Why You Should Never Snoop in Your Relationship

Before you grab your trench coat and go all Nancy Drew, be sure to prepare yourself for what you might find. First things first, if you have the desire to snoop, you have to be ready to find what you’re looking for, which in most cases is tied to infidelity speculation.

Maybe it’s because your partner is acting sketchy or a friend told you information that you pray isn’t true—whatever the reason is, it always comes down to a lack of trust. Here’s why you should have an open and honest conversation with your partner about what’s going through your head instead of going behind their back and peeking at their phone.

The aftermath changes your relationship forever.
If you keep what you know to yourself and still stay with your partner, you’ll be miserable and completely resent them. Your attitude will (rightfully) change. Or if you let them know, they will most likely resent you for sneaking into their phone and personal space. Either way, it won’t end well.

Simply put, it breaks trust.
If you don’t trust your partner, you shouldn’t be with them. Make your life less stressful and end the relationship if you’re constantly wondering things. Easier said than done, but you’ll be better off in the long run.

The snooping habit could get out of hand.
Let’s say you find a way into your partner’s phone or social media and you check in every once in a while. It will become addictive, like “am I going to find anything new this time?” Or “let me just see if they changed their password.” It’s a bad habit and super-toxic behavior to put yourself through.

You turn into the bad guy.
While your partner may have been the one two-timing, you’re now at fault for sneaking around to find the information to prove what you may have heard or thought. But unfortunately, now your partner can flip the script and label you untrustworthy. Two wrongs don’t make a right, friends.

It could lead to paranoia.
Even if you tell yourself, “oh, I’ll just look one time,” if you find even the smallest breadcrumb of evidence, you’ll drive yourself crazing wanting to dig for more. You’ll start to overanalyze every single move or text your partner sends and, well, that’s just draining. Either have an open and honest conversation or leave your partner and allow room for a healthy relationship to enter your life.

OK, so on the flip side, you’ve decided you’re going to go forward with your detective work and nothing’s changing your mind. Here’s how the scenario will most likely go down: you look through their phone, emails, bank statements, etc. Ding, ding, ding! You find it, it’s right in front of your eyes (could be a flirty DM, racy photo, random phone numbers, or even worse, full-on romantic text conversations). Your stomach drops and of course you’re crushed. F that person for betraying you. But now, what do you do next? How do you handle bringing it up? We’ll save that for part two.