[LiteraryLark]

I felt bad for those who decided to argue over a hot button topic rather than address the OP, myself included, so I thought it'd be best if we resorted to duke it out and address the issue in this thread.

First off, before we continue, there is NO right or wrong. Some people need to be open and honest to the point of transparency, some need their privacy and freedom to keep their independence. I'll say it again, there is NO right or wrong. What works for one won't work for another.

In relationships, are you for privacy and personal freedom or do you prefer to be completely transparent and not a secret kept? Why?

[TiredPilgrim]

What a great topic, literarylark. Thank you for posting it.

My husband and I's relationship is a mix of both, tending towards transparency. Our relationship is based on friendship and communication. We respect each other's privacy in that we don't check each other's phones or devices (with or without permission), but instead we choose to talk it out. We each have different 'hot button' issues, and over the years we have worked out boundaries.

Our relationship has really 'evened out' over the last five or six years, but believe me we have put each other through the proverbial ringer earlier on in our marriage when we were working out all these boundaries!

There is a clear difference between privacy and being transparent in your relationship. Privacy is about having boundaries. Transparency is about making your partner feel emotionally safe, not having any secrets, being respectful and compassionate towards your partner, caring about their feelings and well being. (I forgot to add that when I wrote this post.)

For me, there's no trust without transparency. There's no emotional intimacy without transparency. The more consistently loyal that a partner is in a relationship, the more of an honest person he/she is.

Transparency aka intimacy to me, means that you are willing to grant 100% access to your beliefs, motives, intentions, goals, desires, and fantasies: who you are without any pretense.

Dysfunction is created by dishonest actions. Period. Dishonesty is the absence of honesty, and the complete denial of truth.

Verbal dishonesty is lying (even white lies), exaggerating, misdirection that includes with-holding information, being manipulative, making excuses, being vague, being indirect, being fake, and avoiding the truth at all costs.

Emotional dishonesty is when your partner misrepresents their intentions with another person; telling a person "I love you," or "Trust me" when they're totally lying. When someone rationalizes their bad behavior with excuses, or flat out denies the truth, when confronted with questions or concerns, and lies their face off instead of simply just telling the truth.

You have to make your partner feel safe for there to be any transparency in the relationship. But if one person is being emotionally dishonest, then the relationship will ultimately fail.

How do you remove the fear of hurting the other person's feelings? Tell the truth. Don't tell the person what you think they want to hear. Take responsibility for your own feelings.

Why is this so difficult for adults to do? If you change your mind about how you feel about someone, own up to it. Don't be a coward. Be transparent. Respect the other person's feelings.

Stop feeling like telling the truth to your partner will get you into trouble. If it does, that's because you lied to your partner. It is totally selfish to lie to your partner, and then instead of telling the truth, to be deceptive, deflective, and act like a coward who pawns off their guilt onto their partner, (a total narcissist move), rather than own up to their bad behavior and suffer the consequences. Adults can be such cowards.

People will only be as honest as they feel safe to be. If their partner doesn't respect them, doesn't make them feel emotionally safe then why would they tell that partner the truth?

I don't go around policing my romantic partners' cellphones, email accounts or mail. For Pete sake, I respect people's boundaries. But if I suspect that my partner's being deceptive, and is choosing to take the low road with me (cheating on me behind my back then lying to me when I ask them if they're cheating), then I am going to look for evidence of cheating.

I have no problem looking on my partner's cellphone or Facebook or email if they are showing me red flags with their actions. When I've had to do that, my suspicion's always been confirmed, and those partners who've cheated on me, responded with deflection and deception and disrespect, rather than tell me the truth.

If someone is going to cheat on you, you have two choices: remain a passive victim and enable their cheating by doing nothing, or confront them with evidence and either choose to work on the relationship or to end it.

So, I guess I am pro-snooping. I have no problem with it. I prefer transparency in my relationships. If I don't feel like my partner makes me feel emotionally safe, then I know they are not the right person for me to be with and I will call them out on their actions that make me feel unsafe (i.e. cheating on me, lying to me, betraying my trust and not owning up to it when given the chance to be truthful).

