Checking your partner's phone? Normal?

[scarbados]

I've just been reading a thread on another forum about checking parters' phones as a regular thing. Most of the posters seem to think it's perfectly normal behaviour because 'in a relationship you should always share everything' and if you don't, there's something wrong with the relationship.

I've been flamed for suggesting that trust is important and checking your partner's phone shows a lack of trust. Apparently I'm a 'typical devious and sneaky woman' who's probably hiding an affair or five from my husband. I'm not sure what the fact that I never check his phone means in the mind of that poster - probably that I'm stupid and in denial or something.

In 18 years together I've never even thought of checking his phone and as far as I know he's never looked at mine. We trust each other. If we didn't, we wouldn't be together. I've been cheated on before and it took a long time to learn to trust again, but if I were still suspicious of every man on the planet, I'd have stayed single.

Is it really standard behaviour to scroll through your partner's phone log and read their texts on a regular basis? Is mutual trust not one of the cornerstones of a relationship any more?

I've never checked his phone apart from if he isn't with it and it rings, coz of business.
I wouldn't read a message.
He's not secretive with it though and I have no reason not to trust him.
I suppose I would if I was worried.

No, I've never had to. I believe in respecting one another's privacy in a relationship, most of us have friendships outside of our relationship and there may be things written in texts etc your relative or friend would not want shared. This of course applies to my significant other too.

I've never had the urge to check, the phone is there if I want too and he would have no concern handing it over to show me something and leaving it with me, but I would never search through the phone without cause. I'm not concerned in handing mine over either, there's nothing in there that I would not want him to be aware of or see.

If I felt I could not trust my significant other and I found myself wanting to check his personal items, then we would certainly be communicating and I would address my concerns. I would hope he would do the same.

I can understand why some people would do it, but I fail to understand why these people have said those awful things to you over this, it's ridiculous.

Pay no heed to it, each to their own, I guess.

I used to do it regularly but, it was after having my DS, I was definitely suffering from either PND or, what I only recently discovered, (I can't remember exactly what it's called) some sort of post natal anger. It was someone on MN who described it and I thought it summed up exactly what I had went through. Anyway, not long after having DS I found a couple of things in DPS phone after he let me use it to contact a friend abroad. He obviously felt quite confident there was nothing there (it was messages to 2 different women, but it had been only a couple of months into our relationship (I suspect he had forgotten he sent them and they weren't that bad). It made my confidence plummet, I became extremely jealous and paranoid. There were a couple of other things that happened aswell, but again, all before our DS was even conceive and we weren't that serious but they pissed me off and I let him know at the time because I wasn't about to let him think I would let him walk all over me and treat me like shit . Also add to that, his pretty bad gambling problem and borrowing of money to fund this habbit, I was a paranoid wreck and would go through his phone during the night. Sometimes I would wake him up over absolutely nothing and start having a go at him. He was always fine about it and would just reassure me, explain what he could (because there was never much to explain, just my mind making up all sorts of crazy shit).
My mental health is a lot better now. I trust him (but not 100%, but then I trust no one 100%) I don't go through his phone anymore. I still wonder if he may have cheated on me at the beginning, but I will never find out now, and he has never given me any reason to suspect him since.

I can completely sympathise with people who feel that paranoia, it's excruciating, and can be 100x worse if there actually are suspicious things happening.

I know this may be an unpopular opinion, but I think it fine to go through someone's phone if you have good reason to feel like they are up to something. Why waste your time being a paranoid wreck, or being taken for an idiot and made a fool of, when there's a good chance, if something is going on, you will find something that will confirm it. A cheat is very unlikely to come clean if confronted, and it can give them plenty of time to cover their tracks if you do ask them outright. Look after number one in that type of situation.

If I genuinely suspected my DH of hiding something important from me then I might check his phone, but by that point the trust has gone. In a normal, healthy relationship then checking phones isn't normal.

I would hate my DH to check my phone. There's no affair for him to find out about, but he would find countless embarrassing selfies whilst trying to get a decent one, a search history littered with various sites that highlight my apparent obsession with DIY crafts, he would see just how much time I spend on MN, and see some of the soppy stuff my best friend and I write to each other on WhatsApp to get each other through the tough times of parenting. I've got nothing to hide, but my phone is very personal and I wouldn't want him having open access to it.

I use my DH's phone quite a lot as mine has terrible signal and runs out of battery very quickly (yes need to get a new one). I'd find it odd if DH was unwilling to let me use it. I pick it up off the side and log in to my accounts or send text messages from it if mines playing up. I rarely ask him first & he's never said no or had an issue.
I look through his emails sometimes if I'm being nosey, usually because he'll have been arranging a meet up with our friends or booked concert tickets or something and not given me the exact date / time or something like that so I find out for myself. Why not.

