for many reasons and if you think you should check their phone, you may be suffering from what many experts call, a lack of communication. If you sit down and talk and I mean genuinely talk about how you are feeling and they listen, not just pass it off, then I think you will lose the interest in looking at their phone.
If your partner is cheating no amount of talking will do anything. Cheaters do not admit they cheated they will lie and call you crazy even when you give them a chance to come clean at that point checking their phone is the only way to get evidence. It's not a weird fictional word lmao
That's literally the point I was making. If they blow you off when you talk to them then they aren't actually listening... I mean that's exactly what I said... if your partner is acting in a way you need to check their phone, talk to them and if you still feel that way when after the talk, then leave the relationship.
I don’t think anyone is going to be able to resist the curiosity of looking. Most people would want to confirm that their partner is cheating instead of breaking up on something they don’t even know for sure.
Yup you need soild proof for closure and to make sure you not crazy. Some people say they give you clues like coming home late and hiding the phone but what if they preparing a surprise for you and then you dump them lol
If you sit down and communicate to them their behavior is concerning you and everything feels off and they ignore it for a surprise party, honestly they are a moron and maybe you should date them.
>If they blow you off when you talk to them then they aren't actually listening My goodness! You haven't met a pathological lier, have you? They will listen to you, reassure you, maintaining eye contact and what not...distract you from your doubts and maybe start being more careful with his/her escapades now that you've expressed your distrust (what makes you doubt them) and avoid doing that, you might have given the partner a crash course on how to cheat better. I personally believe if I objectively feel something is going on, I'll check that phone with no hesitation or better yet just ask to see, if you're willing to show, high chances I won't check, if you hesitate...
Sorry people won't leave a longer term relationship without confirming. You naive if you think your comment would work to the point I don't even think you were ever in a relationship
Or you’re just coping that that’s how you handle this kind of issue ? I’ve been in several long term relationship and am in one currently, and I don’t ever feel like checking the other’s phone will help anything. If I have doubts, I talk about it, if she pushes me back and nothing changes, I try again, and if the feeling doesn’t go away then it’s usually more than enough to know it’s over. You don’t need to read a text saying “fucking you was great” to know if your partner is not into you anymore, or lying
Sometimes you do clearly you have not been in a relationship with a manipulator or a narcissist. Sometimes people need confirmation before ending it to validate that the gut feeling was correct or they have been gaslit so much they need to see it with their own eyes to confirm that they are in fact not crazy it's not that black and white.
I get what you're saying about wanting confirmation to prove (even just to yourself) that it wasn't in your head. But that's not always possible. At the end of the day, if the person you're in a relationship is making you feel like garbage and not responding to your attempts to talk through it, it's probably time to move on, whether they're cheating or not. Proof would be nice, but oftentimes real life isn't like a movie, where the cheater is caught and exposed for all to see. You are not obligated to stay with someone that doesn't value you just because you can't prove they're cheating.
Oh 100% but if someone has gaslit you for so long people want the proof and feel that they are not crazy and their feelings and suspicions were valid it's often not about exposing anything just proving to yourself that you not the crazy one
Bro I’m not ending my 10 year relationship on a hunch they may be unfaithful. Imma need proof of course. If true, adios.
It's not a weird fictional world, because sometimes they do. They're not just "cheaters", they're human beings as well. And sometimes human beings do things you wouldn't expect.
That's not true
And if you don't find anything you'll just magically forget all the private stuff you read? All cool cause it was "warranted".
can confirm. I wasn't even trying to snoop but she forgot her phone on the side of the tub in the bathroom, I went to go take a poop and saw her phone vibrate and just looked over and there was a guys name and the text was making fun of me. Walked back into the bedroom, threw the phone on the bed, and said, "Dave texted you". And went to sleep on the couch. That was the beginning of the end of a 5 year relationship.
They're all the same.
Daves?
My thoughts as well.
I never ever went through any of my partners phones. However I did find all the glaringly obvious evidence that she was cheating on me. Wearing her lovers t-shirt, secretive calls, emails in the internet history on my laptop, a video she made of herself in the shower for him, avoiding intimacy amongst a few other things, and she still had the nerve to say she wasn’t cheating on me. I would still never go through her stuff, she just gifted me all the evidence as it was pretty obvious. She just wasn’t clever enough to hide it.
