Snooping is completely warranted.

[hexaemeron]

All of you who advocate snooping/no privacy in every situation, why don't you guys look up something called "The Observer Effect".

[hexaemeron]

All of you who advocate snooping/no privacy in every situation, why don't you guys look up something called "The Observer Effect".

 

No one wants to bite on that, eh? The Observer Effect is basically the official term for "Schroedinger's Cat" in physics. Observation of a phenomenon inherently alters that which is being observed.

[Brownstone322]

No one wants to bite on that, eh? The Observer Effect is basically the official term for "Schroedinger's Cat" in physics. Observation of a phenomenon inherently alters that which is being observed.

I was familiar with that from business school. It was called the "Hawthorne Study," and, as I recall, it started as a study of the effects of lighting on factory productivity. They turned up the lights, and productivity went up. They turned up the lights some more, and productivity went up more. More light, more productivity. But then they smelled a rat. So they turned the lights down, but productivity kept going up.

 

The conclusion? They workers didn't know what the study was about (that is, they didn't know the researchers were messing with the lights), but they knew they were being watched for something.

 

I dunno how this might apply to snooping, though, because the effect doesn't refer to serreptitious observation. It refers to when the subjects know they're being watched.

[hexaemeron]

I was familiar with that from business school. It was called the "Hawthorne Study," and, as I recall, it started as a study of the effects of lighting on factory productivity. They turned up the lights, and productivity went up. They turned up the lights some more, and productivity went up more. More light, more productivity. But then they smelled a rat. So they turned the lights down, but productivity kept going up.

 

The conclusion? They workers didn't know what the study was about (that is, they didn't know the researchers were messing with the lights), but they knew they were being watched for something.

 

I dunno how this might apply to snooping, though, because the effect doesn't refer to serreptitious observation. It refers to when the subjects know they're being watched.

 

People may not know the specifics of how they're being viewed, but they usually can tell by someone's personality if the person he or she is with is capable of it. If you feel you could be watched or judged for ______, then the behaviors one may display are affected.

[bichin]

People may not know the specifics of how they're being viewed, but they usually can tell by someone's personality if the person he or she is with is capable of it. If you feel you could be watched or judged for ______, then the behaviors one may display are affected.

 

In fact, those of us with a rebellious streak might leave breadcrumbs just because we know we're being watched. I am faithful but intolerant of games.

[hexaemeron]

In fact, those of us with a rebellious streak might leave breadcrumbs just because we know we're being watched. I am faithful but intolerant of games.

 

I know exactly what you mean. One might also say that in SOME cases (Not all, of course), if one feels like he's being treated poorly for a wrong he didn't commit, he might as well go and commit it anyway.

[FarthestEdge]

I know exactly what you mean. One might also say that in SOME cases (Not all, of course), if one feels like he's being treated poorly for a wrong he didn't commit, he might as well go and commit it anyway.

 

Exactly. DH once told me "One of these days I'm going to decide that I might as well screw around..I mean, you are already treating me like I am, so how much worse could it get? If I am going to do the time, I might as well at least enjoy the crime..." It was one of a few slaps in the face that I really, really needed at the time..

[hexaemeron]

Exactly. DH once told me "One of these days I'm going to decide that I might as well screw around..I mean, you are already treating me like I am, so how much worse could it get? If I am going to do the time, I might as well at least enjoy the crime..." It was one of a few slaps in the face that I really, really needed at the time..

 

That's why I'm always amazed when wo-- I mean, people treat their partner's like crap for a certain amount of time, and then feel they can return to normal behavior after the person has suffered enough. Why do you think anyone should stay if they're being treated BADLY, just because of someone's ego? I have never understood that.

[FarthestEdge]

That's why I'm always amazed when wo-- I mean, people treat their partner's like crap for a certain amount of time, and then feel they can return to normal behavior after the person has suffered enough. Why do you think anyone should stay if they're being treated BADLY, just because of someone's ego? I have never understood that.

 

Well, lucky for me at the time, I guess the other benefits of being with me still made it worthwhile...

 

Damn- I must be good ;D

 

Either way in a relationship, staying or going is seldom about one issue...it's a Gestalt thing, you know? Sometimes one element gets bad enough that it eclipses everything else, but until that time, the bad stuff is just something you try to work through as a couple.