I value privacy above all else because I'm an introvert and I've always been a private person since I was a child. I don't like people to know every single little detail about my life because I don't feel comfortable with it and because quite frankly, it isn't anybody's business.

If I'm in a relationship and the person that I'm with won't respect me enough to give me my space and not inquire about every single little detail about my life, I'm gone.

This isn't just a one way thing though, if I were to be in a relationship, I wouldn't get into their business either because I really don't care about every little thing about their life and I don't judge people based on their flaws of character or mistakes they've made in the past; the past is meaningless and all that matters to me is if I like being around the person and am happy; if so, I will take the good with the bad and go with the flow so to speak.

If she cheats on me and I find out about it, I wouldn't make a big deal out of it as well nor would it matter to me all that much if she has other sexual partners as long as I'm the priority. If not, I would simply find out how to improve things with us and go from there since after all, we are all human and all humans have their basic needs.

If she lies to me, well all humans are liars and I care more about actions than words anyways and as long as I could tell she was still loyal to me and still loved me, I wouldn't make a big deal out of it. Ultimately, I would simply try to look at the bigger picture and find out why she lied and work on things with her from there.

In the very unlikely event that I get married to a woman, finances are being kept separate because it isn't anybody's business what I do with my money that I work for and I have lost more than one friendship over money as it is so there's that. I don't desire anything serious; just somebody to enjoy life with without all of the fluff that comes with traditional relationships such as finances, children, and things like that which I couldn't care less about it.

[Sad Mermaid]

Originally Posted by cielpur

I have no problem looking on my partner's cellphone or Facebook or email if they are showing me red flags with their actions. When I've had to do that, my suspicion's always been confirmed, and those partners who've cheated on me, responded with deflection and deception and disrespect, rather than tell me the truth.

If someone is going to cheat on you, you have two choices: remain a passive victim and enable their cheating by doing nothing, or confront them with evidence and either choose to work on the relationship or to end it.

So, I guess I am pro-snooping. I have no problem with it. I prefer transparency in my relationships. If I don't feel like my partner makes me feel emotionally safe, then I know they are not the right person for me to be with and I will call them out on their actions that make me feel unsafe (i.e. cheating on me, lying to me, betraying my trust and not owning up to it when given the chance to be truthful).

Cielpur,

It seems that what you are trying to convey is that you possess a fail-proof lie radar (and I believe you do) which allows you to intuitively know when you are being lied it. Every time you resorted to snooping, you were right - the partner lied to you. Why not simply trust your intuition and not go the snooping route, since snooping never provided you with more information any way (more than you intuitively knew to be true)?

[Raindropvampire]

My childhood damaged me on fundamental levels when it comes to this type of stuff. I'm completely transparent and expect the same. I have no trust in other people so without complete transparency there can be no relationship with me.

[Crazy Hitch]

Agreed with what Raindropvampire said. I need complete transparency.

Originally Posted by Sad Mermaid

Cielpur,

It seems that what you are trying to convey is that you possess a fail-proof lie radar (and I believe you do) which allows you to intuitively know when you are being lied it. Every time you resorted to snooping, you were right - the partner lied to you. Why not simply trust your intuition and not go the snooping route, since snooping never provided you with more information any way (more than you intuitively knew to be true)?

I have never viewed "snooping" on my partner's cell phone as an invasion of his privacy. It's not. For me to have transparency in a relationship, that means absolutely no secrets between my partner and I, which extends to social media platforms and email. And I did trust my intuition when i looked on his phone. The text messages I found validated my intuition. I will always disagree with those who poo-poo snooping, because its my right to do so, when I'm in a relationship with someone, when their actions set off red flags for me, and if they refuse to tell me the truth.

There is nothing wrong with looking for evidence of cheating. Think of all the men and women who learned that their spouse was cheating on them, bilking them for the money in their checking accounts, lying about their identity. Do you think those people offered up their deceit without any snooping done by their partners? What do you think private investigators do to solve their cases?

I make it very clear to men I date about my expectations with transparency. If they choose to lie to me, believe me I'll find out. So far, I've been cheated on multiple times and each time it took me snooping on my partner's cell phone to verify my intuition was correct, because whey I verbally asked my partners for the truth, they refused to give it to me.