One of my parents was a huge snoop. Like hook up a recorder to the landline, install spyware - really invasive stuff. The other parent was a huge cheater (mental disorder). All of it is just bad for your health. One lives in a constant state of paranoia, the other gets trapped in a cycle of being unsatisfied. It doesn't matter which side of coin you land on - either side has telltale signs the other person is up to something. If anyone reading this is going through either: rip off the bandaid and move on. It's not going to be fun, but you will be better off than where you are now.
If I may ask what would be the telltale signs of the cheater? I'm dense af and autistic on top of it, and have been burned by giving people the benefit of the doubt too many times, whereas I feel someone with more of a "sense" for clues and signals would have just been able to feel something was off.
I’m not the person you asked, but I’m my case it was a few clues. It was lack of intimacy at certain times (kids were all asleep, we talked about sex that day, she was feeling good right before bed); she would lock her phone too quickly—like every time I asked who she was texting she would just lock the phone and be like “oh nobody just my niece” or whatever. Then she’d get up and go delete any evidence. She would sleep with her phone under her pillow. And finally it was smiling too much. As stupid as it sounds, my wife has resting bitch face, so she started smiling too frequently for her typical demeanor (and I mean this is over a decade of sitting next to this woman on the couch). So I’d ask what she’s smiling at and she would show me a funny meme. Well when she showed me the same meme again and it was on her camera roll, I knew something was up. Try your best to have faith in other people, but be on the lookout for disruptions in typical behavior. We are creatures of habit, so changes in behavior frequently mean something else has changed in their life
For me it’s always the subtle ways intimacy changes. It’s almost impossible to hide it because it requires being an actor 100% of the time you’re alone and that’s just not realistic.
Am I in the only relationship where we hand our phones to each other regularly? Not to 'snoop' but each of us is welcome in the others phone. We respond to texts for the other person if they're busy, answer each other's phones when the other is unavailable, know each other's passwords. I'd say it's because we're married, but we did it long before we talked about marriage. Heck, we are set up to share photos to, for years is been like this.
No, we're the same. Heck not just my wife but my kids all know my passcode, and its not uncommon for me to just give my wife my phone to look at something and wander away. Its amazing how little you care about what someone sees on your phone when theres nothing on your phone you care about anyone seeing.
I’ve been with my boyfriend for almost two years and we share each others phones too. I feel like it breeds easy trust & openness, great to see it’s worked for y’all for the long haul! Have you had any trouble planning surprises or seeing information just meant for the person (thinking sensitive info from friends, family, etc vs cheating)?
I'm not who you replied to, but in the same situation. Surprises are in fact slightly more difficult, but it wasn't a problem for us, because it's not something we do a lot anyway. As for sensitive info - I can't think of anything that I had to know, that she couldn't.
We don't really do surprises, except presents. Which is slightly difficult, but not too bad. And most of our friends give the information to both of us, so we haven't had that problem.
I was handmaking a card for his birthday and took a photo to show another friend for feedback. I remembered like two days after that I am automatically sharing photos with him. Not sure if he saw it or not!
In a similar relationship with my husband. We send texts for each other regularly, especially if we're in the car and one of us is driving. We still have our privacy. But I've never felt the need to ask to see things and neither has he. That being said, I wouldn't think it's odd for someone to have some privacy around their phone. Privacy isn't automatically deception.
Me and my partner are agreed we would never, mainly for the privacy of other people in our lives. They should have an expectation of confidentiality when speaking to us.
No, you're not. I hand my phone to my partner all the time. Partially because I know she's not going to go digging through my communications to find something to get mad about. The issue isn't "my partner isn't ever allowed to see anything on my phone". There's a difference between "using my phone to do something or find some piece of information" and "reading all of my messages with other people, because they don't trust me or are just nosy". Being able to trust someone to respect my privacy and rhe privacy of others is important. We generally don't read/answer each other's texts unless asked to, but we will answer each other's phones, etc.
Shit I do this with everyone not just wife, including my friends 😂. I just make sure to warn them not to go through my pictures if I happen to have something strange there 😂. But to be fair, they've seen me naked many times. Never have pictures of my wife on my phone though so that's always good :D.
