God, it’s so tempting. He left his laptop open to his email and Facebook. He fell asleep in one room and his phone is in the next. He left town to visit family for a few days and you want to rifle through his closet. You’re dying to dig through his business.
Before you dive in you might want to think twice.
Not only will snooping make you look like a raving lunatic to your unsuspecting boyfriend, but you’ll also drive yourself crazy and do irreparable damage to your relationship.
What are you looking for?
Before you go scouring through his text messages it’s important to ask yourself a few questions: What are you looking to find? And more importantly, why are you suspicious in the first place?
Do you have the sneaking suspicion he’s not telling you something? Or are you just inclined to overstep your boundaries?
If you truly feel you have something to worry about and feel completely justified in rummaging around in his things, maybe it’s time to reevaluate your relationship.
It’s all out of context
Anything you find while snooping is out of context. If you were to look through your own text messages, chances are most of the conversations would make absolutely no sense.
Here’s a great example.
You bump into an old friend you haven’t seen in years while waiting in line for coffee. You have a five minute conversation while trying to order, much to the dismay of the irritated barista who’s now giving you decaf out of spite. As you leave, you give her your number on the back of a napkin.
Later that day she finds the napkin with your number in the bottom of her bag and sends you a text, like, “Great seeing you today. We should get together more often.”
Now her number is in your phone, but you didn’t save it so the text has no name attached to it.
This text could be a follow-up to an innocent exchange like this, or it could be a follow-up to day drinking and nooners with some random girl. Based solely on the words in the text itself, there’s no way of knowing the context.
But if you’re looking for trouble, you’re more likely to gravitate towards the latter scenario.
It’s a huge violation of trust
Let’s say you don’t find anything, but he wakes up and sees you scrolling through his phone with a look of consternation. You’re so busted. You’ve crossed a line and there’s no going back.
Not only is he going to think you’re crazy, he’s going to resent you for invading his privacy and not trusting him. Especially if he’s never given you any reason to think he’s doing anything nefarious.
And if he’s resentful enough he might think, “That crazy girl already thinks I’m cheating on her, I may as well start.”
I could say your behavior might just have cost you your relationship, but if you didn’t trust him enough to stay out of his texts, emails, and DMs, you probably didn’t have much of a relationship to begin with.
You can’t act on any of it
Let’s say you do find something suspicious. What can you do about it?
If you’re smart, you’ll keep your mouth shut. Most likely whatever you found is out of context and you’re blowing it up to epic proportions in your head.
The uncertainty of whatever you found will slowly eat away at your insides. You’ll try to forget about it. But women never forget. Ever.
You’re stuck with it festering in the back of your mind until you die or start dating someone else because asking for clarification or additional context is pretty much out of the question.
“So, honey… Ummm… The craziest thing happened! Your phone literally jumped from the counter into my hands and your texts started revealing themselves to me! I tried to avert my eyes but I couldn’t help notice a text from someone named Heather about needing directions to the restaurant.
I wasn’t really looking that closely but obviously the LAST thing I’d assume is she’s some tramp you met at Bobby’s bachelor party last weekend because that would just be silly of me … but seriously, who the hell is Heather?”
You’ll be so embarrassed when he explains Heather is his coworker who needed directions to the restaurant for the business dinner he went to last week.
That was also the night he was home by 10:30 pm and told you she looks exactly like Janet Reno.
You refused to believe that was even possible so you looked up Heather on Facebook and sure enough, she could be Janet’s twin.
Oh, you forgot? Way to go, Sherlock.
When will you stop?
Never. The answer is never.
You think you’ll just check his email once? “Phew! Nothing there!”
Well, what about tomorrow? It’s tomorrow now. Is there something nefarious in there today? Better check real quick!
Didn’t find anything in his email? Well, then you might as well hack into his Facebook and Instagram accounts. Maybe the real dirt is in there!