I was suspicious and never checked after 20 years. One day something happened that made me look, it was something minor, and there it all was

Wasn’t

I never suspected and would never have believed it if I haven’t seen it with my own eyes.

I have never checked my partner of 10 yrs phone. I find it dreadful. What an awfully sad way to live your life. If he is going to cheat on me then he will cheat on me whether I check his phone or not. Checking the phone dosent stop it happening...just makes a cheating partner find alternative communication methods or become better at covering their tracks.

I don't check my husbands phone . I fully trust nothing is going on , he leaves it lying around all the time . I could check it if I wanted to I just chose not to . Don't see the need

DH cannot take his phone to work (security risk) so it's always at home. I've never snooped as I've no reason to, nor would DH snoop on me.

When we're together our phones are generally not used (We don't tend to use them when our DD is around as our focus is on her) When we do use them he'll use mine if his is on charge and vice versa, I'll order stuff from his Amazon account, etc etc.

Neither of us has any inclination to pry, and there are no secrets between us.

Well I guess those who don't feel the need to check their dh's phone are very lucky.
No it's not normal to check his phone, but for some it's a nesessity, as we read here every day, the amount of cheating, sexting, porn, etc, that is hidden from unsuspecting spouse's is extremely common and most of the time checking a phone will tell you exactly where you stand.

Nope.

I'd be well pissed off if he snooped in mine.

I wouldn’t check it - I’d consider that akin to reading a private diary. However, husband and I both know each other’s codes and will pick up either phone to do a quick internet search/take photo etc if own phone not to hand...therefore I highly doubt there is nefarious activity on his.
Would I check if feeling uncertain in our relationship? No, I’d talk to him about how I’m feeling. He talked to me about a childhood male friend I had years ago that he felt insecure about - I immediately showed him our perfectly boring and platonic messages as I wanted to reassure him - but if I’d caught him checking without talking I’d have felt there was no trust. Trust is vital in relationships. And communication.

I checked. He couldn't even leave his phone while he went to the loo or watered the garden.
Confirmed my suspicions.

No I dont scroll through his phone, however know his passcode

I used to work in domestic violence support service provision. Routine checking of a partners phone equals coercive control. It's absolutely not on and I would not accept a man's excuse that he had been cheated on previously, and therefore was anxious, as justification.

However I do understand that if women have reason to be suspicious they might check. I'm not going to get all high and mighty about that. I think technically, if the trust has gone to the point you feel you have to check, then the relationship is close to over anyway, but I do understand that people don't want to throw away long marriages over a suspicion and need/want to be sure. In those circumstances perhaps I'd check too. It's the lesser crime compared to the betrayal of an affair.

I might use my wife's phone for a specific purpose but never "check" it. Her checking mine would be tricky as it's usually mislaid or the battery is flat. I rarely get a call and I can't remember the last time I received or sent a text. It gets used most for turning the heating on and off.

No. I could though, he leaves it around & I know his pincode. I leave mine about (less than him though), he knows my code. If I was worried for a specific reason, I'd probably check. But I'm not, so I don't. We always said, right from the start, that we'd rather be honest with each other - if one of us met someone else or just wasn't in love any more, it would ultimately be less hurtful & destructive to be honest than to hide it.

Cool story 😂

@user1479305498 yep - I think so many women quite rightly don’t - until they do. There are many women still in relationships with guys who have done untrustworthy stuff and if you have lots of ties be it financial or children then I think it’s human nature to try and protect yourself if you have been shat on before within that relationship

Never have. I know her password and she knows mine. But we're women in our late 60s, have been together 26 years and are seldom apart.

Never. What’s the point in being together if you’re so suspicious of each other. My phone is like a diary. I’d also hate for him to see my browsing history. That’s between me and Google 😂

Nope. My phone has a password on it that DP doesn't know, and if I ever found out she had accessed it without my knowledge the relationship would be over.

I do know DPs password ( as she hasn't changed it in about a decade) and she sometimes asks me to go on her phone to deal with something, answer a call etc. I would never touch her phone without her express permission though.

As far as I'm concerned, we use our phones as extensions of our brains these days, and I don't want anyone going through it any more than I'd want someone poking through my memories.

I've got nothing to hide from DP, but there's still a million things in there I wouldn't want her to see. Private conversations with friends who are grieving or going through a divorce, ideas for birthday gifts for DP. Ideas for novels I want to write (but never will), Google searches on whatever disgusting embarrassing thing my body has decided to do this week. My guilty pleasure of listening to past Eurovision songs when noone else is around. It's all there, all the little private bits that make me, me. And it's not for public consumption.