Snooping on your Significant Other

[SincereOnlineGuy]

There are at least a few people here who believe snooping is okay under various circumstances. The trend seems to be that if something "feels off", snooping is justified. I've been tempted to do so myself in the past, but I could never bring myself to do it. I view snooping as a trust violation and I don't believe in "the ends justify the means".

 

What do you all think about snooping? For the sake of this discussion, let's define snooping as deliberately going out of your way to access information, such as accessing a phone when someone is sleeping or bypassing security. If your significant other leaves himself/herself logged in on a dating site with the page up in clear view, that is not snooping. To the pro-snooping crowd, under what criteria would you approve of your partner snooping on you? Do you have a double-standard on snooping (my snooping is okay, but his/her snooping is not)?

 

 

I'm just glad you attempted to define the sort of "snooping" you are talking about.

 

 

I guess I'm generally the sort who would play the percentages and believe/feel/GUESS that the would-be partner would give something away on their own, before there was any catalyst for snooping, (as most 'humans' just aren't that thoughtful/careful for THAT long).

 

I WANT to be the sort NOT inclined to snoop until such time as when a strong hint would tell me that this is an exception saying that it's OK to snoop (as you have so wisely defined "snooping").

 

But who knows what I'd do if the real impacts of (imaginations run wild) found me.

[Gloria25]

This is flawed reasoning. Person A's normal behavior can be Person B's suspicious behavior. After all, according to you, not allowing a girlfriend to use my gaming computer is suspicious.

 

Well, since you think that your gf isn't bright enough to use your gaming computer without messing up something on it, then if I was your gf I'd dump you cuz you think I'm a idiot.

 

I'm not into gaming, so, why would you not lend a gf your gaming computer? Work computer, got it. I mean I understand in part cuz every time Mum visits the grandkids, her PC and celphone come with downloaded junk that I get the privilege to clean up. But again, is your gf "that" careless/irresponsible?

 

Or, could you use a better example besides the computer?

[Shining One]

Well, since you think that your gf isn't bright enough to use your gaming computer without messing up something on it, then if I was your gf I'd dump you cuz you think I'm a idiot.

I'm a systems engineer. I think 90% of end users are idiots (when it comes to computers). My girlfriend also had malware on her computer, which I have cleaned up.

I'm not into gaming, so, why would you not lend a gf your gaming computer? Work computer, got it. I mean I understand in part cuz every time Mum visits the grandkids, her PC and celphone come with downloaded junk that I get the privilege to clean up. But again, is your gf "that" careless/irresponsible?

I don't run antivirus on my gaming computer. I've also had a past girlfriend get malware on it. Unless a girlfriend has close to my technical ability, she doesn't get to use that specific computer. There are 11 other computers in this house that she can use.

Or, could you use a better example besides the computer?

During audits, I frequently get late night texts and emails. These communications are confidential and I don't share them. A previous girlfriend has considered this suspicious.

[SammySammy]

Interesting. You seem to have a higher threshold before snooping than the examples I posted. Can you provide a hypothetical example of when you would snoop?

 

Okay. Real life example.

 

A wife routinely cheats when she travels for business. Very difficult to catch because she only meets this guy sporadically in various locations. At home, she never does anything that would lead anyone to suspect cheating.

 

Until ... she slips up. Makes a mistake. They all do. It doesn't matter what it is, but the husband knows his wife is being sexual with someone other than him. She has just covered her tracks so well that he has no proof.

 

You have the wherewithal to find out what's going on. What do you do?

 

Your health is at stake. Your children. Your financial well-being. Everything you've worked for.

 

What are you going to do? Protect her privacy? Trust her? When you have a strong clue the wife who has never given you a blow job is a sex slave to someone else.

[Toodaloo]

Let be clear, there are consequences for invading someone's privacy whether you're right or wrong.

 

If I'm going to do that, I need to have a very good reason for doing so. More than just a hunch. Like ... nearly certain something is going on and I just need proof. Because once you cross that line, there's a price to pay.

 

At that point, I feel it's worth the risk when my personal safety and well-being is a stake.

 

Exactly. No one wants an STD.

 

I don't see what the problem is to be honest. If you have nothing to hide then why worry about your partner going through your stuff?

 

Why would I be worried about someone else reading anything?

 

The only thing I hide is the P&C info at work such as bank account details etc of employees. I even post on here with my bosses looking over my shoulder. Why should I hide?

 

If you are needing to hide something then that is a problem... Its more the problem of the person who is trying to hide it than the person who is snooping.

 

I guess I must just be simple in that if I think I am going to regret it, I just don't do it. I have no problem with my partners going through my phone etc. No problem what so ever. There is nothing they will find to upset them there.