Snooping is a right to have transparency. The other person may not like it, but too bad. They shouldn't have anything to hide.

I think if I were looking for evidence of cheating the relationship would already be in trouble (whether there were cheating or not the fact that I suspected my partner would mean things were going badly wrong).

I can see why people who have a history with other partner's cheating would feel the need to check everything but it's not healthy imo. Transparancy is one thing (asking to see texts) but looking without consent is quite another.

Originally Posted by prefabsprout

I think if I were looking for evidence of cheating the relationship would already be in trouble (whether there were cheating or not the fact that I suspected my partner would mean things were going badly wrong).

I can see why people who have a history with other partner's cheating would feel the need to check everything but it's not healthy imo. Transparancy is one thing (asking to see texts) but looking without consent is quite another.

Here is a scenario from my personal life to illustrate why I believe "snooping" is necessary and not something to apologize for (ever).

An ex-boyfriend I had was cheating on me, behind my back, with a woman he worked with. He never introduced her and I to each other, despite my insistence that he do so, because *she* was the reason his 1st wife divorced him. He told me this upfront. He also denied any wrongdoing (1st red flag for me, I just didn't know it yet). So, eventually, more red flag behavior occurred which set off alarm bells with my female intuition, that led me to snoop in his email and through his cellphone, where I found damning evidence that the affair he carried on with this woman during his 1st marriage, hadn't stalled just because he met me. I found steamy email exchanges, steamy text exchanges between the two of them.

Is it wrong for me to have gone through his emails and texts ...even if he's guilty? No. When I confronted him about the emails and text messages, he deflected (rather than make the choice to respect my feelings and own up to his cheating ways) and said that I couldn't be trusted. He told me that had I found the evidence a different way -- by asking him -- (which I did, apparently he forgot; how convenient) THEN he wouldn't be wrong. But, because I went behind his back, all the evidence of his cheating that I found was not really evidence, but my paranoia. How convenient...for him, to deflect away from owning up to his cheating way by accusing me of snooping and being distrusting.

By that point, I planned to end the relationship, so I didn't care that he and a couple of others tried to deflect and blame and shame me for following through on my gut instinct by finding evidence of their cheating, which as I already stated, they lied about when I asked them. And no, if I ask you if you're cheating and you actually are, would you say "oh yes, you're right!" C'mon. this is reality we are talking about. Cheaters lie.

Everything that is being done deceptively will eventually show itself. So, how I choose to get to that evidence is a matter of my own personal morals. I snoop. And I'm not sorry for doing it.It's always been justified.

It doesn't mean that I have low self esteem or trust issues, if I need to find out for myself by searching for evidence of HIS cheating. Each time, the ex-cheater tried to flip it back on to me and call me out for going through their emails and cell phone texts; when they should have just admitted "yes, I cheated and I'm sorry for being such a cad."

It is unrealistic in my view, to poo-poo snooping, when that actually confirms your gut. Do you really expect me to believe, that a partner who is acting dishonestly has my best intention, and that I should just blindly trust that person based on their word? Trust is earned, not given. People will always lie, no matter how trustworthy they appear on the surface. It's just a fact of life. Even the nicest people lie.

The problem becomes for me, is when my partners from the past, chose the low road and as a result made me feel unsafe from an emotional and psychological perspective. If I suspect my partner of cheating, and ask him, "are you cheating on me because your behavior has changed in a,b, and c ways..." and my partner denies it, I'm not going to just believe him. He has to prove it to me with consistency in his behavior.

So, I guess my personal morals are different from yours and LiteraryLark's, etc. and that's just fine by me. I snoop, therefore I am.

It is personal boundary issue and it is different for us all.

Been thinking about this and I remembered when I met my husband and we started a relationship he kept a journal and he showed to me the pages where he wrote about me. That was transparency I guess.

Me being nosy and alone in his flat one day I saw last years journal. Now he hadn't showed me that but I was nosey and at the stage where I wanted to know more about him. So uninvited I read his journal something I feel bad about to this day.

I found out a few things he hadn't told me which were deeply personal. One of which was that before he met me he really had the hots for my sister. I have never been able to discuss the things I read because I should never have been reading them in the first place. It was over 20 years ago (no phones to check then!), it served me right I guess.