You don’t want to look like a fool, do you? (Way too late on that one)
It’s not unlike checking social media every two minutes for new updates. And while we’re on it, I guess you better check all his new friend requests on Facebook , search for everything he’s commented on, look at mutual female friends pictures to see if he heart-liked them so you can grill him about ALL of it…
Be sure to question everyone he follows on Instagram and check all of their feeds constantly for anything he might have liked or commented on there, too.
Make sure he’s not following or social media friends with anyone you don’t like or approve of, whether they’re friends, family or co-workers. Hell, make him explain every conversation he has with another woman to you in public, and after questioning their motives for being his friend in the first place, make him cut off his real life friends, too.
And why not go the full nine yards and straight up make him give you his social media passwords so you can check his DMs whenever you want to. I mean, you already don’t trust him, you might as well go balls to the wall here.
If you make him hate social media maybe he’ll just dump it all and then you won’t have to worry about any of it. That’s a strategy.
When you’re neurotic and ragingly insecure — and if you’re hacking into his messages anywhere, you are — you’ll become obsessed and consumed by the need to constantly check his shit and control him within an inch of his life.
It sounds like a full time job that ain’t paying! And the most fun, amazing relationship ever!
Idid it with an ex of mine. And he did it to me. It’s the slipperiest of slopes there’s no way to crawl up from. I never trusted that man. One of the many huge red flags I blissfully ignored.
This was fine. This was normal, right? (NO)
I flat out called him out on a text I read on his phone while he was in my shower one morning, when my gut told me the night before he had lied about where he was.
And he sweet-talked his way right out of all of it. I didn’t really believe him, but the textbook doormat in me went with it.
What I should have done: ended the relationship.
What I did: ask him (gave in to the pressure) to move in with me.
I’m a smart girl, I swear! I went to college!
But I was dumb as shit when it came to love and relationships. The Fashionably Late Bloomer struck again at the ripe old age of 26.
And guess what? In the end, I was 100% right about him and that girl.
Big deal.
I didn’t feel justified or victorious.
It didn’t make the snooping I did feel any less agonizing, draining, exhausting, maddening, or anxiety-inducing.
It didn’t make the snooping I did any less wrong, either.
Snooping through his shit didn’t tell me anything my gut hadn’t already. Complete waste of time, energy, and self-inflicted torture.
Good job!
You know how they say ignorance is bliss? They’re right about that. I’m not saying turn a blind eye, ignore your gut, go along to get along. But how much evidence do you need?
More importantly, if you don’t trust your partner your relationship is already over. Hell, maybe it never should have begun.
Trust. Your. Gut.
Not your feelings, your gut. Big difference.
Your body does not lie to you. Listen to it.
We stayed together another 9 months, broke up, and got back together again.
Idiots!
But hey, you gotta learn. And at least I learned from it. I learned to never, ever do that again, to anyone. Among other things.
If I don’t trust you, I don’t date you. I stay out of your things and respect you and your privacy.
If I start feeling antsy, is it my anxiety and insecurity, or is it my gut?
99% of the time, it’s anxiety and insecurity.
Breathe, recenter, trust yourself, trust him, refocus.
I’ve put a lot of hard work into learning the difference between my fears and my intuition. Even if I know, with certainty, my gut is telling me something is wrong, I won’t invade someone’s privacy again. I’ll actually trust MYSELF, my body, and my senses instead.
You know, it wasn’t the snooping that felt awful, it was the deep, dark, sickening mistrust of this person I loved and the self-betrayal it took to stay with him that blackened my soul.
Was all that snooping worth it? Nope.
No good can come from snooping.
Overwhelming chances are, you’re just anxious and insecure and don’t want to take the risk of trusting someone who’s never given you a reason not to.
Work on those issues instead.
Because you’ll either never find anything and drive yourself insane constantly checking, or you’ll call him on nothing and officially become the crazy lady who doesn’t trust her boyfriend.
And now you’re single, too! Well played!
…
Niki Marinis is your Cool Quirky Aunt with solid gold relationship & dating advice. Follow her wacky adventures & pop culture obsession on Twitter and Instagram, and sign up for her newsletter here.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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