Partner reading my phone messages [closed]

Question

My girlfriend and I are 27-28 years of age. Recently I have caught her going through my phone when I am out of the room and read my text messages, e-mails, Facebook..., checking who I was interacting with and so on. She must have seen me entering my PIN. I told her I did not appreciate this and would like her to respect my privacy. I caught her twice doing this.

Whenever I confront her she gives me the

"Why does it bother you if you have nothing to hide?"

argument. As someone who works in information security and encryption, this argument sounds nonsensical to me. And I could actually have something to hide! Nothing bad of course, but let's say I just bought tickets to something I wanted to surprise her with.. Or if I have a confidential talk with a friend, my girlfriend would instantly know about their 'secrets'. Apart from this, I hate the feeling of being monitored and supervised.

In any case, I believed I was in the right condemning this behavior until recently when a friend of mine told me his girlfriend did this all the time and he did not make much of it. Of course, this is just an anecdote, and a sample size of 1 means nothing, but I started doubting.

Am I in the right or in the wrong? Did I overreact? Does a partner have the 'right' to do this?

Answer 1

You are right to be bothered by this. Not specifically because she goes through your phone, but because you explicitly told her you do not want her to go through your phone, and she did it anyway. The real problem is your partner broke your trust, not the means by which she did so.

The most important parts of relationships are communication and trust.

By ignoring your boundaries and not talking about it, your partner is failing both of those. Some people might be okay with their partners going through their phone, some might not. It doesn't matter. What matters, is that if you say "No", you are able to trust that your partner either listens to you, or talks to you about it openly.

Not that they break your trust and ignore your boundaries and just do what they want. You need to have a conversation with her about personal boundaries, communication and trust. Not about phones.

(The expectation of privacy in a relationship is a common one and most people probably would expect their partners not to go through their phone without asking. So you can complain even when you didn't ever specifically tell your partner to stay out of your phone, but the offense becomes much worse after the boundary has been clearly established.)

Answer 2

You're very much right.

Her going through your phone, to me shows a lack of trust. Which is the foundation of any romantic relationship. I would simply use your information security and encryption magic and encrypt the device, or simply put a passcode onto your phone and change it regularly.

Instead, you could sit down and communicate any information she is looking for (or looking to find) to prove you have nothing to hide (if you have to get your phone out and show proof of any of these things, so be it. But you have control over the device and what she sees).

If you need to know anything, you know you're more than welcome to come and ask me?

If she's throwing out the if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear argument. She would most likely react negatively to this exchange.

You could simply state:

Working in security for technology, I don't feel comfortable with anyone going into my phone and I would very much like my privacy respected, as I would offer you the same courtesy.

and then re-emphasise that any information she needs, you're more than willing to be open about it without her going through your device.

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By this point, if she still persists. Then she really doesn't trust you. Beyond that would be out the scope of the question and down to your own reaction to the situation. But no, you didn't overreact and no-one has the 'right' to invade your privacy.

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Note: There's an article you could show her from the Telegraph (never really liked citing them, but here we are). Is it ever OK to look at your partner's phone?

Answer 3

I think there are three aspects to this:

• Privacy - there is an expectation in many cultures that your diary, phone, journal etc. are private, so anyone accessing them without your explicit permission is breaching an unspoken rule. (and I'm with you on this - I have been in the Infosec industry for nearly 18 years, and have a strong focus on privacy and access controls)
• On the other hand, in a close relationship there could be an expectation of no secrets. I share almost everything with my wife, for example. But not everything - if I want to organise a surprise holiday or present for her, I want it to remain a surprise.
• Trust - if the relationship is strong enough you may feel that you should just be trusted. If she is looking through your phone, could this imply that the trust relationship isn't fully there.

So the implications of these principles are in conflict. My suggestion is that you have a discussion about how her taking your phone to look through it makes you feel, and how an alternative is for her to ask you to show her your phone messages (with the understanding that there may be spoilers of any surprises you are planning for her etc...) but that overall you need to look at how to improve trust until she doesn't feel she needs to look at your messages. Actually showing her a few times may be enough, but this may be a symptom of needing to do more in your relationship to engender trust.

Answer 4

Adding to the other answers with a point which in my opinion is very important and still missing:

By going through your private messages your SO does not only violates your privacy (which has already been covered) but also the other person's privacy. Just because you may share anything with her does not mean everyone you message with does so as well. If a good friend of yours opens up to you with a secret he does not want anyone else to know, I'm pretty sure he does not expect this including your SO. And something once read is not easy to forget, even if she realises that a specific information is something she should not know without you having breached her trust.

So in my opinion, you are absolutely right in denying her access and this might or might not be an additional argument in your favor.

Answer 5

To add on other excellent answers, ask her

Why do you have to go through my phone? What are you looking for? What do you think you will find here?