 

We ALL put up with SOMETHING...how much or how long varies, I am sure, based on all the other factors.

[truegrit]

Victoria66 said it best and my way of looking at it I think if someone wants to go they will, if someone wants to be disloyal they will, no matter what you do that won't change.

 

I have been married 3 times and a total of about 40 years and this has saved me from snooping and making myself miserable.

[broken1414]

It always breaks my heart when I hear about people who have been cheated on for years and looking back they had a hunch something was wrong but chose to trust their partner. They almost always say they wish they'd known so they hadn't wasted their tiime on something that was ultimately a lie.

 

AMEN! Was with my ex for 5 years. One year in, I had a hunch. Not an out-of-the-blue hunch, a hunch he created by snapping his phone out of my hand one day when I needed to use it when mine was dead. He said it was nothing, just that he had had coffee with a girl from work and didn't want me to read too far into it. I NEVER snooped on him, NEVER. I believed him, gave him the benefit of the doubt, and TRUSTED his word. Well, it wasn't nothing, it was EVERYTHING! I continued to buy a house with him, and live with him in a relationship built on lies for 4 MORE YEARS. If I had just picked up that phone one day, that phone that had no passwords on it, that phone where all my answers were..... I WOULD PAY ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD TO GO BACK IN TIME AND READ THAT TEXT MESSAGE!! I would have saved myself 4 YEARS OF LIES. He told me AFTER we broke up that he had sex with that girl from work "at least 16 times" while we were together, while we were moving in with each other, while we were buying a house together. OUCH! Yep, looking back if I had just looked, if I had just trusted my gut that something was going on, I would have saved myself all that gut-wrenching pain of finding out that our whole relationship was a lie.

 

Well I agree that snooping based on just a 'gut feeling' is wrong. I don't think it's ok just to snoop on the off chance you might find something or if you're a paranoid person in general.

 

I think that if your SO GIVES you a reason to snoop,(ie: snapping their phone from your innocent hands, and becoming overly defensive = they've got something to hide) then it's totally justified. JUST MY OPINION! Snooping on a gut feeling, or "just to see" if there's anything questionable - ya, total violation.

 

I agree but there are other ways to go about finding the truth then stooping to snoop.

 

Really?! Please share! I asked my ex if there was anything else going on with that girl from work. He swore it was nothing. I believed him. I brought my concerns to him, to discuss, and got LIES. Lies that I believed. Lies that I believed for 4 YEARS OF MY LIFE THAT I WILL NEVER GET BACK! The ONLY way I was EVER going to find out about the cheating before I invested insane amounts of time, emotions, money

into that relationship was going to be looking through his phone. That's ALL I had to do, just pick it up, see what I already thought was there, dump his @$$ and run in the opposite direction. But I didn't. I tried to do the "right" thing, and ended up completely heartbroken in the end. I still live in the house my ex and I bought together, and some days I still walk through the house thinking about how it never meant anything, how it was all lies, how I felt like we were beginning our life together when we moved in, but really he was screwing some other girl on his coffee breaks everyday. Nice.

 

Just wanted to add back to the original point of this thread - IMO, snooping is fine.

 

I get what people are saying about trust, etc.. I'm done with that. There is ideal and there is reality. Ideally, I would rather we could have straight trust and not snoop, etc.. but in reality, there are far too many situations that now arise that make you question things and people. Once snooping has come to a conclusion that nothing is or has happened, I tend to feel better and will be fine without further snooping unless another situation comes up where it may make me wonder again.

 

Sorry, I don't really trust anymore and I guess that for the way people deal with these things - it will vary person to person.

 

Maverick

 

I agree that if you are a compulsive snooper, then yes, you need help. You probably have trust/jealously issues that need to be worked out before entering a serious relationship. Compulsive snooping and situational snooping are two completely different things. Compulsive snoopers probably just always think that something's going on behind their backs, and are constantly looking for something to prove themselves right. Situational snoopers only snoop when a situation has arisen that gives them the desire to snoop. Yeah, you guys can say "you should talk to your partner, communication is key, blah, blah, blah...", but the reality of the situation is that people LIE. And humans are not lie detectors. And I don't know about all you people oput there, but I do not have time to follow my SO around all day long to see for myself if I am being lied to or not. (Which by the way, IS stalking!) Personally, if my SO gave me reason to think something was being hidden from me and I snooped and found nothing, I would drop it. I know that finding nothing doesn't mean that nothing is going on, but it would sure help me feel better about it. They say "The proof is in the pudding." Well, in this case the pudding is the cell phone/e-mail account/facebook account/etc. and the proof is usually in there.

