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I keep seeing people beat themselves up because they caught an A by looking at the others phone. The WP often holds this against them. Is there some class in HS that teaches people that one’s phone is untouchable by anyone else? I mean it’s not a diary. These are communications with others. What am I missing here?

I think it has to do with cultural conditioning with regards to privacy. In the USA, we have a lot of folks who very much value their privacy and autonomy, so I think that personal belief gets extended to their partners. Our son is a teenager and has been seeing a therapist for some time, we have parent check-ins, but in order to make therapy effective, she keeps things he tells her private unless there is a direct threat or harm or violence. Like I said, it's cultural conditioning, and whenever you do something that bucks the prevailing wisdom in our culture, it can cause feelings of shame, as if you are doing something wrong.

That being said, I'm 100% with you. If one suspects that their partner is having an affair, looking through their partner's devices and electronic records is not an issue and while wayward may huff, puff and threaten to blow the house down (sorry, I needed a Three Little Pigs reference today ), the real issue is their fucking infidelity. I mean, think about it, if you go to the doctor's office for a check up and after he looks over your test results he tells you that you have high blood pressure, your immediate reaction is not to say "fuck you for checking my blood pressure", because him putting that BP cuff on you has nothing to do with the fact that you had high BP, at least in the strictest classical sense, because quantum mechanics says that the simple act of observing something like blood pressure changes it, but you get what I mean. With infidelity, the cheating was going on whether or not the betrayed partner discovered it or not.

Back to my doctor's analogy, and I realize my blood pressure one was not the best, but if you go in and tell your doctor about a series of symptoms you are experiencing, the frequency, intensity, etc. they will oftentimes start looking at common causes for particular ailments and how they can rule-in and rule-out causes. In the world of relationships and infidelity, oftentimes there are multiple outward signs that the betrayed has picked up on that leads them to look for a cause. In this case, the potential betrayed partner checks their partner's phone hoping that there is nothing there, but suspecting they will find something. Finding something that was there is not some sort of betrayal of trust, the fucking cheating was the betrayal of trust.

Yea it's kinda funny by the time many people start looking at the phone it's so obvious that it's almost insulting that the cheater thinks it's still a secret.

Even then the folks on this website have to scream at some BH / BW to check the phone.

They stand to lose thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars because of the affair, yet they would call the police immediately if someone stole 500 dollars from them.

I think it's hilarious when the WS uses this excuse to deflect the blame that somehow being caught because they were hiding something is somewhat of a betrayal. My phone is an open book. Anyone could look at it and I would be fine. Even my current boyfriend knows my password and I told him he can look anytime he wants. Those who have nothing to hide hide nothing.

Amen to all the above

Funny how they want privacy when it comes to their phones yet allow the AP to be privy to your marriage, life, and family situations. One of the biggest issues I still have is that someone screwing my WH had an inside look into my life without my knowledge for years. Being with my husband, liking photos of my kids on FB, knowing important dates like birthdays and my anniversary. Privacy be damned then right?

As CrazyBlindsided already quoted, those who have nothing to hide, hide nothing. It really is that simple.

For me, the phones were purchased with marital funds and I considered them a marital asset and owned by both.

They stand to lose thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars because of the affair, yet they would call the police immediately if someone stole 500 dollars from them.

This is a really good point. Marriage is not only a personal relationship, it's a business deal. As one of the two principals in the company, I should be able to ensure that my partner isn't up to something nefarious.

Don't want anyone looking at your phone? Don't get married.

I don't think it's an issue for most couples until one of them is using that technology to further an affair.
I think most potentially betrayed spouses are probably very reluctant to 'snoop' because it feels like they're being sneaky and sleazy by doing it - which they likely see as similar behavior to the cheating they suspect is going on.
Wayward spouses universally consider it an invasion of privacy, because to them, it really is. It often exposes their worst behavior.
I'm an open book, so is my phone. I never felt compelled to look at hers, because I always figured the absence of 'evidence' would just make me feel that I didn't FIND the evidence.
In the end, if we're functionally communicating, whatever needs to come out would come out - and I'd rather approach it from a participative angle as opposed to living in suspicion..

"Funny how they want privacy when it comes to their phones yet allow the AP to be privy to your marriage, life, and family situations. One of the biggest issues I still have is that someone screwing my WH had an inside look into my life without my knowledge for years."

Sorry you experienced this. It still makes me nauseous that this happened to me.

