It is morally reprehensible to snoop on your partner’s phone – so why do we do it?
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RI recently discovered that a friend’s partner had borrowed her phone and used it to go through our messages because he was worried we were having an affair. It was quite a discovery, not because I minded someone sifting through my stupid jokes, but more because it made me sad that someone I liked felt compelled to do the one thing that is guaranteed not to bring peace, which is to access their phone without their partner’s knowledge.
It may be obvious to many that snooping through your loved one’s phone is not a good idea, but let’s recap some reasons why. First, it is an invasion of privacy. Even if you believe your partner is guilty of infidelity, the irony is that reading their private messages makes you the guilty party. Just as one should respect the privacy of what a loved one might say to a therapist, you should also respect what your partner might say about you in private with close friends.
And as any sleuth will tell you, you’ll never be truly satisfied or reassured by what you discover. Even if you do find a ‘smoking gun’, such as the existence of a dating app, the questions and insecurities will only escalate, not disappear. I first realised a partner was lying to me when I glanced at the BBC weather app on his phone (why was it set to the Lake District when he was supposed to be meeting his mate in Essex, I wondered until the penny dropped), which is the opposite of a smoking gun, and the same enormous feeling of insecurity continued.
Deep down, we know that snooping is bad. Yet, as I’ve written before, suspecting someone is cheating sends us into a state that borders on insanity. Our cellphone addiction only compounds the problem: Cellphones are such a big part of our personal lives that we easily see them as instruments of built-in guilt that can arouse suspicion 24/7. Even seeing a partner texting someone with their back to them can make even the most reasonable person in the most secure relationship suddenly paranoid. Then there are those who view cellphones as a kind of public property. I went on a date a few years ago with someone who was very clear and eloquent in her dating profile about the importance of consent and respectful interaction. When my flipped-over cellphone rang during our second drink, she reflexively leaned forward and began reading the message preview on my screen. I laughed in disbelief for a few seconds, “is this happening?” before saying, “Um, do you mind?”
Life changes a little when someone has searched your phone in a way that goes beyond a prying glance on a first date. My phone has been searched before. I deserved it, I caused it: I was an absolute lying, cheating scumbag back then, and my partner wanted to know the truth. What changed, though, was that the pain I’d caused by cheating merged with the intrusive way I’d been caught, giving me a new awareness that the best way to exist in a digital space is to assume that anyone can see everything you do at any time. It helps both to make you hypervigilant when you’re doing something that makes you feel bad, and to realize that a lot of what you do isn’t shameful. Would I feel bad if someone saw this? No? Great—I must be doing a good job.
Of course, this kind of digital self-monitoring can be taken to highly questionable extremes. For example, Mike Johnson, a senior Republican and current Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, admitted in 2022 that he and his then-17-year-old son monitored each other’s phones to check that the other wasn’t watching porn. This almost dystopian approach to morality was achieved through an app called Covenant Eyes, most commonly marketed to hardcore Christian communities. It reports back to your “accountability partner” when you see something deemed “questionable.”
“There are millions of ways to get annoyed about your partner’s online behavior. Often it can be almost completely irrational.”
Most reasonable people would shy away from something like this for a million reasons. But one of them is that simply having access to a person’s data isn’t enough. Data alone can’t satisfy our human need for dialogue, explanation, and understanding. Knowing what your partner is doing on their phone without context won’t make anything better, it will only frustrate you more.
There are a million ways to get upset about your partner’s online behavior. Often, it can be almost completely irrational. Unfollowing an ex on social media is one thing, but years ago I met a woman at a club who was seething because she’d found out her husband was following Katy Perry on Instagram. She was obsessed with it and couldn’t see any reason for it either – he wasn’t an avowed fan, but hated pop music to the core. I didn’t know her well enough to just blurt out, “Have you tried asking him if he has a crush on Katy Perry?!” But for her, that one small online action alone had profound implications that the husband probably could never have understood.
Many of us jump into relationships like skydivers, intoxicated by sex, attraction and attention. It’s easy to never stop and ask the big fundamental questions (Are we a couple? Are we monogamous?), let alone the fine print terms and conditions like, “Is it bad if I scroll through your pictures while I order a pizza on your phone?”
However, if you’re really on good terms, you should be able to quickly and reassuringly agree on why neither of you should read each other’s phones or know each other’s passwords on principle. Not talking about it is the worst approach. It’s like saccharine Hallmark Cards when a couple says, “Our love knows no boundaries.” In truth, true love involves the ability to maintain boundaries that protect each other rather than constrain them. If you’re open and trust your partner, there really shouldn’t be the slightest urge to read their messages. It’s a sign of some of the most casual and respectful relationships I’ve had recently that I’ve been alone in a room with my partner’s phone and not felt even the slightest urge to check what was on it. Unfortunately, wedding bells aren’t ringing yet, but if we were to tie the knot, our vows would surely be, “For better or for worse, in sickness and in health—my password is none of your business.”