 

It must be exhausting to live your live having to watch your back. Sod that. I prefer to just be honest from the start. So much easier. So many better things to do than tell fibs and cover my tracks all the time. And people who do lie? As has been said they always slip up at some point.

[PrettyEmily77]

Snooping / Internet stalking someone's every move = paranoia + lying + violation of privacy + going behind someone's back = very bad.

 

Cheating = breaking someone's trust + lying + skewed moral code + going behind someone's back = very bad.

 

very bad + very bad = very dysfunctional.

 

Yet both cheaters and snoopers are able to find justification and rationalisation for these things.

 

I don't do either so I don't condone either.

 

If I suspect I'm being subjected to very close scrutiny, I leave. I have, I could tell and it can ruin your self esteem, especially when you don't know why you're getting that treatment - it starts with asking me where I was twice to try and find holes in my story, cyber stalking, demanding to know every single detail of every single conversation, especially with male friends, and escalates to worse.

 

I don't confront, and I don't give the benefit of the doubt anymore (because no, being cheated on previously doesn't really excuse people going through their partners' stuff) - I wouldn't do it, so I don't want it done to me. Major deal breaker.

 

If I suspect I'm being cheated on or lied to while in a committed relationship, I leave. Don't care about the emotional disconnect, the traumatic past, the needs not met, the spiraling addiction, the hot babe at the office or whatever reason people use to cheat or lie, I wouldn't do that to someone, so I won't accept anyone doing it to me.

Edited August 24, 2016 by PrettyEmily77

[Friskyone4u]

There is a lot of talk here about relationships needing trust, love, etc. Now why don't some of you read the pain and anguish betrayed spouses deal with here from people who supposedly are their best friends and love of their lives, and then calculate how many of these hurt people would still be totally clueless without any of what you call "snooping". How must more devastation to families and kids would occur if no affairs were discovered and the betrayal revealed.

 

Do you really thing that if a man or woman finds their partner getting text messages at midnight from members of the opposite sex, hiding their phone, disappearing T with no explanation, that the answer is to either just accept it as normal or divorce rather than "snoop"

 

I think the moral breakdown of those doing the cheating is a little more significant than looking a some e mails or text messages.

 

If you read these threads, the technology that makes infidelity so easy today has one flaw. That is how many if not most are caught and yes that involves snooping.

 

If you look at this site, calculate how many cheaters actually CONFESS what they are doing??? So I guess some of you think that unless you walk in on them that it is just better to play ostrich and trust. Yes, snooping can be bad if there is no real reason.

 

But we keep reading here " trust your gut". Well, if your gut tells you something then what is the suggestion to find out??? Just ask, "Honey, are you cheating"???

[PrettyEmily77]

There is a lot of talk here about relationships needing trust, love, etc. Now why don't some of you read the pain and anguish betrayed spouses deal with here from people who supposedly are their best friends and love of their lives, and then calculate how many of these hurt people would still be totally clueless without any of what you call "snooping". How must more devastation to families and kids would occur if no affairs were discovered and the betrayal revealed.

 

Do you really thing that if a man or woman finds their partner getting text messages at midnight from members of the opposite sex, hiding their phone, disappearing T with no explanation, that the answer is to either just accept it as normal or divorce rather than "snoop"

 

I think the moral breakdown of those doing the cheating is a little more significant than looking a some e mails or text messages.

 

If you read these threads, the technology that makes infidelity so easy today has one flaw. That is how many if not most are caught and yes that involves snooping.

 

If you look at this site, calculate how many cheaters actually CONFESS what they are doing??? So I guess some of you think that unless you walk in on them that it is just better to play ostrich and trust. Yes, snooping can be bad if there is no real reason.

 

But we keep reading here " trust your gut". Well, if your gut tells you something then what is the suggestion to find out??? Just ask, "Honey, are you cheating"???

 

You're only looking at it from your perspective, though.

 

Those who are snooped on based on a false hunch feel as betrayed and emotionally played with by a paranoid nutjob as bs feel when they are betrayed. To minimise what other people had to go through due to constant paranoia because of what you have gone through is un-empathetic, to say the least.

 

If you can't trust your gut instinct and / or your spouse, I don't get why you need actual proof - the loss of trust in itself is what breaks the relationship, so if that's already broken pre-snooping and the cheating partner hasn't confessed by themselves, that's a near impossible road to recovery anyway. I don't have the stats in mind, but I've read somewhere that the survival of a relationship due to adultery is slim to none when the BS finds out instead of the cheater admitting it.

