Don't do it!! | Source: ShutterStock

Put yourself in this scenario: your boyfriend leaves you alone in his room while he takes a shower. You’re sitting there doing nothing until you notice it: his cell phone. It’s just sitting there, innocently (but kind of staring at you at the same time), right next to you. And he’s in the shower, so there’s no chance he’ll walk in. And you were wondering who he was texting before. Oh, and look at that… there’s no password lock. So, what do you do?

Rewind back a few years, and I was in that exact situation… and I made a choice that I totally and completely regret now. I grabbed his phone as fast as I could to start reading every text message and to look at every incoming/outgoing call before he walked back in the door. I’m really not proud to admit it, but it’s true: I used to be a total snooper. When I was dating my first boyfriend, I was really self-conscious and jealous, and convinced that he was cheating on me, no matter what he did to prove his devotion. I thought looking at his things would help me trust him more, and instead, it only made things worse.

While my snooping started off innocently enough, it escalated pretty quickly. The very first time I looked at my BF’s phone, I didn’t find anything suspicious, which made me feel a lot better – until I started feeling horribly guilty. I swore to myself that I would never do it again, but a few weeks later, I did. Once I realized that I could probably look through his phone whenever I wanted without him realizing it, I felt powerful in a very weird way. From then on, I started snooping on a regular basis.

This is what it usually leads to... | Source: ShutterStock

I became obsessed with going through my boyfriend’s private things, and for the first few years, I never admitted it to him. The whole time, I was so worried about him being dishonest with me and meanwhile, I was the one being dishonest with him.

Everything was (relatively) fine… until I got caught. What I didn’t realize during all of my snooping was that once I found something weird in his phone, I would have to admit what I had done in order to talk to him about it. One day, I found texts from his ex-girlfriend. They were really innocent, but it didn’t matter: I had finally found something. In that moment, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was furious and immediately confronted him.

I’ll never forget that conversation. When I asked why he was still talking to his ex, my boyfriend stared at me, confused. “How do you know that?” he asked. I started blushing like crazy and tried to make something up, but the damage was done. He looked at me in shock and said, “Jess, did you go through my phone?” He was mad, but what really got me was that he was super hurt and disappointed. He explained that he thought he could trust me enough to leave me alone in a room with his phone – and he thought that I trusted him enough not to go behind his back and check up on him.

If you think something's going on, talk about it instead. | Source: ShutterStock

Despite our huge fight that day, I kept going through his phone, and we kept fighting about it. When he put a password on his cell, I thought it was shady and we fought about it. When he eventually gave in and let me look through his phone, I demanded to know the reason behind every text. And when he started looking through my phone, it only led to more fights. Towards the end of our relationship, neither of us trusted each other at all – and it was a huge reason why we broke up.

Here’s the thing about snooping: it is way too easy to misunderstand what’s going on. I can’t tell you the amount of fights me and my BF got in over a text that meant the complete opposite of what I thought. Also? No matter what your boyfriend might have done wrong, he still has the right to get mad at you for going through his phone. Looking at your boyfriend’s private things is just a fight waiting to happen.

When I broke up with that boyfriend, I promised myself I would never look through a future BF’s phone again. Now, when I feel like something shady is happening, I talk to my guy about it. I don’t go behind his back and look at his phone. There are much better ways to learn to trust someone, and snooping is definitely not one of them. I just wish I realized that a few years ago.

Do you snoop through your boyfriend’s phone? Have you ever? Would you? Do you think it’s okay? Tell us in the comments.

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