If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, then you can be pretty sure it’s a duck. In case you want to make absolutely positively sure you can raise it up and see if it has laid an egg. In other words, you have the right, as a Spouse in pain, to find out what’s causing that pain. If going through phones get you that information then go for it and if you get accused of anything, tell them to shut up. Nothing more powerful than these words you say to another….NO and SHUT UP.
You have rights. One is to protect yourself by any means and the other is to speak your mind.
Go for it.

The boundary of 'don't look at my phone' is one many WS plant their flag on. The boundary of the relationship outside the marriage can barely be seen from there.

I am trapped in this battle with my son. He doesn’t want me to go in his room but yet refuses to clean it. I go in and find food wrappers and empty water bottles, etc. we have a no food in your room policy.

If I go in to open a window he gets upset. If I then see the food wrapper and I say something he gets mad.

Well if he did what was asked I wouldn’t have to say something about food in his room. Vicious cycle.

Same is true for cheaters. If they aren’t cheating there is no reason to go through their phone. And when you find out they are cheating they get mad as a way to deflect attention away from their own behavior.

I didn’t have to go through my H’s phone. I could see from the cell phone bill how many times a day he texted or spoke w/ the OW. When he realized I could see that he used a "hidden" email account. When he knew I could see that he resorted to Skype.

😡😡😡

[This message edited by The1stWife at 7:46 AM, Wednesday, November 8th]

My phone is an open book. Anyone could look at it and I would be fine.

Same here, with regards to my spouse looking. I never delete messages, never, and my records go all the way back to the iPhone X. My spouse has my password.

My FWS had the affair shortly after getting her first cell phone...before smartphones were a thing. She really wanted that phone, in case the car broke down when she had the kids, but it ended up being much more useful.

There’s an old saying…" people who have nothing to hide, hide nothing." A spouse that doesn’t understand that can never be safe.

[This message edited by 1survivor at 11:49 AM, Thursday, November 9th]

I once read somewhere, probably here, that privacy constitutes closing the door when you take a shit. Having access and transparency is not the same thing. It never occurred to me NOT to look through my, now, ex husband's phone. To play devil's advocate, I didn't go looking through his phone to see if he was cheating because I naively thought that wasn't even a possibility. However, I did go through his phone from time to time to put appointments on his schedule so he wouldn't forget, to access his photos of the boys so I could have them too, especially after being gone for a few months (was active duty), etc. He also had full access to my phone as well. When he started getting defensive of his phone, I thought it was odd, but it didn't really phase me too much. Had I realized he was capable of an A, hell yes I would have gone through his phone. Not only that, after DD I regularly demanded he hand it over. No sneaking around for me, I had nothing to be ashamed of. He was warned that the first time he tried to keep his phone from me he could pack his shit.
I've honestly never understood how people can feel bad or guilty for wanting transparency. Duh.
I will have zero problem accessing anyone else's phone that I'm in a committed relationship with either. I damned sure won't be so naive. If something is off, I will tell whomever I'm in a relationship with to hand over their phone and why. They have two choices. They can hand over their phone (and they can have mine anytime too), or they can pack their shit and leave. Here's how I look at it. If I live someone and we're in a committed relationship and he thought I was cheating, I would bend over backwards to prove I'm not. Handing over my phone would be too easy (within reason of course).
It makes zero sense NOT to have open access to each other'scommunication. What the hell do you have to hide?? KWIM. I won't hide away in secret either as if I'm doing something wrong. F that BS.

Is there some class in HS that teaches people that one’s phone is untouchable by anyone else?

In my personal experience, yes. Yes there is a class in high school in our US state that teaches this. My WH's affair was over 7 years ago. At the time, one of our children was a freshman in HS. They knew about the affair tangentially, and we had to tell the children in case they found in all out otherwise. It's messy.

At one point, our child told me that I was wrong by going through his father's phone. Our child said school taught them that if I was doing that, we had an unhealthy relationship that lacked trust.

We were on a short family vacation to camp and shop for land in the mountains months after the affair was revealed. It seems odd now to be shopping for land, but it was a promise to our children we agreed to keep regardless of the eventual marital status. We were in the car, and I heard a notification on my WH's phone. I picked it up and looked. Then I continued to go through his phone. The text was a triggering event. I don't remember what it was or why it was triggering. One of the first signs that I ignored from his affair was a text that popped up on our new smart TV from his AP. It was just a "Hi. What's up?" type thing, and I questioned it but ignored the implications.

The situation had to be discussed immediately with our child. My WH led the conversation. The analogy we could draw for our child was that if they betrayed our trust by doing drugs or skipping school or carelessly wrecking the car, they would lose our trust and be monitored more closely. It is not a healthy relationship. That is true. It's a lack of trust.