This counters her argument; why should she start searching your phone if she doesn't have any suspicion to begin with? Why should she making a problem out of nothing?

If she already have a thought of you cheating, anything can be used as "evidence", even a casual chat with a stranger. This ridiculous behavior should not be tolerated as it already show her lack of trust, and should be remedied immediately if you both are to continue the relationship.

Answer 6

Your feeling is correct, there is just that creepy belief in some places that, somehow, trusting your partner to no privacy is okay if you are a woman. It's definitely not okay.

Since it seems to bother you to have no privacy, something has to change.

In fact, it's not even about you, if she doesn't trust you, she has no reason to be with you in the first place. I won't tell you how to handle it, that would be pointless, just keep in mind that you are equals, he doesn't have rights over you that you don't have over her.

If she asks for snooping through your phone again, ask her to give you her phone so that you can do the same. She will be likely to show you her true self.

Answer 7

The "nothing to hide" argument is flawed. Are you going to show her your bank statements next? Privacy is privacy, she shouldn't be snooping; there are other women you could be with. Relationships are built on trust, snooping through your phone isn't trust.

Answer 8

Privacy/Trust/Respect, these are all the key words here. But, some people are insecure and do not think in the same lines. You solution here needs to be mutual for your relationship to work. I also would not tend to change PIN because that is a unilateral solution and one likely to lead to a dead end. Your partner feels they are entitled to look, you feel they are not, and the two of you need to agree or you are living in different belief planes, which is a bad place for a relationship.

I solution requires cooperation. Here is a possible suggestion, a starting point for you to think about and if you like massage into something that works for you. Offer, that they can look at you phone. Now, or in the future, but only if they ask. If they ask, you hand them the phone and let them look. But, they do so with the understanding that in your mind, they are asking because they think their is something to look for and therefore you know they do not trust you or they would not feel the need to look. So they understand that by asking, you will hand them to phone to look, but when they find nothing now you will be the one who needs answers as to why they felt the need to look. And if they do look without asking again, they will have broken their word not to do so, making another situation that must be dealt with.

Not ideal, and it will likely take some back and forth. All relationship issued do. It is just an idea of a way to approach it though that allows your partner to also give their input, if they want and are able, as to why they find it important to look, and you to give your feelings of why you don't want it, but that you are willing to compromise. They need to know that the compromise though is not without possible fallout.

Answer 9

First of all, I would think if these are healthy relationship and if a healthy relationship could be developed with this person. You could probably talk her out of going through your phone, but it is highly possible that she would still find a way to watch you. Anyway, you should talk to her about trust and privacy in relationships.

If you are OK with the fact she's insecure about you and only issue is your phone, you could try to explain that your phone doesn't only contain your information (which is no secret, and you are totally OK to share), but might also contain work emails, which you are not supposed to show to outsiders, or your friends' secrets, which they shared to you, but wouldn't want anyone else to know.

As for going through her phone, I think it's OK as an argument, or maybe even OK to pretend you're doing that, but I wouldn't really read her texts, IMs or whatever.

And of course, change your pin, or use a fingerprint.

Answer 10

Neither!

All the other posts raise good points, but I find them to focused on the "right/wrong" or a "single solutions", so I'll try a different approach:

Am I in the right or in the wrong? Did I overreact? Does a partner have the 'right' to do this?

Neither! It's not that simple and it's not possible to give an absolute answer to those questions. But if I interpret your request correctly the absolute answer is clearly what you want. Unfortunately, the answer depends on what you personally want in a relationship and what the both of you agree on. So your questions themselves are, in a way, "wrong".

Assuming you want to ask for a solution to this problem after I didn't give you a straight answer, I would suggest the following: You found a point where you two clearly disagree on the right to read through the phone messages of the other person without explicit permission. There might be exceptions for you but clearly, this is not s.th. you consider an exception. Even my answer doesn't satisfy your original question, there are still options:

a) you continue this way and argue if you catch her (e.g. tell her that you don't like it and what the consequences will be if you catch her doing it again)

b) you respect her need to look through your phone and let her do it (e.g. don't use your phone to store secrets)

c) she respects your need to have your privacy (e.g. ask her why she must look through your phone and try to accommodate her differently)

d) you differentiate a little be more a find a compromise (e.g. you agree on letting her read your phone messages only when you are present)

e) you end the relationship

Surely there are more options I haven't thought of. So as I stated earlier, it's all relative. You decide what you're relations ship should be, not the other way around.

Even with this out of the way you will run into the same problem the next time you have different implicit expectations. So get to know one another. See where you are on the same page concerning your "rights" and "responsibilities" in a relationship in regards to when you are not in a relationship. And don't look for an "absolute answer". Even if you find it, if your girlfriend doesn't agree, what doesn't matter?

Good luck!

Answer 11

As someone who works in information security and encryption

I hope this was not your work phone. While I'm sure you're smart enough not to send root passwords via SMS yourself, not everyone uses best practices, so you might occasionally receive text messages which contain sensitive information.