[spiderowl]

It's a really difficult one. I do think people have the right to privacy. If you are in a relationship with someone and their behaviour has changed, you feel they are no longer interested in you and are spending their time elsewhere involved in some way with someone else, then maybe you have a right to find out more. I would ask directly but if the answer did not ring true, then maybe I would snoop - I don't know, I'd like to think I wouldn't. If it got to the stage where I felt the need to snoop, then I think the trust has gone anyway and might as well split up.

[elaine567]

A lot of snooping is done not to find that the person is a lying cheating scumbag but to prove that he/she isn't.

Snooping is not usually done maliciously, it is done through love, desperation and the hope against hope, that their SO has NOT betrayed them

 

People in long term relationships especially with kids and houses and businesses cannot just up and leave on a whim. "Oh he/she is acting a bit weird, I'll just file for divorce"

No, they need to gather evidence.

Evidence that proves their marriage is dead or is in deep trouble or that they have nothing at all to worry about.

 

Most want to find that the late night emails/text ARE about work, that he/she is acting strange because they are stressed or even ill, that Jenny/Joe IS just a good friend.

They do not want to find their SO, their best friend, their life partner is cheating on them.

[Michelle ma Belle]

Self-harming behavior is legitimate grounds for snooping, IMHO, especially if you're married and supposed to be working as a team. Suicide would require stepping in. Addiction would require seriously reassessing your own self and the relationship.

 

You deserve to know if someone is cheating and you're together - but I do feel like if a snoop comes up empty, there are some other MAJOR problems in the relationship that need to be addressed ASAP if communication has devolved to that point.

 

People who snoop because they're wildly insecure are bad news, too...

 

Amen!

 

I think healthy and happy relationships need to be transparent. There shouldn't be a 'need' to hide or snoop and if there is then something is terribly amiss in your relationship.

 

At the same time, a happy and healthy relationship also requires trust a level of respect between partners that includes privacy.

 

If someone's gut or spidey senses are tingling it very often is a result of something tangible in the relationship. If a partner sincerely feels something is off in their relationship or in their partner's behavior, however big or small, I absolutely agree a partner (male or female) is entitled to sort it out if only for self preservation.

 

Who the hell wants to be the ostrich with their head stuck in the sand? I know I don't. I have far too much self worth and self respect to be the village idiot.

 

Having said all of this, I too feel that deep personal insecurity breeds a lot of mistrust and wreaks havoc in epic proportions, sometimes justified and sometimes not. These people make things infinitely more challenging on themselves and especially in their relationships. They are bad news.

[PrettyEmily77]

Ok but with all due respect Elaine, that's denial. No snooping comes from love; it comes from paranoia, insecurity and loss of control. It's distabilising. People leave their partners, kids and home for less.

 

Some cheating partners come up with the craziest of justifications for betraying their partners, and mostly pile it all on the betrayed spouse anyway.

 

What happens if you snoop and find nothing? You snoop some more until you do. That's not love. I've not known one snooper who wanted evidence of NO cheating.

[Lois_Griffin]

What I find highly comical - and extremely hypocritical - are those who proclaim the loudest about what a horrific infringement it is to DARE to snoop on someone and how they'd never lower themselves to doing that - until they're in the same exact position.

 

I can't even count anymore how many posts over the years I've read on various boards that have included the statement, "I was NEVER the type to snoop and thought it was below me...until my wife/husband starting acting shady and I had to know the truth."

 

So, I say it's all fine and well to get up on your soapbox and protest in righteous anger about what a horrible, terrible breach of privacy it is to look at your spouse's phone or computer or dig through their wallet or briefcase, etc. But the likelihood of those naysayers resorting to doing EXACTLY that when it's their spouse suddenly out late every night or locking their phone and taking it into the bathroom with them, is pretty damned high.

 

Just sayin'.

[GorillaTheater]

When I first came to LS, I thought it was possible that my wife was cheating on me, based on some sketchy behavior that *could* be interpreted that way. I did some snooping, but in retrospect it was kind of half-assed at least compared to some of the suggestions I've seen since then. Even now, I think it is possible that she was, but I haven't done any additional snooping in years.

 

 

I didn't like being reduced to that, but I felt like it was important to figure out what was going on. If she was cheating, it may well have been the end of our marriage. An addiction issue? Possibly the same answer. Something else? The odds increased that we may have been able to work through it.

 

 

But I needed to know what I was dealing with before I was prepared to end a long marriage with a lot of kids. If she was indeed cheating, I had no expectation that she would admit to it, at least not without me having good evidence of it.