This incident pretty much formed my opinion on 'snooping' - I never did it again.

PS - It never did worry me that he had a crush on my sister because I was always secure it was me he wanted. I concede I am lucky like that.

I think I need to clarify my stance on 'snooping.' I'm not a random snooper. I don't invade boundaries "...just because." I only resort to it, when my intution's alarm bells go off. Otherwise, I respect my romantic partner's boundaries, as I hope they do for me.

As you shared in your personal anecdote, there are times where curiosity invites snooping and what happens after that, well, that depends on what is discovered. In your case, if your conscience is still bothered, you should be able to tease your husband about it without any negative recourse by this point in your marriage.

I think posters have made the assumption from my posts in this and the other thread about snooping, that I'm ball busters about snooping all the time. Nope. I only resort to it when its needed. If everything is fine, there's no need to go seeking evidence. If everything's not fine, and face to face communication fails to resolve my doubts about my partner's behavior, then I will look on his cellphone or check his email if I know he's lying to me and doesn't respect me enough to just tell me the truth when I ask him the first time. But, like I said, cheaters are not the most transparent and will do just about anything they can to cover their tracks.

What bothers me, is the holier-than-thou attitude some people have about snooping. I think that's judgemental and rather silly. If I catch you in a lie, and you try to flip it back to me (i.e. deflect) to shame me and make me feel guilty, "you went behind my back and snooped so now I can't trust you," becomes a moot point, due to the fact that you LIED to me in the first place.

So, I am confounded by how underhanded people think snooping is. I don't view snooping as an invasion of boundaries in a relationship when transparency is the expectation. As I wrote earlier, transparency to me equals 100% access to the other person's goals, hopes, aspirations, etc.

The more emotionally intimate a person is (they confide in you about their hopes, their fears), the more trustworthy they are; because their behavior is consistent. It's the ol' 'actions speak louder than words' philosophy.

I think when you develop trust over time with that person, it's because they haven't exhibited deceptive behavior with you. So, you don't need to snoop. And if you do, there's nothing wrong with it. I just don't see snooping as deceptive. The intention to snoop is to find out why your partner has taken the low road, by not being transparent with you. Or, in your case, you were curious and couldn't help yourself.

I can see why people think snooping is wrong. I just don't agree with that viewpoint. I do think its up to each individual.

[s4ndm4n2006]

I will agree that if the partners involved in the relationship agree on either transparency or trust without it, it's acceptable.

Find someone that is willing to accept your terms, thinks like you and feels the same and it doesn't matter what your view is on this in the end.

It comes down to a difference in values and a mismatch. If one person is a flirty person and sees nothing wrong with it, they need a partner that understands this and accepts it. What everyone else says about whether they should be flirting or not is not their business.

Just the same, It is neither our business whether or not a couple expects transparency or trusts without it. That is between the partners. What we can only do is give our perspectives on this based on our own values.

If one partner wants transparency and the other is offended by this expectation it is a mismatch of values between the two and neither should expect the other to go outside their own limits to do what they expect.

[BipolarMama31]

During my un-medicated years, I lied, cheated and hurt my husband and kids.
Since I've been working on myself, and our marriage, I have become completely transparent.
It makes him feel like he can trust me I'm assuming.
Being on this side of the equation makes me feel like he deserves transparency. And that isn't because he hasn't forgiven me, it's because I feel like I want him to be THAT involved in my life. I feel like I need him to keep me anchored. If that makes any sense?

We go to therapy (dbt) 2x per week together. It's helped our marriage and it's helped me with my mental health.

It's now been over a year since 2x per week DBT and I can say that the hard work, and emotional vulnerability paid off for us.
But, this is our marriage, and our situation. It doesn't work for everyone.

This is an interesting and complex topic.

I think when relationships are good, we are mostly unguarded and transparent. As in transparency about current thoughts and important matters, like finances, health issues, upcoming work/personal commitments. There is no need to be transparent about the past if it is totally in the past. H and I have always spent nearly all of our time together. In the Air Force, we drove to work together, ate lunch together, at one of the bases we were stationed at--the Finance and Personnel Office were in the same building--my office was 2 doorways away from his! When we got out, we had many jobs where we have worked at home. So there have never been many places to hide. He even wants to go to the store with me!

