You may not even realize that you’re doing it.
In fiction and movies, spying is typically represented as either neurotic and paranoid activity or as heroes akin to James Bond. It’s likely that you are spying on your spouse and jeopardizing your shaky marriage even though you probably don’t perceive yourself as either of these extremes.
You could be curious about your partner’s extracurricular activities if you notice secret phone calls, hastily hushed discussions, quickly shutting computers, or unexpected spending. With the advancement of technology, spying is now simpler than ever.
Among the spying practices are:
- checking your partner’s phone
- logging onto one’s email account
- stalking his/her social media pages
- literally following your partner
- installation of hidden cameras, wiretaps, trackers
In a way, it even makes sense. It’s really a smart idea to avoid constantly questioning or probing your spouse for information by doing this subtle—or not so subtle—check-up. You only need to “do a little investigation” to be confident that what is being said is true.
Spouses could spy on their partners to find out whether they’re lying, spending time with unsavory people, binge-drinking, gambling, or acting inappropriately in any other way. They can be curious as to whether their wives will actually go to work, whether they are overspending, or whether they are actually where they claim to be.
But spying on your spouse has a downside…
10 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Spy on Your Spouse
You shouldn’t spy on your spouse for legal grounds, as well as for extremely crucial psychological reasons.
Curiosity and the need to know and dominate our companion are extremely normal and characteristically human. Additionally, it is an indication of personal insecurity in the relationship because you wouldn’t worry about what your spouse did in his private life if you were confident in your place in his or her life.
Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why it’s bad to peek at your partner’s social media, chats, and call logs.
1. When one seeks, one finds.
Should you discover something, what will you do? Are you ready for your darkest fears to come true? Can you maintain your composure long enough to consider the data logically and refrain from drawing the worst possible inference from flimsy evidence?
Make sure you’re equipped to handle everything you encounter. It is preferable to have a plan of action, such as couples counselling, if you are quite certain that there is a genuine issue.
2. It kills trust.
One of the foundational elements of partnerships should always be trust. If you looked through your spouse’s gadget, you may discover reasons why you shouldn’t trust him or her any more. When trust is lost in a relationship, everything else deteriorates over time.
Furthermore, it will be challenging to convince your spouse that you still trust him if you are caught spying on him.
3. It undermines communication.
Your boyfriend can start keeping things from you if he learns that you frequently snoop on him through his phone. If a partner betrays you, they will remove any evidence of it, making it impossible for you to uncover it.
However, if they don’t like your intrusion into their private, they can decide not to be courteous with you.
Determine whether you have a specific cause for your suspicion before presenting it to your spouse and gently asking for an answer if you have any. You must discuss this if you don’t think the explanation holds water.
4. You create arguments and quarrels.
One of the main causes of domestic disputes has been snooping on a spouse’s gadget.
An example of a common situation would be: the guy gets angry because she touched his equipment, and the woman gets angry because she discovered some indications of adultery on his phone. The kids stand there and watch as they both scream their heads off.
When a fight breaks out during an argument, the woman often comes to the conclusion that everything would have been different if she had respected her husband’s privacy before.
5. It puts you in a weaker position.
One’s spying on another results in an unfavorable power dynamic. Simply said, you don’t go about and spy on people when you’re in a position of authority. You don’t consider how other people are living their lives as you live your own.
But if you get preoccupied with what your spouse is doing rather than what you are doing, you are essentially denying and giving away your own authority. This dynamic is not long-term healthful.
6. It sabotages closeness.
After one spouse admits to spying on the other, many relationships never recover. Even if it turns out that your spouse was in fact flirting with someone else, your sly behavior frequently overshadows their flirting, costing you the moral high ground in your argument.
It is quite difficult for anyone to trust someone who they now understand was examining their private communications in order to find proof of their inappropriate behavior. In many respects, it could be just as difficult to forgive this lack of trust as an unreported flirtation.
7. It becomes an addiction.
Start by looking through his past, and then eavesdrop on his bank account and social media likes and remarks. At the end of the day, you would realize how much time you had wasted looking through pointless items. You could go on and on.
Even if your partner is sober, you could still develop a spying habit and get up in the middle of the night to get your fix.
8. It’s not good for your self-esteem.
No one enjoys the person they turn into when they are preoccupied with waiting for their spouse to use the restroom so they may grab their phone and hastily skim through texts.
The majority of individuals desire to feel honorable, moral, and respectable. Nothing lowers your self-esteem more than snooping about, acting like a thief, and trying to obtain knowledge that isn’t legally yours.
It is far preferable to confront your concerns and suspicions head-on. Asking instead of snooping will make you feel better about yourself.
9. This can undermine your reputation.
It sets a poor example for your children and other family members. You seem horrible to everyone when spying is discovered, even if your spouse is innocent.
10. It may be illegal.
Can you spy on your spouse legally? The quick response is: not always.
Any information you collect is greatly influenced by how you gather it. Using technology to spy on your spouse might land you in more legal problems than it’s worth if you’re not careful. You might be charged with stalking or invasion of privacy.
Because one party has consented to the recording, it is completely legal in several places to record phone calls or in-person talks between two people. In certain areas, both parties must be informed that the discussion or phone call is being recorded.
This implies that you are not permitted to install a recorder in your spouse’s vehicle and record interactions with other individuals. There have been instances where people have erred and paid the price with a jail term.
Thinking of Spying on Your Partner? Think Again.
It really helps if you…
Pause before you spy.
When you feel the temptation to check in on your spouse, especially if it happens frequently or every day, take a deep breath. You’ll give yourself a chance to make a good decision that will be advantageous to you (and your relationship) in the short and long run even if you merely take a little break to sit still and breathe.
Examine your true motives.
Be truthful to yourself. Do you have a strong basis (supported by credible data) to believe that there is something suspicious going on right now, other from the fact that your spouse had an affair in the past?
Look hard at your temptation to spy and, if it stems from a desire for power, retaliation, envy, or is only motivated by the past, give serious thought to the effects of what you’re about to do. Are you prepared to put the link you’re attempting to repair at risk?
Think deeply about why you think they are cheating.
The tendency for someone with trust difficulties from childhood to feel that everyone is cheating stems from their own issues rather than anything the partner may be doing. If this is the case for you, a therapist can assist you in resolving your trust and betrayal issues and in building your confidence in interpersonal interactions.
Talk to your partner.
You might formally request that your partner be more forthcoming about their interactions with certain persons. Some partners will consent to you viewing their text messages since they have nothing to conceal. Regardless matter whether they are being faithful, other, more private people will resent the control they believe you are attempting to put on them.
Remember that you may express your worries to your spouse in a non-aggressive fashion, allowing them the time to reply and explain their connections and intentions with others.
Think of your relationship.
If everything else fails, you can and should consider calling it quits on the relationship. Being preoccupied with your partner’s conduct and sneaking around behind their back is considerably less healthy than that.
Decide what you will do after that consciously. If you see that your spouse is breaking promises or deceiving you, it’s critical for you to act. While moving ahead (and in the direction you want to go) thoughtfully is what we advise rather than pretending the affair never happened.