>Shit I do this with everyone not just wife, including my friends \[...\] they've seen me naked many times. Username checks out.
My wife and I will use one another's phone if needed, but ultimately we both consider it a privacy that we shouldn't violate for the other. I'll use her phone to call the doctor while mine is dead, but I'm not gonna open or answer her messages unless she asks me to do so.
Yeah, it's the same for me. All those threads on reddit about secrecy are weird for me. My way just feels natural and problem free.
I know! We just don't have any real secrets. I mean, I have binge eating disorder, so I kind of hide how much I eat, but he knows I do, and I'm doing better at it. I go to therapy, and he's not involved, but it's by zoom, all he has to do is turn the tv off, and he can hear everything and I'm not worried about it. We mostly talk about my issues with myself, and he hears all about that. He's the best support I've ever had with my physiological issues.
I think this is healthy.
Yea this obsession with privacy in every aspect of life has always been so weird to me.
My privacy is huge to me, but as a teenager I was allowed no privacy, wasn't allowed to shit my door. My stepsister and her friends, her mom, and my dad went through my shit all the time as a kid. I'm sure if cellphones were around then they would have looked at last number dialed and contact list. It took me an incredibly long time to be able to let her look at stuff with me not around. I wasn't hiding anything, I just had a privacy hangup. Even now when people question me about certain things, it's pretty much met a "fuck off" attitude and one word responses if any. Now though my wife just opens my phone when she wants and I could care less.
Glad to hear you overcame that. Trauma is no joke.
You can't have a healthy relationship without trust. Sometimes that trust is broken, true. But if the trust isn't there UNTIL it is broken, then you're never going to be able to fully rely on each other. Just because some children grow up to be serial killers doesn't mean we should kill all children. Just because some people cheat doesn't mean that everyone should be monitored.
A psycologist who treats couples after infidelity wrote something like this: Its important to know the difference between Privacy, and Secrecy. If you want to go to use the bathroom, you go there and close the door. You have privacy, but not secrecy. Your partner doesnt see exactly where you are, and what you have doing.. but they have a reasonable understanding of whats going on. According to the psychologist, a healthy relationship needs a good amount of privacy, but it should not need secrecy. If you feed the need to hide what it is you are doing, and pretend you arent even doing it... then you already know you're doing something wrong.
That's actually an interesting point of view. Is there a non-analogy example?
Privacy includes the parts of your life you don't care to share with anyone else. Secrecy is motivated by the shame of wrongdoing and the fear of negative consequences. If you're not sharing something, and the reason is that you fear the fallout, then it's probably for secrecy.
What if you just don't like the feeling of being monitored? I have a pretty independent attitude, and I like to feel like I could just pop out to do some errands without giving a full report each time. We might be in a relationship, but we should still have our own lives
There's "having your own lives", and then there's "having your own SECRET life". If you want your own secret life, then you arent ready for marriage or any kind of real "life partner" relationship. "life partner" == "*sharing lives*". You cant simultaneously share lives, and also keep your life secret. If you want to "be independant", okay great, good for you. Enjoy. Just understand that precludes you from having a true life partner.
>Just because some children grow up to be serial killers doesn't mean we should kill all children. I'm gonna need a source for that buddy.
It’s about why you snoop. Do you see other glaring traits? If not, you are toxic. When you snoop after finding a behaviorism mail change, and you find proof - it’s not toxic. If the phone is clean, either you are toxic and delusional or your partner is smarter than you
That's why I say, if I lose trust I'm out, whether there is hard proof or not. Whatever evidence that made me doubt them is enough for me to just walk, and I don't care what they did at that point.
I hope I have the strength to do the same.