[GorillaTheater]

On the OTHER hand: if you're not married, no kids, no joint assets? If you're at the point where you feel the need to snoop, you're probably better off just walking away.

[BluEyeL]

I am against snooping in general. i wouldn't like to be snooped on by a SO because I know I'm innocent of any wrongdoing, I would never ever cheat, even emotionally, and snooping when I am not guilty seems like a very unfair accusation to me and a personal attack.

 

However, I did snoop on my ex-husband and that snooping was what precipitated the divorce and prevented me from making a huge mistake looking ahead. Here's what happened.

 

My ex-husband went abroad for a year for his job. I was peacefully waiting for him at home, talking on the phone etc. Until a cell phone bill of $500 came to my house (no unlimited plan back then, and he was talking from abroad anyway) and when I looked at the bill he was talking for hours with the same number. I did reverse search and found out it was a female colleague from here back home, a girl 10 years younger than me. I asked him about it and he said she was going through a divorce and he was just helping her out emotionally. I didn't like it but let it go.

 

Fast forward a couple of months he comes home for a visit. usually we called each other when we landed at the airport, he didn't call me. I called him multiple times, he never picked up. Something was wrong. Came home and it was all awkward. i took a week off work to spend time with him since we were long distance. I ended up spending that week home alone. He wasn't coming home during the day and showing up at night after midnight. I was sitting around like an idiot wondering where he was. He behaved weird. he was hostile to me.

 

I am a professor and he wanted to be one too, but had a hard time finding a position. I was donig great at my job, having had some big successes and we discussed for me to go on the job market and present myself as a "package deal" and have him hired as well at another university. This is usually done in academia, but if you are already hired the current institution usually doesn't hire your husband or wife, and you need to negociate a trailing spouse job when negotiating an offer, so you need to move usually. I couldn't negotiate where I was becuase when I got the job he hadn't finished his degree yet, so he couldn't be hired as a professor, he was hired as a researcher. And then they wouldn't give him a professor job after the fact. I was willing to do the move and the two body package deal, although that would have meant starting the tenure clock again and losing some things. But hey, it was for us.

 

So I applied and I had 6 interviews lined up, so I can get him a job also. When he came visit and he ignored me (and our kid), I figured he was actually meeting with that woman and I was stupid to think he came home to visit us, he came home to visit with her. The last day he was here I had to go to my first of 6 interviews to see if I can negotiate a job for him. I was scared. What if I moved to Rutgers (one of the schools interested in me) in New Jersey, get him a job there and he screws women behind my back and dumps me anyway? Then I'm left a single mom at 40 in an expensive state and maybe I won't get tenure also, because I have no idea how things would go there.

 

So that morning I snooped. I looked at his email. He was writing romantic messages back and forth to that woman. I decided then and there that I'm not going to be a dummy. I cancelled all my interviews and told him he's on his own. He got mad. We filed for divorce. We made up after the divorce, in another LDR, but he continued to go with women and he actually ended up telling me about one without me snooping, which meant the real real real final, when I broke it off for good.

 

He had a history of cheating. When i was abroad myself for 5 months, years before this incident, upon my return a male friend called me to meet so he can tell me how my husband propositioned to his wife. I considered that it was my fault for going on that work trip but there were various incidents after that when I thought he was a cheater, but didn't snoop. In the end I had to and I'm glad I did.

Edited August 24, 2016 by BluEyeL

[PrettyEmily77]

What I find highly comical - and extremely hypocritical - are those who proclaim the loudest about what a horrific infringement it is to DARE to snoop on someone and how they'd never lower themselves to doing that - until they're in the same exact position.

 

I can't even count anymore how many posts over the years I've read on various boards that have included the statement, "I was NEVER the type to snoop and thought it was below me...until my wife/husband starting acting shady and I had to know the truth."

U

So, I say it's all fine and well to get up on your soapbox and protest in righteous anger about what a horrible, terrible breach of privacy it is to look at your spouse's phone or computer or dig through their wallet or briefcase, etc. But the likelihood of those naysayers resorting to doing EXACTLY that when it's their spouse suddenly out late every night or locking their phone and taking it into the bathroom with them, is pretty damned high.

 

Just sayin'.

 

 

Until you have been snooped upon for no reason or justification aside from unhinged paranoia, you won't understand the effect it can have to an open, loyal person.

 

Just sayin'.

[elaine567]

What happens if you snoop and find nothing? You snoop some more until you do. That's not love. I've not known one snooper who wanted evidence of NO cheating.

 

On the surface they are snooping to find out cheating yes, but deep down they want to trust, they want to see nothing because they want to maintain the status quo. They want to believe nothing went on , they want to believe in their partner, as the realisation of betrayal is to much to bear.

