Spying on the Spouse

Jodi - posted on 02/07/2012

Meme, my husband refuses to go in my purse either! He sent me via facebook a picture of a man holding open a woman's purse and they photoshopped the inside of the purse to look like a blackhole! lol

MeMe - Raises Her Hand (-_-) (Mommy Of A Toddler And Teen) - posted on 02/07/2012

My DH and I know everything about each other, we have no reason to snoop. There isn't anything we don't talk about, he can go through my purse to find something he is looking for (but he always gets me to, he thinks my purse is a suitcase!), no issue with me and I can go through whatever of his if I need to find something... Never a need to snoop. I have full control of both our bank accounts and he comes to me to make sure he has enough money... We share our laptop (my daughter has her own) and I often leave my FB open, he can read all he wants, he usually closes it, he calls it gossip book... If he leaves his email open, I have no interest and switch to my profile, he sends me funny emails, that's all I need. LOL I am also a computer guru (software engineer - computer science engineer), so my DH has no interest in anything I do on a PC, he can't understand any of it anyhow! We do not password protect anything, no need. I do however password protect my work laptop but I don't use it unless I am working. It has Government records on it so it has to be pwd protected...



However, I do think there is a problem if you need to snoop/spy. To me there is not enough trust and there is a concern that something isn't right. The feeling of not knowing everything, is not a good thing in my mind. It sometimes, not always, is a self confidence issue as well. If you are paranoid that your spouse is doing something behind your back but never have a good reason, then I would look at oneself and ask why the need to do so is there.



There is a difference between interest though and snooping and being up to no good. If one happens to leave their email, phone, etc open, and you just have an interest that is normal. If you intentionally go looking then there is something not right with that.

Jodi - posted on 02/07/2012

Amanda, my husband and I have access to everything too. He knows all my passwords and I know all of his. But that doesn't mean I need to go snooping through everything, I don't need to know every last detail of his life and he doesn't need to know every last detail of mine. I could snoop and spy if I wanted to (because let's face it, full transparency doesn't mean the other wouldn't do something behind your back and assume you won't check their texts simply because you never have before.) but I don't need to.



Full transparency does not give one the right to keeps tabs or spy. And yes, if you're doing it behind their back to try to catch them something...it's spying. He still gets his privacy, we trust each other to give each other all the information and passwords, but we trust each other to also respect that privilege and not abuse it.

Caitlin - posted on 02/07/2012

Amanda - You can have fuyll transparency but still respect someone elses privacy and not look. Most of the responses i've ready said peopel have the ability - they just don't..

Amanda - posted on 02/07/2012

Im really confused, I dont understand why you all dont have full transparentness in your relationships. My hubby has full access to my cell phone, emails, computer, mail just as I do his. We have zero need to spy because we have full access to eachothers lives 100% of the time.

Hope - posted on 02/07/2012

My husband is not currently addicted to anything but he has had a couple of slip ups in the last year or so but he did not buy any thing.



But that doesn't matter. My point is, I keep him in line by snooping. He knows I will find out and I will not tolerate it anymore so he has pulled his head in. Now if I had not snooped and found the evidence and confronted him we could be in a very different place today. One that I never wish to visit.

Stifler's - posted on 02/07/2012

There's no way my husband would have addictions that I didn't know about. I know about every cent that gets spent.

Hope - posted on 02/07/2012

I snoop!! But I have good reason to. Not that he would ever cheat on me but he has had so addictions, so I keep check to make sure we doing go down that path again. I don't do it all the time, only if a suspect he may be slipping, then I will do the snoop through everything and if I find something we have a talk and deal with it. It has help him, so I will do it again.

Konni - posted on 02/06/2012

I think it is ok to snoop if you believe something is going on that your not comfortable with. Yeah you could sit down with him & talk but more than likely if he's up to no good he'll just lie anyway. I would prefer to go to the table with proof & if I had to get that from snooping then so be it.

Caitlin - posted on 02/06/2012

I don't think snooping is okay. If I need money from my husbands wallet, I bring him the wallet and he gives me the money (and vice versa). The utilities and everything are all in his name, but I am the one that pays the bills and does the accounting, but I still never open the mail, even from known companies that is adressed to him without asking him first. We have the utmost respect for each others privacy. The worst "invasion" I have done was to glance at his work laptop that he leaves open to receive e-mails, but that was only to see if there were any new ones for him to answer (his name is in the subject in that case) because he was taking a prolonged and much needed nap because he was under the weather..



If you need to snoop in my mind, there is something wrong..

Deborah - posted on 02/06/2012

I've never spied on anyone I've dated... Although in some cases I probably should have...



The only way I can see it as 'okay' or at least understandable is if you have valid suspicions.



For instance, after my daughter's dad and I broke up when I was 5 months pregnant, he was at our apartment taking a shower... he wasn't staying there much but his clothes were still there and he'd come sleep there sometimes. Well his phone was BLOWING UP with calls, so I checked to see who it was, the caller ID said "Amy"



WHen he got out of the shower he told me it was a girl I knew (he worked with her) named Lydia, saying he had her car and she wanted to know when he would be back.