Customers will sometimes make you sign some sort of NDAs and some people liberally interpret "confidential proprietary information" as "we gonna sue you if anything we say including comments on the weather gets out". So, if your girlfriend perused through your work phone, any NDAs you signed with your blood become a liability. Not only to you, but to her also. I don't know the exact law term, but since she looked at the PIN over your shoulder, she was not authorized (good for you, you don't get sued except for negligence).

So, if this was your work phone, your colleagues really don't need to know your girlfriend just had a bit of "unauthorized access to confidential proprietary information"...

Now, I'll assume it was your personal phone with photos of puppies and the like. Let's review the facts.

You caught her twice going through your phone. You don't know how many times she did it unnoticed. Maybe she does it every day, maybe never, who knows.

Now, she made the choice to look into your phone, so what kind of tradeoff does that decision imply?

She gains: potentially information (but there isn't any), soothing her anxiety (can be important), and also she tests your response to her invasion of your privacy.

She loses: your trust, also you get annoyed, and this screws up the relationship.

She knew you would be hurt when you found out (because you told her) yet she did it anyway. This means she assigns more value to whatever benefits she gets by looking into your phone than she assigns to your feelings, or the status of the relationship. If this was not true, she would simply have thought "If I look through his phone, he's gonna feel hurt, and I want him to be happy, so I'm not gonna do that."

You, on the other hand, assign more value to your privacy than to her being reassured by not finding anything in your phone.

So, I proposed two hypotheses, the first in which she has no actual jealousy and is just acting like a jerk, and the second hypothesis in which she sincerely worries. You can invent many others, until you find the right one...

But she did not say she was sorry for looking into your phone, instead she seems to behave like she thinks she has the right to do it and disregard your feelings, which is a major tell.

In any case, I believed I was in the right condemning this behavior until recently, when a friend of mine told me his girlfriend did this all the time and he did not make much of it.

Answer 12

So you have nothing to hide, right? When you write:

And I could actually have something to hide! Nothing bad of course, but...

I am not convinced. As for your explanation of what might be disclosed, so what? If she spoils her surprise, it's her loss. If she reads another person's secrets, hopefully, she has the sense to keep it between the two of you.

If not, deal with that issue (or some other issue) when it happens. By "insisting" on a blanket rule, you are forcing a one-sided rule into your relationship, where she doesn't even get the chance to be trustworthy.

Also, using "condemning" is a strong word to use to describe some communication with a girlfriend. Generally, you condemn your enemies.

Answer 13

Am I in the right or in the wrong? Did I overreact? Does a partner have the 'right' to do this?

A lot of this depends on how mature your relationship is and your mutual values.

It sounds to me like she is feeling insecure. That may or may not be because you've given her reason to doubt you, but while your boundaries are important, how you approach this should be based on her rationale. It could be emotional baggage from prior relationships, or maybe she had dysfunctional role models. On the other hand, maybe you have given her reason to question your faithfulness, even without knowing it.

Assuming this woman is important to you and you want the relationship to last, if her insecurities have nothing to do with you, you may need to allow her unprecedented access, until she realizes how stable and faithful you really are. A lot of people have never experienced that and it can be hard to believe. The flip side, which you may or may not come to realize, is that having one person in your life to whom you provide complete access can be very special, too.

So, it's not exactly a matter of whether she has the right to "monitor" you. It's about whether you're ready to be in a relationship where you have absolutely no secrets. I trust my woman to respect the confidentiality of my friends, so her seeing a private conversation with a friend about the problems he's going through will never be a problem, and I don't have those kinds of conversations with other women – or if I do, my baby knows the whole story.

I'm not going to get into the scenario about how you keep her out of your business if you do have secrets you don't want her to see on your phone. I'll just give you the benefit of the doubt that that's not the case.

Answer 14

Relationships might be built on trust, but building walls and boundaries is not the way to build that trust.

Most likely your girlfriend got cheated on in her past. Have a conversation with her and figure out what the deal is. If she is carrying around some baggage and trust doesn't come easily to her, then do what you can to support and help her, including not being bothered when she snoops on your phone. She might just need that extra boost.

Answer 15

You've used the word partner but it sounds more like a friend you have an exclusive (I assume) intimate relationship with. A partner is a step on the road to life partner.

Shifting the emphasis to "life partner". I imagine you would be comfortable to give free access to all of you to your life partner, which includes, but is not limited to:

• Is your BEST friend
• career planning
• holiday planning
• retirement planning
• children planning
• home planning
• health management
• Last will and testaments
• Winning lotto
• Shared bank accounts
• Joint mortgage
• Common and individual interests

If you can see, and are excited about, a future with this person as your life partner then I recommend sharing phone communications while you collaboratively focus on your future mutual benefits.

Otherwise, continue to leave the barrier in place.