 

HELL YES ! SNOOP AWAY

that's how i caught my recent ex bf, and the douche had an excuse for everything.. AND then he ignored me for a few days and then dumped me.

F it, good riddence.

 

what i've learned from this is that when we have a gut feeling something isn't right, it's because it usually isn't.

 

 

p.s. when you're married, there is no such thing as privacy. don't even fathom the idea. it's not going to happen.

 

FACT: Humans are the only species on the face of this planet who blatantly ignore their instincts. When a deer feels they are being hunted, they run away. They may, or may not have been hunted, but they ran anyway because that's what their instinct told them to do. Do you think the deer would have liked to know if there was no hunter there, so it could have continued grazing and relaxing in the grass? Do you think that deer would have liked to know it was definitely being hunted before running away? Maybe it was a mistake to run away, because the field where it was grazing was perfectly safe. The point here is that, whoever/whatever created the world as we know it, gave humans "animal instinct" too. We just have the means/intelligence to prove our instincts right or wrong. Animals do not, so they always follow what their "instincts" tell them to do. Can you imagine if humans ran from their relationships as soon as they had a "gut instinct"? Nothing would ever last, marriage wouldn't even be a thing. A deer doesn't run away because it knows that it's being hunted, but because it only feels like it's being hunted. And like I mentioned above, you can ask your partner what's going on, you can tell them that you feel like something's not quite right, but usually if they ARE hiding something from you, they're just going to lie to your face about it anyway....and how are you going to be able to tell the difference?

 

Firstly, I would not do it. You think people do not realise they are being spied on? People are not stupid.

 

You think people don't realize they are being cheated on? They don't. I didn't. I'm not stupid.

 

What you don't understand is snooping IS obsessive. You do it once and you can't stop yourself because your insecure, paranoid brain thinks 'I didn't find anything this time, but what about next time?' and the cycle continues. So whether it's done every day for five years or one month every five years, it's an obsessive need. Once you snoop you can't stop in that relationship because in your head you have already deemed your partner untrustworthy.

 

I disagree. I would snoop. If I didn't find anything, I would feel a whole lot better. And, wouldn't continue snooping at all, unless given another reason to. It's called self-control.

 

All snooping can be remedied by doing one simple thing. Pay attention to how well your partner treats you. When you know someone you can tell if they are sincere. Keep an open mind and everything you need to know will be revealed to you without snooping.

 

Really? It took FOUR YEARS for everything I needed to know to be revealed. FOUR YEARS TOO LONG! And it didn't get revealed, he TOLD ME because he was mad at me, and we had already broken up for other reasons. I paid close attention to how he treated me. I knew him very well, and thought he was sincere. I DID keep an open mind. It sure didn't get me anywhere. Just 4 years of deceit and lies to sort through. Oh ya, and now it's landed me in counseling.

 

When you're in a marriage i hardly know anyone who finds it appropriate to keep things from their spouse, no matter what it may be. that on it's own shows lack of security from the person with something to "hide." you want privacy? don't get married.

 

I agree. You choose to share your life with another person. You want to share your bed, your home, your finances, your family, your responsibilities, usually children - but you want to keep your personal affairs private?! That's crazy talk! Even issues with my job that are deemed "confidential" I share with and vent to my SO about. I think the kind of privacy you should expect in a marriage is being able to close the door when you're going to the bathroom.

[Blondiegirl]

I did some snopping and it worked but it also backfired on me too. My boyfriend was always flirting with different girls and I brought it up and totally backfired on me. I brought up his flirting ways and what he was doing,etc and it blew up in my face and now he isn't talking to me asking me that I give him space so yes it does work but remember the consequences.

[Liraele]

I think that the results of snooping and having your fears confirmed is extraordinarily painful. I think it's more painful to have the visual/verbal proof via messages, photos, etc. than it is just to know that they cheated. I don't know that I either agree or disagree with the act of snooping itself - once you get to that point, for the majority, the relationship is already over. Trust has already been breached, if not by them, by you.