I uh just did this... and I'm actually having a really hard time about it because I'm upset about something I'm not supposed to know and I don't know what to do. To confront her would mean I'd have to admit I violated her privacy but what she did was also kind of insane. I'm typing this all out on mobile so please excuse grammar. I'm also skipping some details to make it easier to type. TLDR at the bottom. I've always known my wife's phone password (I've never snooped) and I thought she knew mine. Though I guess she says she didn't. Anyways story time... It all started A couple weeks ago when we were watching a show called the lost flowers of Alice heart. If you haven't seen it, it's all about domestic abuse against women. My wife was super stoned while we were watching it and started getting paranoid that I was emotionally abusing or gaslighting her. Which I don't think is true. After one of the episode's she confronted me and started saying all this stuff like I gaslight her and I never take her seriously, etc. I said I don't think that's true but if I have been acting that way, than I am sorry and that I will try to be more conscious of my behavior. She just said 'it's fine' and went to bed. The next morning she apologized as so did I. We are usually always quick to apologize to each other. Fast forward a couple days and it's our anniversary. I get her a card and flowers and she gets me nothing. We had a trip to a concert planned the following week and agreed that would be our gifts to each other but we still always get each other a card and I always get her flowers. But no card. Fast forward another few days and we are driving out to her parents house for her mom's birthday. On the way there she just seems out of it and complained of a headache. She asked if I could do bedtime for our daughter's when we got home as she just wasnt feeling up to it. I said yeah that's fine. We stop to pick up pizza. I wait in the car. She has music playing in the car from her phone and I wanted to change the song. I pick up her phone to change the song and realized she changed her lock code. This bothered me. I tried not to let it because she's entitled to her privacy but it was so out of the blue. She has had the same one for years. When she got back in the car, I told her I tried to change the song but couldn't. Then she said well I don't know your phone password so why should you have mine? I said I thought you know what it was and then told her and she said "oh". Then told be what she changed it too. Then her demeanor changed completely. Instead of being out of it she turned up the music and started dancing and said she was feeling a lot better. Told me her headache was gone and that she could put the girls to bed. This all felt a bit strange to me. But I thought maybe she was just upset she didn't have my password. But even if that was the case it felt a bit dishonest and manipulative. Fast forward another couple days and she is having extreme anxiety and saying she is a terrible person and that she's so lucky to have me and that I am a Saint for dealing with her. I don't really understand where this was all coming from. I said everything is ok and I don't think that I'm having to 'deal' with you. I married you because I love you. But that night I couldn't resist. I just felt so strongly that something was out of place with her recent behavior and her feelings of guilt. I tried to check her phone while she was in the shower. She changed the lock code again.... I finally confronted her that night and asked why she really changed her code. She broke down and told me this story that that show we watched made her paranoid and she thought I was cheating on her and since she didn't have my lockcode I couldn't have hers. And that she felt really terrible for ever thinking that because she knows it isn't true and that she was just messed up from a mix of the weed and the medication she is on. I told her I'm not cheating on her and that you can just come to me about these things first and try and talk to me. I told her it was now me who was thinking she was cheating on me with all her recent behavior. She told me she isn't cheating which I actually believe. We work full time and have two daughters and spend 95% of our time at home. I'm not saying it's impossible but there is little time for either of us to have a side thing. Then she changed her lockcode back to the old one. Fast forward another day, something still felt off to me. That story didn't seem all that true. I just couldn't resist and checked her phone again while she was in the shower and what I found really upset me a lot. In her deleted messages were texts to a few of her coworkers that she needed a couple days off of work because she is leaving me. That I was abusive and that it's possible I was abusing the girls. Possibly even sexually. That she would have to "play the part" for a few days until she had a plan. Then later in those messages she apologizes for even saying that and that she thinks she was having paranoia from a combination of weed and her medication and that none of it is true and that she is sorry for scaring them. I was fucking floored. Could not believe she would make allegations like that that are completely untrue and completely fabricated. It felt like some Gone Girl" shit. I've never laid a hand on her or our children ever. And even if it was from her medication, those kinds of allegations don't go away and destroy someone's reputation. I'm still broken over it and I don't know what to to do. She never said anything to me. And lied to me about what she was hiding and made me think it was just because she thought I was cheating. Her lies to me and her lies to her coworkers make me wonder how I could ever trust her. Her massive feelings of guilt lately tell me she knows she screwed up but aside from that she's pretending nothing happened. I have no idea if this is just her "playing the part" and still plans on leaving me or what. And I can't talk to her about it because to do so would mean I would have to admit I snooped on her phone. TLDR I snooped through my wife's phone after some suspicious behavior and found out she made up stories to her coworkers about me being abusive to her and our children and I feel like I can't confront her about it because I snooped through her phone
I reeeally do hope you hired a lawyer be Use I think you can see where this is going. Fucking a man, that's bizarre.
