Snooping: Acceptable in some circumstances or not on?

[Icelander]

Greetings Mumsnet, I'm new here and have spent a few days trawling around this site and lurking my way through an unhealthy number of threads on this board. I must say I am fascinated and have really enjoyed getting an inside look at human interaction that is quite different to what I'm used to!

I note that it is viewed as basically normal and acceptable behaviour by posters here for a wife or girlfriend to look through her SOs email, search and page visit history, and text conversations etc in an attempt to confirm certain suspicions that they harbour. I say this because I have encountered reports of this behaviour in many threads and not once have I read a poster having the opinion that this is a serious breach of privacy, disrespectful, or a betrayal of trust. I'm sure some hold this opinion, but I would imagine it is a small minority based on my own impressions of what I've read.

I am genuinely amazed by this and am trying to reach across the gender chasm in hope of being able to better understand where you're coming from. It has really been shocking to me because I have broken it off with two getting-close-to-being-serious women for this exact reason. I thought that there was really something there with the latest one too. But I don't think that I could possibly be in a serious relationship with someone that invades my privacy and disrespects me like that. It would be a deal-breaker for me, but it isn't something I would set out as terms at the beginning of our dating or something like that as it just seems obvious to me that this is relationship ending material and that anyone can see that it's totally unacceptable and would expect things to be over and finished if caught doing that.

Before reading through this site I would have thought that the vast majority of people would have agreed with me, but now I see that I was mistaken. What am I to make of this? Am I being unreasonable? Is it likely that any partner I have, even the mother of my own children, is going to snoop if the chance is open and its unlikely that they will be discovered? I must say this is quite unsettling to me ... deeply disturbing actually, and would very much appreciate any viewpoints or stories about the matter. Thanks in advance.

kitty I'd say yes it has definitely been a theme in my relationships. Possessiveness, mistrust and jealousy have all at least been serious headaches to me in most relationships.

I'd feel like a right knob saying to a woman to keep out of my emails and texts on a first date or something like that. Can you think of a better way to make her paranoid?

If you want an honest opinion

if someone said that to me whether on a first date or early on(where there was no reason caused by my conduct), I would think they were an utter [insert expletive of your choice] and I would never see them again.

I would think:
*controlling
*strange
*bad attitude to women
*bad attitude to relationship
*some weird past experience I can't be doing with.

but most of all I would think

• cheater with lots to hide!!!!

Stella - I am not naive, I don't think. I run my relationships in a particular way, that until now has suited me fine.

I just don't get the angst. If this is the OPs line in the sand, then it's his line in the sand. He's obviously annoyed about the last "girl" he thought was the one for him. But what if she thought the fact he wouldn't let her look was her line in the sand?

Instead of talking it through, he laid down the law, and it was finished.

And now he doesn't like it . I am confused.

I'd say the fact that you come across as more than a little dictatorial might have been an issue in your relationships.

kitty, I'm not sure exactly how I've dealt with it... I feel like my SOs have often been having one sided battles that I'm predictably totally unaware of, or misgivings based on signals that I didn't think or wasn't trying to give out and it has all ended up being a giant mindfuck and I'd rather be done with it. As a communicator I think I am not totally unavailable but I can be emotionally retarded at times.

Hands up, I am just a nosy cow. ... always have been, it's no reflection on my husband. I'm also very intuitive, nothing much gets past me. He's said on various occasions I'd have done well in the Gestapo

By the way. Being dictatorial in a relationship is not a problem for me but I spell it out clearly from the beginning. Or, I have up until now first date yesterday with a new man I'm trying to tone myself down. But you need to tell the potential partner if there's a line in the sand for you.

Damn it's so much easier when it's BDSSM and I'm in charge and they do as they are told

Frau, well that's a big assumption based on a short conversation that is about an issue that is specifically a deal breaker to me. I bet anyone will come across as a little dictatorial when talking of such things. I can be a big teddy bear at times too.