 

I don't think that finding out after the fact makes the years wasted - they are only wasted years/times if you allow them to be. In that time, unless your partner was your ENTIRE world, I'm sure good things happened, things you wouldn't take back, things that helped you grow as a person. If it's good, wonderful - if it's bad, it's experience. Either way, you can't get back those years, no matter how much you rant and rave (yeah, I've done my share too), so why not focus on the good things in those times, rather than considering them a complete waste?

 

It hurts to be cheated on. It hurts like hell, and it's something that sticks with you for a long, long, LONG time. However, getting over something like that is easier when you can't recall the messages, don't see in your minds eye the nudes/semi-nudes of the other woman (or women, or men), etc. Trust me.

 

I trust my instincts, more than ever. If I had concerns again, I would simply sit down and talk. If my fears were not alleviated, if I wasn't comfortable in the relationship, if I didn't feel that I could trust him - then I would just leave. Honestly, if I'm unhappy, I'm unhappy. The whys are mine, and maybe that's selfish, but I would never, ever, in a million years want to go through what I went through with my ex - or the resulting pain - ever again, after finding what I found. I would have been better off not knowing.

[OptomisticGirl]

If you have never snooped you can not BEGIN to understand the pull it has on you. Once is not enough. If alarm bells are going off in your head then listen - doesn't mean you have to stoop to snooping.

[Liraele]

I've had both experiences - being cheated on and only being told, and with the last relationship, being cheated on and finding the proof via texts, pictures, and trip plans that were hidden from me - by snooping and following my gut. The first relationship was a six year relationship - a marriage. The second was a 14 month LDR.

 

The second instance was 10x more difficult to get over, and I'm still dealing with it. A huge, HUGE part of that is knowing exactly what she looks like, what he said, what the plans were, when, where, and how often... dealing with that is pain and a very uncomfortable truth that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

 

So, people, just think before you do it. Are you prepared to have those images ingrained in your brain? I sure as hell wasn't, and it's a huge regret. I'm glad I know, I'm, in a way, glad I was right, because I know I can trust my own feelings. But knowing that much sucks. Just knowing he was cheating would have been enough, without the visual aids.

 

Listen to yourself and follow your own happiness.

[HeartGoesOn]

doesn't mean you have to stoop to snooping.

 

Now, say that out loud three times, as fast as you can!

 

I agree with the statement, when you have the need to go to the extent of snooping, the relationship is already on the wrong path.

[trustno1]

Trust when I say "snooping" is a bad thing....I did it and only found out that my gf is being honest about everything...I have faith and if you have an ounce of faith, be assured the all bad thing will come to light without having to lift a finger.....

 

My snooping was due to lack of trust....If there is no trust there is no ("Real"ationshp).....Peace

[Bella27]

I understand what everyone here says about the trust but I also have to recognize that I have snooped 2 times and both times it gave me what I needed to move on. In both relationships I used communication first and directly asked "are you cheating on me?". They both treated me as if I was paranoid and jealous and just plain evil for believing they could do something like that. Well, that's when I snooped and found out I was right. Also, after seeing the e-mails and pictures I just walked away. Both of them know I walked away due to "cheating" and both of them still deny it to this day. I never told them about the evidence I found in their e-mails. I just told them I knew they had cheated and that was it.

 

One of them recently sent me an e-mail out of nowhere saying he couldn't forgive himself for the way he treated me. It still doesn't say "yes, I cheated" but at least he is recognizing he did something "awful" that resulted in the end of our relationship.

[Tanzi]

If you have absolutely no reason to believe that your SO is cheating on you other than your own insecurities then there is absolutely no justification in snooping on them. Saying that you don't want to waste your life on someone who only may be cheating on you is rather an odd way of looking at your relationship when there is no real indication that they are actually cheating on you and if your SO were ever to find out that you had been snooping on him then he would have far more reason not to trust you than the other way around. You have absolutely no right to invade someone's privacy.

 

I gather that you feel it OK for your SO to snoop on you too? To not trust someone without any reason means that your SO has a right not to trust you either. That doesn't make for a very healthy relationship.