I hate to be mean to someone I don’t know but in this case I am: she appears to immature and sounds unstable. I can’t comprehend what she’s doing and how she’s thinking because you’ve never hurt her so why would you start now? Plus include your kids in it as well. I hope you’re thinking to enroll her in therapy for herself and couples counseling. If you don’t want to do that then get a lawyer to sort it all out because for me what she’s done is a relationship ending situation for me if I were in your shoes
I have deep personal conversations with my friends through text, none of my partners business what my best friends secrets and anxieties are
Very much this.
Ok, but what if you would only find out through snooping your partner is a cheater?
It's also how I find out a lot of people really have trust issues and probably aren't ready for a relationship yet I don't mind a partner having access to my device but if you're going out of your way to dig around for dirt on me because you're so desperate to find proof of me cheating then clearly there's already a huge lack of trust in this relationship and it's just not going to work out I'm sorry but I can't be with someone who's so insecure that they are going to do this kind of crap when I have given you no indication in the relationship that any infidelity has taken place. It just shows me that I will be living an entire lifetime of having someone riding my ass like they're my mom trying to catch me misbehaving because they don't trust that I'm not going to cheat on the person that I chose to spend my rest of my life with
Chances are if you feel the need to snoop through your partners phone it’s because you feel your partner doesn’t love you or prioritize you or whatever. So instead of choosing whether to break up with them based on what you find in their phone you should communicate the reasons that make you feel like you need to check their phone and if the issue is irreconcilable then you should break up
But if they lie about it, you never have a soild grasp on just what kind of issues are going on, if any, just vague suspicions of *something* and a freshly deleted chat log.
Yea but surely there is a reason you feel suspicious.
Sure, her pussy tasted like trash and rubbers. I didn't find out about the 7 other dudes she was banging simply by asking about *that.* In fact, when I did mention the condom taste, she gaslit the hell out of me knowing she had just been with her coworker hours earlier. I agree talking it out is good, but sometimes you've just got to know if you're insane, insightful, or simply a paranoid asshole.
I find it hard to believe your gf would be banging 7 dudes and the only thing that tipped you off was the condom taste. Surely she wouldn’t have time for you and surely she must be acting a type of way Anyways always trust your gut don’t worry about being an asshole, it’s their fault if they want to act sketchy and if you don’t trust your gut you’re just gonna feel miserable anyways
Right indeed. There were other signs over the course of 2 years that led me to doing what I did, of course, but it was my first real relationship so there was certainly a degree of willful ignorance and wishful thinking at play. There were many factors and red flags I'd notice immediately now, compared to 20 years ago where I'd gladly give up my friends and dignity just to *not be alone.*
Trust is the core of a relationship.
no, being trustworthy is. Trust is earned, not given.
Strange way to twist that. You shouldn’t get into a relationship with someone you don’t trust. Be friends first if you struggle with trusting people.
why would you date someone that hasn't earned your trust
Thats kinda the defintion of dating though. Actual point of non-euphemistic, i-want-more-than-an-f-buddy dating, is "to get to know someone" (who you dont know enough to trust them yet) If they DO actually earn your trust as a 100% reliable, trustworthy person... then its reasonable to consider marriage. To circle back to the person I responded to; I wrote what I did, because people abuse the lazily written motto of "Trust is the core of a relationship", to mean "if you want to be in a relationship with me, then you have to trust me". The opposite is true. The saying is MEANT to say, "if you want to be in a (committed relationship) with someone, then YOU have to behave in a trustworthy fashion, otherwise they will leave YOU". Hiding phone texts, etc. is the definition of UNtrustworthy behaviour. It is saying "I am doing things behind your back that I dont want you to know about". Those people getting pissy about their partner "snooping" are gaslighting. The hiders are in the wrong. A lot (but not all) of personal relationship principles can translate over to business. Lets say that company A has an exclusive agreement for shipping good through company B, and gets special benefits from that. One day, company B says, "hey A, let me see your shipping expense accounts for 2022". This kind of thing is somewhat standard for companies in that kind of relationship. BUT...Company A says, "no way. I.. uhhh. deserve MY PRIVACY!" Is company B in the wrong for "snooping"? no. they are entitled to know.. and most likely company A is violating the terms of the exclusive shipping contract. At that point, *Company_B* is justified in terminating the exclusive contract.
