It's ok to be cautious in relationships, but when your "caution" turns into suspicion and paranoia, your trust issues are likely to wreak havoc, especially if they lead you to violate your partner's privacy. The following seven actions will not only tell your partner that you don't trust him or her, but will also betray his or her trust, and that is not easy to bounce back from.
First of the bunch, text messages are like the gateway drug for snoopers--it's where they start. Just because your boyfriend or girlfriend is texting someone, it doesn't mean it's someone he or she is cheating on you with. Snooping through his or her text messages can not only lead you to make a much bigger deal out of nothing ("Oh my god! She said 'Haha.' She's totally the other woman!") but it can also lead you to start digging through his or her other media accounts and profiles. It's the first violation of trust in your relationship. Don't do it.
Call Logs
Once you've started checking your sweetheart's texts for evidence that he or she is hiding something, you'll start checking the cell phone's call log for male or female callers you don't recognize numbers with no names ("Of course she wouldn't put his name with his number, just in case I'd look!") repeated calls from the same name or number names of ex-girlfriends or boyfriends (How many Erics or Ashleys can he or she know?)
Unless you know the ex's number (stalker, much?), the call log won't tell you anything conclusive and will only drive you crazy with suspicion.
Social Media Profiles
Facebook, MySpace (who still uses this, anyway?), Twitter, Foursquare, Pinterest, Instagram, Yammer--if you start checking up on one social media profile, you'll feel compelled to check them all just to convince yourself that your significant other isn't sneaking around on you.
Don't spend hours looking through all of their friends for potential "threats" or "suspicious communication." Unless he or she writes "Omg, I can't believe we got away with hooking up last week!" on someone's wall or vice versa, you can only connect dots that likely have nothing to do with each other.
And hacking into your honey's profiles? Don't even go there. You'll have enough explaining to do for all of your badgering about who he or she has been talking to. Don't add breaking into a private account to list of crazy things you've been up to.
E-mails
E-mail accounts are even more personal than social media profiles because they often contain messages that were probably not meant for your eyes solely for the fact that they're none of your business. If your boyfriend or girlfriend wanted you to know about
- his credit card debt
- his ongoing e-mail feud with his siblings
- his favorite but secret guilty pleasure club/activity newsletter
- his porn subscription
- his work activities
- his plans for your surprise date next week
he or she would have told you about them. The likelihood that your man or woman is using their e-mail accounts to coordinate lusty rendez-vous with a secret lover is slim.
Credit Card Statements
Unless you and your significant other have combined your financial assets, his or her credit card transactions, purchase history, and total debt are none of your business.
Snooping through his or her financial records is going to create a world of hurt for you when you have to answer for your suspicion of things so trivial as their spending habits. Honestly, if you have to track them through their credit cards, what's to stop you from hiring a P.I to tail them or stalking them yourself? (Don't do this, either!) Clearly, you don't trust the person you're with, and that means your relationship is questionable.
Wallets, Purses, & Pockets
Snooping through
- purses
- wallets
- gym bags
- luggage
is silly. Unless you think your partner is stupid enough to leave someone's bra or used condom in something they regularly carry with them and leave out in plain view of your prying eyes if he is cheating, there is no reason to rummage through it for "evidence."
Aside from yet another glaring sign that you don't trust them, you may find something in that purse or bag that actually embarrasses your partner for other reasons. Way to go, champ! You just humiliated your partner AND crushed the illusion that they were in a loving, trusting relationship.
Snooping
If you've violated every other aspect of your partner's privacy and still aren't reassured that he or she is in fact faithful to you, ransacking his or her apartment for material evidence is the last--and incredibly more difficult to hide--demonstration of mistrust.
Unless your sweetheart is one very oblivious individual, he or she is going to notice that the dresser drawers are a mess, the items in the closet are out of place, and the journal that was under the mattress has ended up on the bedside table--where you left it in your manic pursuit to oust your partner for the cheater they aren't.
http://www.chacha.com
No comments:
Post a Comment