Obviously I knew he was lying, so I did do some snooping -- turns out she was the new assistant manager at his work, he'd mentioned her to me a few times but the name didn't really register.



He'd been sleeping with her since before my daughter was born, I have no idea if it happened when we were still together or not, but in that particular case, I felt I had the right. Even though we had broken up, he still had a responsibility to me because I was carrying his kid.



Funny though, they ended up together, and when my daughter was 6 weeks old, she got pregnant with his second kid (My daughter and her sister are ten months apart. Genius, huh...) But, he has suffered badly in a karmic sense, the way he treated me in our relationship is the way she ended up treating him in theirs....... it is still a continuing payback....



I still care about him, I still consider him my friend, and it made me mad because, well, you don't treat people like that, especially not my friends. Yes, he deserved it, but the kind of shit she did was just ridiculous (Saying he couldn't eat her food because it was HERS when they were living together with their daughter...refusing to let him use her phone to get ahold of me about our kid...STUPID)



So if my circumstance would have been different, like, if he and I were still together and he told me it was one person when it was obviously another, I would have gone snooping/spying, because why would he lie to me about who called him unless he had something to hide?



Snooping for the sake of saving yourself from heartache or embarrassment is fine, but you have to have a valid reason for doing it.

Stifler's - posted on 02/06/2012

I will never get blaming the other person either. No one fucks someone they don't like/want or runs off with someone they don't like unless it's rape then it should be dealt with accordingly.

Allison - posted on 02/06/2012

i realize the why spying is not good thing isnt up there. she spyed but when you spy your only getting partial messages. like she would look at his phone and see that i had called him and texted him nothing was ever you know hey sexy or anything but she just saw my name and took it as proof never mind the message would say what are u two doin tonight or tell her to call me. or ne thing like that she saw my name and that was enough. she never bothered to look at her phone and his phone and see i only called him after half a day or more of trying to reach her and her messages would be like hey you wanna go to a movie you me and the kids? or you wanna have a girls night, i think when you spy your mind jumps to a conclusion even if there is evidence saying other wise. also to be fair he may or may not have erased my texts to her as well as the missed calls. point is she saw what her insecurity told her to see

Allison - posted on 02/06/2012

my thought is if you feel the need to spy on the other person then why are you with them? and i hate that whole line of "its not you i dont trust its him (her)" depending on who or where its coming from. i've been on that end of being the one who was trusted but my friend wasnt or at least thats how it was phrased. nothing happened. granted there was alot going on i didnt know about at the time so until last year i never fully understood what was happening now i do.



my best friend at the time married one of my other really good friends at the time. about seven years ago. through out the entire marriage she spyed on him. once when i came out of the bathroom i caught her going through my phone. i didnt think much of it at the time. later it came from her husband that she honestly thought we were having an affair. the only time i hung out with the guy was when she asked me to get him out of the house or with her or if we bumped into each other. i would call him looking for her alot. I asked her about it and she said its not you its him. the affair accusation had nothing to do with you it was all him mine was just the name that popped into her head.



so through out the next two years this keeps going on she and he are at each others throats accusing spying blah blah blah. finally she starts totally avoiding me. she starts treating me like crap and i hear some gossip that she is saying and spreading some horrible rumors about me. when i confront she tells me im trying to steal her husband.



this did not happen. what ended up happening after they split and papers are signed is he and i bump into each other at a bar and end up going on a couple of dates, end up being a short lived couple. hes a jerk and i feel guilty for not believing her everytime she said certain things about him thats all the farther i'm going into that.



so i end up getting pregnant with his second kid and she and i are now friends again and he is a lonely bitter man who has yet to learn his lesson and still tries to manipulate women and situations to get what he wants. but now i also know why she was spying on him and why she didnt trust us. because he was telling her we were having this epic love affair through out thier entire marriage. while the logical side said no her not logical side said yep.



i'm not giving all details because it woulld take alot of space but the thing is her insecurity here pushed him into saying that. his cruelty as well lets not pretend he wasnt pushing her back and reinforcing her insecurity. but her insecurity ruined our friendship for two years. and i believe its part of the reason why they couldnt part as friends or at least in civility now that she is happier and more secure we are great. point is spying says more about you than it does your SO.

Laura Zoey - posted on 02/05/2012

I guess it might be considered snooping but we are both just pretty open. We can look in eachothers phone or email or wallet etc but it's never to find things they're hiding it's just curiosity or impulse.

I can't say I usually look in any of his stuff but if his emails up I'll look through the inbox or sent messages to see what he's been up to.

We are mostly an open hook lol our biggest problem is talking too much to the other about stuff they don't care about lol.

We don't usually have any secrets unless it's the good kind for eachother :)

Jennifer - posted on 02/05/2012

I also say if you feel the need to snoop, somthing is wrong. Either with you, or the relationship! LOl, mostly, with this marriage, if I snoop it's cause something is wrong wih me. I do sometimes take a look, but I don't go out of my way to find stuff.



My ex cheated with 'on-line' friends. I snooped to find proof, but I already knew it was going on.