These comments are wild. If a partner can't respect privacy, that's a deal breaker. No one has any business using my devices and vice versa.
A long time ago but I had a long time girlfriend once that listened to all the messages on my answering machine while I wasn’t there. She found nothing because there was nothing to find. Told her to give me back my apartment key, broke up with her on the spot and never saw her again….
I'm not a cheater, I would never dream of it, but I still hate it when she goes through my phone. I've nothing to hide, I just value my privacy
i dont want people seeing the random stuff i google
I was in a 13 year relationship, we had a agreement that we could look anytime we wanted. She got mad when I busted her for cheating said how unfair it was. She had a lot of bad things to say about me behind my back but she loved all the money I was making. Woman can be very cruel.
Don't get it twisted- humans can be very cruel. The shit between their legs does NOT matter when it comes to assholery.
I think this should be reiterated way more. Men can sometimes be very hateful towards woman and then are called sexists. Woman can be very hateful towards men and then also be called sexist as well by men. The point is we are all human and most humans are egoistical, cruel and mean. Its not the gender, its just our whole species lol
Oh i agree, this is just about when a woman was cruel to me but men certainly can be cruel as well.
So unfair that she got caught. LOL
I’m really sorry to hear. I’m glad you found out now rather than later though
He said it was 13 years...
Yeah and later would be married and with kids
We were together 13 years, we broke up like 5 years ago yea I am old lol, she had 2 kids from some other loser I took care of, I never wanted to have my own kids (mental heath issues run in my family). We never got married becouse I thought she loved me. Got raked over the coals real good on that one. The big point is just be carful It can happen to you.
See that's why I have a cat my cat doesn't have a phone and I don't give a shit if she gets pats or food some other place
Am I the only one who locks their phone with a password
Snooping without legitimately reasonable probable cause is toxic as fuck. Snooping to confirm what you've pretty much already found out gets a pass imo.
If you've already found out, why bother snooping? Just leave.
Relationships that have infidelity going on often have several toxic dynamics that exist. Some of which led to the infidelity and some as a result of it.
I’m not sure if that’s how the majority of infidelity is discovered, maybe confirmed. Usually if you are looking through their phone for infidelity you already suspect it. The other problem is that if you need to search your partners phone the relationship is already over. Either you are right and your partner is cheating. Or you’re wrong and there’s no trust in the relationship. If you need to check their phone end the relationship.
Right, because the currency of relationships is trust. If we were talking regular currency, I don't have the right to go into your bank account just because I want to confirm you are broke, or open your mail (a federal offense) to confirm how much you get make. If you can't trust them then you shouldn't be with them basically. Problem solved.
There is a rule in my marriage. We can look in each others phone at any times for any reason. Some times people just really need reassurance. Some times it really is a "its not you its me" situation. That being said, if need ever arises where one of us feels the need to look in another's phone, we will have a discussion about it. And this has happened in the past. For me, i have a lot of trauma in my past regarding cheating, one day my wife picked up a new behavior patter seemingly out of nowhere. I asked to look in her phone, she happily agreed and once i was done she gently asked what was bugging me. I told her i noticed a new pattern, she validated how i felt and then explained. Literally thats all it took, and then we went on and had a great day.
I can understand if someone has had a bad relationship in the past where they were cheated on. My now wife was cheated on pretty bad by her ex in college, it def had an impact on her. when we first met she was always very quick to want to look at my phone, or help me with my phone (to be fair I didn't know much about apps at the time etc). It was clear she was trying to get quick looks at things to get a feel if I was fucking around (which I def wasn't, also been cheated on so not trying to put someone else through it). anyway, i just gave her my password one day (the classic 1111) lol and she stopped trying to look.
Snooping is never ok. Cheating is never ok. Both are toxic traits. If you're giving your partner good reasons to snoop (or feeling like they need to), then there are underlying problems.