I don't know if our child ever fully agreed with what we were saying. We have friends who insist on tracking their teenagers' locations or their home and phone internet use. We never did that, but I trusted our children until proven otherwise. I still hold by being able to look through what my WH was doing as reasonable in the situation, and he does too. If I'm 100% honest, I might be creeped by someone looking through my internet history. I keep it though. You never know when you want to buy that bathroom sconce or try that new recipe. But I probably search some weird terms or diseases when I read about them.

Malibubaybreeze:

Funny how they want privacy when it comes to their phones yet allow the AP to be privy to your marriage, life, and family situations.

This. The WS is sharing their body and then during pillow talk is sharing your intimate marital-and many times, personal details with the AP who is a relative stranger and a serious security risk. A serious security risk because of the dubious character traits inherent with being a home wrecker…and YOU’RE the privacy invader.

Some people believe that you lose all individuality in a marriage, so to them the idea of not being able to look at your partner's phone would be anathema.

I'll be one of the outliers who does in fact believe it's a violation of privacy to check a spouse's phone. We are all entitled to our own privacy even if there is absolutely nothing to be private about. Additionally, I'm sure every single person who messages your spouse hasn't consented to sharing their messages with you, so it could be a violation of their privacy as well unless you set the expectation with literally every person that your spouse may be reading the messages.

I'm a strong believer in healthy boundaries and individuality in a relationship because I don't think that the idea of "two becoming one" really is all that healthy despite the romantic aspects of it. I think people are much more likely to lose themselves and become codependent.

If you're already at the point of feeling like you need to check your spouse's phone, I think something is very wrong though and needs fixing. I don't think it's generally a healthy way to deal with problems. That being said? I don't think the cheater has a leg to stand on in terms of moral superiority because they were actually cheating!!! Two wrongs don't make a right, but some wrongs are much worse than others.

Would I check my partners' phones? No. But if I genuinely felt I wouldn't get an honest answer and that they were systematically deceiving me over time already? I think our relationship would already be over. I prize honesty as if not the most, one of the most important values in my relationships, and if I'm doubting it? Then things aren't working for me and I'm either walking, or there's going to be some intensive work done.

Basically I pretty much agree with PSTI. There are times looking at my WH's phone seemed necessary, and it did it. That being said I think in a healthy marriage you are allowed to not have to share every single thought and feeling you have with your spouse. The point about consent is well taken too...

I keep seeing people beat themselves up because they caught an A by looking at the others phone. The WP often holds this against them. Is there some class in HS that teaches people that one’s phone is untouchable by anyone else? I mean it’s not a diary. These are communications with others. What am I missing here?

For me, as a BS, I think there are things - conversations, thoughts, feelings, that I do not need to share with my WH. So I am going to disagree with this:

Those who have nothing to hide hide nothing.

I hated looking through his phone because it felt like a breach of his privacy - and yeah, just because we were in a committed relationship did not mean he was not entitled to his own personal thoughts and conversations - jokes and whatnot. The A was 100% wrong and he was not entitled to that kind of "privacy", but talking about random shit with his best friend of 40+ years - yeah, he's allowed to not have me pouring over every word they say to each other even if it is 2 hours worth of garbage about some video game they played when they were 12. I have no interest in living in some glass box where my WH MUST be allowed access to every thought and every conversation I have. No thank you.

Not that my mind is such a secret - but because I think it's healthy to have some separation from the things I talk about with friends and what I decide to share with my WH and it is okay for some of it to be off limits to him. For example, a few weeks back a good friend of mine was sharing some very odd messages she had received from a guy she has been seeing. Odd as in sexually odd - kind of kinky stuff she felt a little weird about. Nothing super creepy, but definitely personal and not something I think she would want me to share with others without her permission. You know - nothing nefarious - just PERSONAL. I think it is 100% okay to say that is off limits to my WH (or anyone else for that matter). He does not get carte blanche access to my phone to just rummage though it and read what I write to my friends or they to me.

I would guess that is where the ickiness comes from. In looking through my WH's phone back in the discovery days I read a lot of stuff totally un-affair related. And I know at that time it was necessary - as nothing seemed impossible - like he could be talking about it to everyone (spoiler - he was talking about it with precisely no one but her). But in a regular relationship - a healthy one - IMO being married does not mean you don't get to have private thoughts and conversations. I think that's a profoundly unhealthy way to live.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 4:36 PM, Wednesday, November 15th]