Amie - posted on 02/04/2012

I agree with the others. If you're at the point where you need to snoop, something is already very very wrong.



Earlier this winter I had my husbands cell phone. Mine was dead and I didn't have time to charge before I ran into the city so I took his. I left mine charging at home. One of my friends texted me while I was out. He answered her and told her I had his phone and gave her the number. Then they thought it would be funny to mess with me. I got a text on his phone from my friend saying "Hey Sexy, what are you upto?" I looked at it and went wtf?! How does she even has his number. I didn't answer it, I called him. I asked him when he had given my friend his number. He said he hadn't. So that sent up a red flag. I told him he was an ass, she had just texted his phone and I wasn't impressed. That we would talk when I got home. Then I hung up on him. He tried calling back but I didn't answer. I was fucking livid!



I got home and he came and gave me a hug and apologized. He told me she had texted my phone and they had come up with it. I tore a strip off of both of them and told them they were not funny in the slightest.



My point with telling that story? I could have snooped around instead of going to him. I went to him and it was resolved within a day. Well mostly, I was mad at them for awhile over that one.

Elfrieda - posted on 02/04/2012

It's not really okay, no. If you do feel like he's not telling you something and so you go into his email/facebook to find out, then at least tell him, "I was curious about the way you're acting and I looked at your emails." Then you can have an honest spat. But it's an invasion of privacy.



I have my husband's password to get into all of his things, but I don't use it unless I happen to need something out of there, like if his dad sends him information about a family gathering but forgot to include me, etc. Usually I will ask, "can I check your email to see if Dad said what time we're meeting?" if he's around, just out of respect. He's never said no or been upset if I tell him I did it after the fact, so I don't think it's a big deal to him.



If he's left his account open on our computer and an email looks interesting I admit I sometimes open and read it, but I KNOW I'm so nosy, so I try not to go into his gmail account at all because if I don't see it, I'm not curious. I was always the girl who snooped around and read my sister's and friend's diary. :( It's a flaw.

Joy - posted on 02/04/2012

Along the same lines as Heather, if you feel the need to spy, your instincts are already telling you that something's "off". Or you're just insecure and have trust issues. My ex husband was in some inappropriate relationships online with other women. I didn't find this out by spying on him. I found out because I suspected it and asked him about it. I followed my gut. Now, if he'd lied and I was still suspicious? I still don't think I would have snooped. There's more than one way to skin a cat :) (And no, that's not an animal cruelty thing.....it's a southern saying I grew up with....call this my disclaimer lol)

Lady Heather - posted on 02/04/2012

If you think you need to spy, you already have a problem. I think in the case of an email being left open and you sit down and look at it...well, you might just call that curiosity I suppose. But deliberate going through their shit - I really don't see why you would do that unless you had a reason to suspect they were up to something. So either you are right and they are up to something or you are wrong and have weird trust issues. Haha. I've never felt the urge. I imagine my husband's emails are very dull. Blah blah sawmills blah blah order this bit of machinery blah blah shutdown is next week blah blah.

Jodi - posted on 02/04/2012

lol, I married a tech nerd, so even though I have all his usernames and passwords and what not, even if I *wanted* to, most of his stuff is with co-workers and it's all a bunch of computer mumbo jumbo to me! I *have* had to go into his email to get coupon deals and stuff (I sign both of us up for the really good deals, like free diapers!) before and naturally I can see who's been emailing him, but I've never opened an email. I also hack into his facebook about once a week so that I can send myself things I need in a game I play...lol. I've never checked his texts or phone log before. I trust him and I have no need to snoop.



But, I think nearly everyone does it...that doesn't make it right though. I would be put off if I found out he was snooping through my things, and wonder why he wasn't trusting me and why he didn't come to me first, but since I have nothing to hide, it wouldn't be a concern for me. He also has all my usernames and passwords, and I think we both trust each other to a point where neither of us feels like we need to snoop.

Stifler's - posted on 02/04/2012

To be honest... anyone dumb enough to communicate via email or text or phone with someone they are seeing behind your back and not delete the log deserves to be caught.

Stifler's - posted on 02/04/2012

I don't think it's okay. I don't like reading other people's email, snail mail, phone, diary or anything. Because I hate people doing it to me. I have access to his email I could read them all if I wanted and he probably wouldn't care but I only open the phone bill. Same with his mobile I will answer it if he says but I will hand it over if he's right there same with a text, it's for him not me or they would have rang my phone.

Rachael - posted on 02/04/2012

It is always an invasion of privacy, but I've done it. He left his email open and I snooped a bit. I think that it's generally not a good idea, but if they suddenly start acting different (working late, going out more, caring more about appearance) and you ask them about it and they insist nothing is going on I would still do it to put my mind at ease.

Jodi - posted on 02/04/2012

Nope. Not ever. If I have an issue I would discuss it with him first. Do I sometimes go through his stuff because I'm innocently looking for something? Yeah, sure I do (for instance, half the time, the only cash in the house is in his wallet and sometimes I have to search to find where he put it), but not to snoop, not ever.



Same as he goes through my bag to find car keys. No biggie. But I would be offended if he rifled through all my stuff just to snoop.