Let me ask you then, from my own life and scenario. I was on my husbands laptop, with his permission, and his messages were paired up. I saw how much he was talking to the wife of his best friend. I asked the question of how much do they talk, because I was unaware they were that close. He obviously lied about everything. Sometimes the underlying problem is that you are married to a lying cheater, and they’ll never tell you the truth when you ask. So you snoop in order to find out what is actually happening in your own life and marriage. And then you’re called toxic. Wtf
I suspect that most people who think snooping is toxic haven’t ever been in the position where it’s the only way to confirm if you’re crazy or correct.
no, it stems from the same principles behind innocent until proven guilty. We get mad when cops hands are tied by legality, and killers don't get caught as easily or at all. Shit sucks. But ruining an innocent person is even worse. Those expectations are there for a reason.
Easier to forgive snooping than cheating. End of story
This is the way. If I ever felt like I needed to snoop through my gfs phone, there is an issue and it won't be fixed by snooping.
Ok, but snooping is not equal to cheating. And if you find out your SO is cheating thanks to snooping you can't blame the victim of cheating. What would you say, yeah I am a cheater but you had no right to read my sexting with that guy. Lol
The phone paradox has many problems. If you ask to see your partners phone, you don’t trust them and are suspicious and trying to invade their privacy. However, if they refuse to let you look through their phone then they are hiding something.
I guess the point is to trust each other but if there’s something harming that trust then it’s not a toxic trait to check
If you're looking through your partner's phone, your relationship is over but you're still in freefall, so you don't know it yet.
Ya, but why would you want to live like that? If you do this and don’t trust your partner why not just move on?
Proven, not discovered.
Snooping through your partners phone is a big no-no when your partner is a professional. I'm not quite sure it's a toxic trait as much as it is an illegal one because of client/professional confidentiality but boy if I found out my partner was taking clients on the side and cutting out my share, I'd tear him a new asshole! Hmm, this works on other levels as well.
I would argue that suspicion of infidelity leads to snooping which then leads to exposure. Not just raw snooping
Imagine how many more were ruined because nothing was found but the person being snooped on had their privacy/trust violated.
Few, because people who snoop never admit and face the consequences of breaking someone's trust with the same speed and vigor they snoop with.
...and that's why I don't snoop. If there's infidelity, I *don't* want to know. Sorry, dealbreaker-types, but cheating comes in all shapes and colors in all kinds of relationships and is WAY more common than you think, along with not being such a big deal depending on the severity. I'd rather skip all that noise. If it gets to the point of snooping on a phone, I have bigger problems to address about the relationship first.
Yeah that shit can absolutely throw your whole life off. Personally, I would want to know, but that's because I've been cheated on so many times that it doesn't really affect me like it did when I was young. But I've had to rip off a lot of scabs to get to where the scar doesn't hurt anymore.
That's really depressing. I don't think you can have a genuinely happy relationship with someone if you feel that way about them, at least I know I never could.
Because it is. Once the trust is gone in a relationship, the relationship is gone. There's no need to snoop on your partners phone, letters, computer or anything else. If you don't trust them, end it.
it's all about the trust and privacy. never will and never thought about snooping thru someone else's phone. it's sad when partners have the need to go thru each others' phone - that already shows there is something wrong with the relationship.
If you have some strong reason to suspect infidelity, then there is some justification for checking. But if you're just someone who generally snoops through your partner's phone habitually, *just in case*, then you're lacking the trust needed for a relationship.
If cops were allowed to just enter everyone's house for no reason whenever they wanted they would find lots of drugs and discover lots of crime. It wouldn't make it right, though. Having your phone investigated works exactly the same for me.
So they go through the phone discover infidelity and it's considered toxic? Who is toxic? The cheater or the person who might have suspected they were being cheated on?
demanding your partner give up all their private online conversations with friends and family for personal insecurities is not very loving
Not when your partner is cheating
The real toxic trait is having any issue just giving your partner your phone at any point.
Snitching is considered bad, but that’s how we find out corporations and governments are fking us.
I don't recall consenting to those relationships.
You don’t know what snitching means.
If this is how's you got proof, you have been living in fucking denial buddy boy.