This is no random occurence that this keeps happening to you Icelander . I think you might want to consider issues that you have with yourself with trust and intimacy. You are a very active participant in reaching this outcome where you end the relationship due to snooping. This may not be fully in your conscious awareness.

you come across as more than a little dictatorial

LOL at "more than a little"

Sorry OP but I really agree. It maybe the internet but your tone is way off to me; you do sound very controlling.

It maybe this is the root of the issue in your relationships. If you are naturally a very private person, your partner may feel you are not opening up and do have something to hide.

You may be appearing secretive rather than private. And if you couple that with someone who has trust issues, then that in itself is a recipe for disaster.

The probability is that if your partner was 100% secure, she wouldn't be looking through your communications. Of course there are some people who are devious, evil, snoopers who will do this anyway, but really this will be a tiny proportion of the universe.

In your shoes OP, I would treat your bad experience as a cue to be more open with others, not less. Share more, perhaps? Not be quite such a closed book. If this makes you uncomfortable or if you are less guarded & still think the other person is possessive or intrusive then walk away, obviously,

I don't think it's true that anyone would seem dictatorial in discussing this. But you do.

You do seem dictatorial to me. And I am the queen of Dictatorial in my sexual relationships, so it takes one to know one.

Do you talk to your partner? Do you open up and give of yourself.

I mean, if say, I brought up the issue of pornography then a person to whom that was a complete deal breaker is going to sound dictatorial. Or some other issue that was across the line for them. I think I'm being a little unfairly judged in a general way based on my feelings about this one matter.

No Icelander, it's not the deal breaker issue or the subject matter, it's the tone and way in which you are expressing yourself.

There is a difference between not having anything to hide, and someone wanting to look.

I don't have anything to hide, my phone is accessible to my dp, he picks it up to play music etc and sees my notifications etc. but if he started to look through it I would wonder why.

I have been there and been snooped on and had nothing to hide, but the feeling of violation meant that I changed all passwords and no longer felt that I wanted that openness.

People do have a right to privacy.

Frau, I think I do. It's not like I've gone my whole life without connecting with a women. I've been head over heels in love more than once. I've shared deep personal secrets. I've had some very fulfilling sexual relationships. There have been more than a few that I'd rather never happened though.

icelander - everyone has their own line in the sand. you have yours - it's clear you don't want a potential partner to look at your emails/texts.

Why not? You need to examine why that is so important to you - if it's because you are just a private person, then feeling like a knob or not, you are going to have to find a way to communicate that clearly to your partner. And the sooner the better. So that neither of you waste each other's time.

I have a certain type of relationship I like. I tell them and they tell me clearly and often what is and isn't on the table from the get go.

I must be dim but I don't see the issue. You're entitled to have a line in the sand - but you can't be pissed off then if the other person doesn't agree and it ends because of it - surely that's the whole ficking point of a line in the sand issue?

PP is right. It's not the subject matter, it's the way you're expressing it. That might just be because it's written down rather than a conversation though.

Honestly, it is the reasonable default position in my view. Maybe I would give an 'if this happens again it's over talk as it really is not ok to me' talk, but I'm just finding it hard to work out why I should have to? But if I found out that it hadn't been just a one off thing because of some misunderstanding that had inspired some jealousy, but rather had been ongoing and serial then I'd probably end it. I know where that road leads.

Cue this turning into yet another pornography train wreck

I couldn't be with anyone I couldn't share everything with or wouldn't share everything with me.

If my DH was feeling insecure, I'd far rather he snoop than fester. Snooping makes the relationship stronger and I'd put his feelings well before my needs for privacy.

I think cog was spot her with her distinction between privacy and secrecy

Do you generally lack empathy?

sorry frau, I meant icelander :-)

Kitty, interesting that you say I'm an active participant in reaching this state of affairs. I'm a normal bloke. I don't always understand the ways of women, often I'm left in a state of amused confusion. I wouldn't pretend to have an understanding of why sometimes things don't work out in relationships but I see jealousy and possessiveness as frequent problems.

Icelander have you ever snopped at the mail, phone, text, email etc of another person?