 

If, however, you know almost 100% that your SO is cheating on you I can totally understand why someone would feel driven to snoop. At this stage communication is useless because when backed into a corner the person doing the cheating will usually just lie. I'm not saying that being justified makes snooping OK but it does pale in significance and becomes the lesser of the two evils when your SO has been caught cheating and especially when you have asked, begged, pleaded for the truth.

 

I have to admit that I have snooped once and only once. It was after getting back together with my husband who had left me some months before, supposedly after emotionally cheating on me. I never really knew what did or didn't happen and it all happened so quickly that I was still in shock by the time we got back together. Still, I threw myself back into the marriage and, apart from ONE isolated incident, I went back to believing in him and our marriage. However one particular evening, whilst he was working away, I couldn't get hold of him. I drove myself nuts wondering why he wasn't answering his phone and all sorts of thoughts ran through my mind. I knew he wasn't working far from where SHE lived. When he arrived home the next day I had this sudden moment of weakness and I checked his jacket pockets for anything incriminating .... receipts, hotel reservations. I didn't find anything and I never snooped again. I put it down to the fact that he had cheated on me and I just needed to know, in that moment, whether he was capable of doing it again. Despite not finding anything incriminating and despite not feeling the need to snoop again he did cheat on me again and he did leave me again.

 

I totally understand that we can sometimes be driven to seek the real answers that we know we aren't being given but I personally feel that if I were to find myself in that situation again (ie. where I needed to snoop) I would just up and leave before I did so as, evidently, there would be something majorly wrong with the relationship to be in that position in the first place. Either that or there was no trust, and with trust ........

 

Nevertheless, despite my own actions, without any real reason to believe you SO is cheating then I think snooping is just plain wrong.

[RadicalDreamer]

If you have absolutely no reason to believe that your SO is cheating on you other than your own insecurities then there is absolutely no justification in snooping on them. Saying that you don't want to waste your life on someone who only may be cheating on you is rather an odd way of looking at your relationship when there is no real indication that they are actually cheating on you and if your SO were ever to find out that you had been snooping on him then he would have far more reason not to trust you than the other way around. You have absolutely no right to invade someone's privacy.

Very good points. I also want to add:

Overall, staying in a relationship, pretending to participate while you're just hanging on to find out "what's really going on" is pretty deceitful too. Especially if someone pulls an act where they're acting all sweet and nice, and then they find his/her dirty little secret and BOOM you pull the coup de grace. EPIC SMACKDOWN! Sleazy to the extreme. It may be better than cheating, but that's like saying shooting someone in the head is better than cutting it off. Oh, and it's immature too.

 

If a person seriously harbors suspicions of cheating, and realizes that it's 50/50 and there's nothing incriminating on their S.O.'s part, they have a dilemma. First, they can try to truly get over their suspicions (recommended.) However, if they try this, and they just can't get it out of their head, I'd say it's better to snoop.

 

Now, hear me out. The reason I say this, is because I have come accross it. People who are "suspicious" of their significant others, but never confront them, and harbor their little suspicions anyway, sometimes for years. It poisons the relationship, because guess what? Partners pick up on these things, especially if they live together.

 

And not that it justifies anything, but there are a lot of partners who might start to suffer from "I might as well have" syndrome. Yes, cheating for any reason is wrong, but leveling unspoken suspicions against someone can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Force enough cake down someone's throat and they'll start eating it. Either that, or they'll choke.

 

So to anyone who's in that position: snoop if you feel you have to. Go ahead, but even if you find nothing, tell your partner. Because if you snoop, find nothing and then just go on like nothing happened... well, it's about as bad as your partner carrying out a one-night stand. I'm talking about serious snooping- going through their phone or email several times because you just know there's something going on!. And if they don't have a history, and have done nothing overtly to make you suspicious, they would have every right to be angry. Not at an invasion of privacy, but the fact that you lacked trust in them, while carrying on a facade.

 

But here's a better solution: Realize that your trust issues may have absolutely nothing to do with your partner, and everything to do with projecting your own insecurities and past experiences on your partner. Realize that it's not fair to put someone in a relationship where they're not only responsible for their own actions, but they have to micromanage how you choose to interpret them. Realize that it's better to tell your S.O. that you don't trust them, that it may not be (probably isn't) their fault, and then break up, or agree to do some kind of counseling so you two can figure out where the trust issues lay, and how to resolve them.