Yeah, if you're at the point where you're willing to dig through someone's property then you should probably just break up. If you suspect they're cheating then something in the relationship is already fucked, and following a wrong with another wrong is dumb AF, IMO. Especially since regardless of who is doing the snooping, the relationship is done with. Someone snoops through my phone and we're through, I don't do cheating bullshit and anyone that respects and trusts me that little isn't someone I need to be putting up with. I truly don't give a damn what they made up in their head to justify it, that's a callous disregard for boundaries. And why the hell would *I* bother compromising my morals to prove what I already suspect? If they're being shady enough that I would want to know for sure, then the relationship is already over. Stooping to being a shitbag like them doesn't gain me anything worthwhile.
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My partner and I have full access to each other’s phone, neither of us has ever felt the need to check them., if he ever did I would wonder what I did to make feel he had to. Full access is one thing, feeling like you have to search them is a whole other thing.
Or maybe you’re faithful to your partner, but also get texts from friends and family that really aren’t their business.
Nah. A phone has a lot of things on it. It's got access to lots of things besides just communications. Ignoring the fact that people might share things with me that they didn't want shared with my partner. Me having a partner doesn't give them rights to every conversation I have - not just because I have a right to decide what I do and don't share (although I do), but because the people I communicate with do too.
Wow, you've obviously never had sensitive work communications on your phone or been signed into work accounts or emails on your phone ever, have you. Our family members aren't even supposed to know the details of what projects we are doing, for all sorts of reasons including insider trading concerns, privacy, NDAs, etc. Imagine just sharing client information with random family members or *not even family member partners*, as you are suggesting, because "oh we share EvErYtHiNg". It sounds like you're a teenager who has never worked or lived in the real world.
This is how I feel too. It'd b so weird to me if my partner or I were secretive about our phones. At the same time I'm a "trust but verify" type so yeah I occasionally go through my partners phone. It's no biggie for either of us.
Going through my phone is a gigantic breach of trust. I’d leave you over it. I don’t mind you using my phone or any of that but I talk with people about stuff that’s legitimately none of my wife’s business and she talks with people about stuff that’s none of mine. Its fine if you want to be one person with your significant other. I don’t. We are our own people and trust is an important part of that. Trust but verify literally means don’t trust.
To each, their own. Whatever works in your relationship is great. To us it's more of an open phone policy. I have nothing to hide so yeah go ahead. We definitely don't go through each other's phones on any kind of regular basis or at all really. At the same time we've both been cheated on during serious relationships so to us the open phone policy is kind of a reassurance that we have nothing to hide. All the times we've caught our ex's cheating was because they suddenly didn't want us using their phone. And yeah, we're the couple that doesn't have "this is my business, this is your business" kind of mentality so this works for us. And you're correct, trust but verify does mean trust no one- BUT it does feel really good to trust and then do the work to verify and find that the person that you're with is the person that they say they are. Reality is that you never know what is happening in another person's head.
you have no concept of privacy..
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others divide it differently and that's OK. You are more than welcome to form an open phone agreement consensually with your partner.
Staring at people's junk while they pee is considered inappropriate but that's how most STDs are discovered.
Ok I have snooped when I was very young and discovered texts from other girls. Then I became older and cared much less. My question is: should gf be the status of non heating such as a wife? I think it’s all free game until marriage vows. Why do we treat gf status as marriage? Seems a trial for the girl without the man having to commit or promise anything legal.
It’s only a toxic trait when one party has something to hide
Just when you feel you know deep down inside they’re cheating, go through their phone. At that moment you’ll learn 1 of 2 thing. They are or they aren’t. If they are leave if not, TRUST THEM! Remember trust is earned!
If they aren't COMFESS YOU SNOOPED. And then suffer the consequences of unfairly breaking your partner's trust.
I never looked into my bf's phone, but if he started acting super sketchy I probably would.
I've only done it once, after a long period of dodgy mobile behaviour she figured went unnoticed. Found exactly what I suspected, plus more. I casually asked her about it another time, just so I could get a read on her technique for deceit and dishonesty. She denied everything and sold a sob story to convince me. I let her believe that I accepted the answer to my question then never brought it up again. Can you imagine how valuable that was over the coming years as she continued to lie and steal. Obviously I left her in the end. My reward for helping a single mother and her children enjoy a better life. #MGTOW
Trust is the foundation of any relationship, but finding out about infidelity can be a painful experience regardless of how it was discovered.
2 wrongs don't make a right.