Snooping comes up time and time again in my work with couples from all over the world online. Arguments over discoveries after snooping on phones are frequent. This has included

1. Facebook messages to ex’s,
2. Whats app messages sharing intimate details or marriage complaints to friends, family or strangers
3. Flirting from work colleagues or old school friends.
The most common is flirting, which can often cause a lot of heartache, distrust, anger and anxiety in relationships. Many men and women alike confess to me that they regularly snoop on their partner phone. Yet their partner often feels violated, angered and not trusted.

My take on it is:

You need to decide as a couple whether it is acceptable or not acceptable. To help you make that decision here are some good arguments for and against.

For Snooping and Spying on Your Partner’s Phone
1. A great marriage is a transparent marriage. The benefit of transparency in a relationship should never be underestimated. Full transparency enables couples to have a deeper connection and intimacy. The more you know about each other the easier it is to make each other happy and avoid things that destroy love.
2. The more you know each other the better and more meaningful conversations you can have, as you will be able to talk about more than just logistical or financial things.
3. Couples that have full transparency often feel more connected and can often find it easier to make joint decisions, as they know more details.
4. Snooping can bring a sense of inner peace. When partners check and find nothing – they can feel calmer and relax – which is better for a relationship. Many also argue If there is nothing to hide, then what is the problem with snooping.
5. Snooping can help ensure that a partner doesn’t do anything that could hurt the relationship or each other if they know their behaviour could be viewed. The public sharing can hold a person more accountable and this, in turn, can result in behaviour that is more caring, which is good for relationship longevity.
6. The risk of an affair can be reduced, as checking a spouse’s phone, helps to ward off any flirty behaviour that might happen if never checked. Given the high incident of infidelity and severe emotional damage it causes, some couples welcome checking to warn off an affair.
7. Many pro-checking a partners phone, believe that following your intuition to look and picking up on red flags in the relationship is natural and healthy. And that to ignore the inner signals and signs would be to watch the relationship die without taking any action. They argue it helps the relationship to snoop and follow your own inner wisdom.

If you like this approach then – give each other all of your passwords, provide each other with your calendar and phone access. Also consider signing an agreement: whereby you and your partner agree that there is no right to privacy in your marriage and that everything is allowed to be checked and shared. If you do agree today that there should be no privacy in your marriage and that snooping is allowed, some marriage experts believe that you’ll spare yourselves considerable grief and sorrow.
They also make the point that that you should not “criticize the snooper. Instead, eliminate the conditions that made the snooping seem reasonable to your spouse.” Harvey

Against Snooping and Spying on Your Partner’s Phone

1. We all have a right to privacy. No matter what circumstances some believe. That it is a basic human right.
2. Need to protect individual identity. Some argue that as we are individuals first and a couple second, we need to keep our privacy in order to keep our sense of self and that this is healthy for the individual and the relationship.
3. Snooping can lead to misunderstandings and wrong assumptions. Texts can be read out of context and leave room for misinterpretation. I have witnessed this, where a lady read her husband’s messages and determined he was homosexual. This affected their intimacy and happiness as she withdrew, yet she later discovered it was not true. Checking information can also result in harmful accusations being made, which is damaging to the relationship.
4. Trust is an essential part of a marriage. When 2 people come together in union they must trust each other. Secretly or overtly spying on your partner’s phone implies that you do not trust them.
5. Checking a spouses phone can become addictive. If things are misunderstood it can trigger more doubt which can in turn to lead to the urge to check more. I once helped a lady to break the habit of checking her husband’s phone every night when he slept. She constantly needed to wake herself up in the night to check. Needless to say she felt tired and exhausted the next day but could not stop the addictive habit. Another man I worked with would check his fiancées Facebook account 8 to 20 times a day. He always found nothing and she gave him the access but he became addicted to checking to feel comfort and peace of mind.
6. It’s better to be an adult and deal with insecurities and red flags in a mature way, by first looking at ourselves then our partner and relationship. It is possible to address all of this without checking and invading a partners privacy, some argue.
7. The finding of something painful or worrying, can cause more fear and anxiety which ill impact the closeness. It does not give the partner the opportunity to explain their point of view. Things need to be addressed openly through willing information, not coercion.

As you can see there are two entirely different ways to look at this and that is why it is important for a couple to reach an agreement on it, for what they want in their relationship.

My perspective.
Personally, I believe, that such incidents are circumstantial. I know when our intuition tells us something we need to listen. Rather than snoop though I would always recommend trying to address the concerns and focus on making the relationship closer.. Take the urge to snoop as a warning sign that the marriage needs attention. Often people only snoop when things in the relationship are not as close or connected as they once were….

If your marriage has lost its spark, you are no longer in love with each other or there is coldness and distance between you, do something about it today!
Act now before it’s too late!

So many couples wait until their marriage is on the brink of divorce to take any action. Often by then the tension and resentment is at an all time high and the couple are not even friends, let alone lovers.

The greatest risk of an affair is when a marriage is no longer romantic. That is when another man or woman steps in to fill the void. Do something about your relationship today so that you or your spouse don’t have to choose between a loveless marriage and infidelity – if that is the case for you. You may want to start by watching my empowered love- marriage secret masterclass I have created that has now strengthened and saved 1000’s of marriages worldwide.
And you can also download my free e-book 7 secrets to fixing your marriage here
From my heart to yours, Nicola
Nicola Beer

Whatever you want for marriage, I believe that part of being in a committed relationship with someone is being available to them by cell phone throughout the day. Be willing and open to give a full account of where you have been and where you will go. Don’t allow secrecy to come between you. Transparency is essential for a healthy and long-term bonding in marriage and for intimacy to be good and flourish.

There is a difference between privacy and secrecy. Privacy is acceptable, secrecy is not in intimate relationships. To find out more how to enhance your relationship watch the empowered love marriage secret master class here

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