 

I do not believe in all this mix up of trust and love and that if you love someone you have to trust them.

That is nonsense and why so many people get so caught up in blind "love".

They are then sorely disappointed to find the subject of that love is NOT to be trusted, not one little bit.

[BluEyeL]

I would not snoop on my fiancee now because he gives me absolutely no reason not to trust him. He is where he says he is, he is checking in like a normal person, he does what he says and he doesn't treat me like crap. Why snoop on someone like that?

[PrettyEmily77]

On the surface they are snooping to find out cheating yes, but deep down they want to trust, they want to see nothing because they want to maintain the status quo. They want to believe nothing went on , they want to believe in their partner, as the realisation of betrayal is to much to bear.

 

I do not believe in all this mix up of trust and love and that if you love someone you have to trust them.

That is nonsense and why so many people get so caught up in blind "love".

They are then sorely disappointed to find the subject of that love is NOT to be trusted, not one little bit.

 

Maybe.

 

It all comes down to priorities I guess - if your relationship and investment in it is more important than potential cheating, you kind of have to admit to yourself that actually, cheating isn't the deal breaker you thought it was. That's totally fine and actually very commendable - that, I guess, is the manifestation of true love; accepting your partner in all their flaws. This obviously means cutting some slack to people who do cheat in general, which is something I'd struggle with personally.

 

Snooping, no.

Edited August 24, 2016 by PrettyEmily77

[jen1447]

Eh, this is one of those things with a lot of vagaries and no real good answer that applies to all of them. For me personally, I live my life almost entirely 'open' - I don't hide my phone or lock email accounts etc. and I don't care if my ppl read that stuff - but I also respect personal privacy nonetheless and don't think anyone's entitled to just broadly intrude on it.

 

It's a matter of degrees too ....if a spouse/partner suspected their partner of something, looking at their call history on their unlocked phone would be a diff order of magnitude than pretexting their financial institution to get copies of credit card statements. Somewhere in there is a line that's just wrong when it gets crossed, no matter what. Pragmatism be damned ....ppl should be better than that, and someone acting crappy doesn't justify you acting crappier.

[Shining One]

I'll share my worst snooping experience. We were going through a security audit at work. The standards for the audit had increased since the last one, so we had a lot of work to do. This involved many late night emails/texts that I could not share. My girlfriend at the time got suspicious. She would ask me "who was that" and I would always respond with "work".

 

She had an electronic key to my place, so she started coming over when I was at work. What she did while there, I don't fully know. She tried to log on to the computer I told her she could not use, but she couldn't get in. I didn't know about this until later when I checked system logs. I didn't find out about her snooping until I got called into the CISO's office one day at work. Apparently, she had tried to access my phone multiple times the night before. My phone is a company device and as a system administrator, I'm on "extra security". Too many failed login attempts on my phone sends a notification to the CISO. Basically, I found out about my girlfriend snooping on me from one of my superiors at work. It wasn't a proud moment for me.

 

After that news, I started looking into logs and found out about the visits to my house and the attempted access to my computer. Needless to say, I was incredibly disappointed and I ended the relationship.

[NewLeaf512]

Where is the line drawn between okay to snoop / not okay to snoop?

 

Snooping is never ok. It's a violation of personal privacy. If you feel you need to snoop that means you don't trust your partner and if your relationship has broken down to the point you don't trust someone and feel compelled to snoop your relationship is over anyway so leave.

[BluEyeL]

Bottom line is this. If someone is innocent and their SO is just crazy and paranoid, it would of course feel horrible for the innocent to have their privacy violated because of an imaginary accusation.

 

But, yes, imo snooping can be OK if there is strong evidence of shady behavior and the snooping partner has to make a life-impacting decision that would depend on final and certain proof that their partner is not being trustworthy.

 

So in conclusion snooping isn't OK to do on the regular basis but can be OK in serious situations. I wouldn't snoop on anyone just for sport.

Edited August 24, 2016 by BluEyeL

[SincereOnlineGuy]

 

If you can't trust your gut instinct and / or your spouse, I don't get why you need actual proof

 

If you didn't "need actual proof", nobody would even watch football on Sunday (or Monday night)

 

 

 

I've read somewhere that the survival of a relationship due to adultery is slim to none when the BS finds out instead of the cheater admitting it.

 

 

Thus the reason why the only common sensible equation remains:

 

IF there is only minute chance of the 'BS' finding out about the cheating, then you don't tell them, in order to spare their feelings, but IF there is a significant chance that the 'BS' could find out through other means, then you inform them first, to spare them having to learn through other channels.