Sometimes harboring a secret we are ashamed of can make us mentally ill or destroy a relationship. I did always feel very guilty when I was dating more than one person. Once my husband (this was before we married) asked me to stop seeing other people, I never did this sort of thing again. Actually, it was a relief, the dating scene was stressing me out!

It can be hard to be intimate with judgemental people. There were times when my mother did look through my things--I try not to do that sort of thing.

[TishaBuv]

Prior bf's, I did not snoop through their things having had opportunity. It didn't even cross my mind.

My h, when we first moved in together, I snooped through his things, his medicine cabinet, you name it. I found remnants of ex gf's, photos, love letters. I didn't admit or question him about the stuff until way into our relationship, when I boldly admitted snooping and simply asked him who the girls were. I don't feel bad about it at all.

Since married, I have not felt insecure about his fidelity. I never broke into his phone to snoop. Sometimes, I see a text come in and I glance at it. It's always something fine.

If I was really suspicious about my SO cheating, I would check his phone behind his back, and if I found evidence, I would have to look the other way or confront him. I don't feel like that's wrong. It's probable cause!

But having no reason to be insecure, I don't invade his privacy at all. We don't have complete transparency. We never even discussed it. If he wants to tell me something, he will. If not, he is entitled to do what he pleases. I don't need to know everything he does, nor does he know what I do. We have a basic trust that each will not hurt the other with cheating, lying, true hurt. I believe we both truly do not cross those lines.

As for my personal stuff, if I don't want it known, I don't leave it accessible. I've thrown out all the old love letters because I didn't want them read. I don't think my h snoops, but if he did, it's ok with me. Nothing to hide, really. Snooping does not make me feel threatened.

One thing I am so thankful for is that my mother never snooped in my room and read my diary. Thank you for that Mom! I never did that to my kids, either.

I sometimes found love letters girls wrote my son, and I stuck them in a box and saved them. But, I didn't ransack their rooms looking for contraband. I gave them their privacy. Parents that do that, IMO, are the worst.

[whisperingskye]

I think if you had a transparent relationship then there would be no need to snoop on each other. If you are honest and open with each other why would you feel the need to look at each others phones?

I get the idea of transparency being good. I don't agree with using that as permission to snoop. The two don't go together.

[Erebos]

Nice Topic LL.
I go for a bit of both.
Complete transparency? Er, no thAnks. I do not want to know all about my partners ex's.Or how many times they slept together, or what the intimacy in their relationship was like.
How many he had been with. Or where he learned that little 'trick' he does.
Nor does he want to know the ins and outs of my sexual history.
I don't care what he talks to his mates about on Xbone.
Or if the Swedish girl he sometimes games with is pretty.
She's in Sweden, so no threAt.
I don't need him to point out the extra 7lbs I gained, anymore than he needs me point out his 6 pack is now no pack at all.
Then there is the fact that had I not known him online for two years, had he approached me for a date I would not have even looked once.
Not my type, no attraction,no interest no nothing.
Does he need to know that???
Good God no.
Anymore than I need to know he sometimes thinks about his ex during sex.

What is the point of digging through this stuff and "tAlking about it."

I definitely have no right or inclination to go through his phone, etc.
He would not dream of doing that, or reading my journals that I leave lying around.
If I need to know something, I ask. He might tell me, he might not, but I don't assume that he is being deceitful or that there is some major conspiracy going on .
He just doesn't want to talk about that.
As it is I am the uncommunicative one.
I also believe if I am feeling insecure, that is my problem not his.
I wasn't insecure or paranoid or stressed when I wasn't with him.
He sure as hell doesn't have the power over me to make me feel that way around him.

It's an odd thing but I tend to take people as I find them.
If he says he loves me..., and here's the kicker, AND acts as though he loves me.
I am good with that.
If he says he loves me, and acts like a ***. He is out on is ***.
If he doesn't say much, but treats me like a queen. I will also take that, over sugared words and candy coated b.s every time.

Maybe I am more of an actions over words kind of person, and in that case, it's me I have to trust, that I am reading things right.

Anyway quite enough waffling from me.
Again good topic LL.