Spying on Your Spouse

It's not spying when everything is open and available. There is nothing I am hiding and nothing he is hiding.

I-spy is a game I play with my 8 year old - "I spy something and the color is blue".

My husband doesn't really like to play that game.

I LOVE this post because I find it irritating that I have no privacy. Not that I have anything to hide but my spouse “hacked” my account and questioned my responses to people. I had to change my user name & log on information in order to avoid opening a new account. I do not feel that I have to share EVERY aspect of my life. Sometimes I need a place to vent, to work out my frustrations/ get other peoples perspective, look at how others are handling things similar to what I am going through. It’s pseudo therapy or rather therapeutic for me as a whole to have an outlet. Its healthy to have outside interest & places you can go as long as you know the boundaries

If I am so suspicious of my husband that I ask him for his passwords....or "require" him to share them with me....we have MUCH larger issues in our marriage than the fact that he hasn't.
Know what I mean?

I don't know DH's passwords. He doesn't know mine. And both of us would think it's weird to ask the other to share.

I whole heartedly disagree with the poster that said "there is a certain level of privacy you give up when you get married". Um...no. There's not. Sorry.

So, no. We don't spy.
And if I had a reason to suspect him of something, we'd be having other conversations around that, looooong before I tried to go digging though his stuff for proof.

If you feel the need to spy, why are you married?

No.

We do have all passwords. That is more for practical reasons. If one of us were to pass, we would want to take care of all accounts. With that said, we have never used the info. Never felt a need to.

-I don't actually remember his passwords. They are printed out and in a filing cabinet in the safe!

Absolutely not!
I trust my husband and he trusts me. We have nothing to hide from each other outside of the benign things like presents or plans for something special we want to make a surprise.
We password protect all of our electronic devices but not to keep them from each other and instead to keep strangers out of them were they to be lost or stolen. We know all of each others passwords. When he needs something from my purse he brings it to me but only because it's a bottomless pit and he can't find anything in it himself.

i wouldn't tolerate it.
i hide NOTHING from my spouse. all of my passwords are written down on a sheet of paper in my desk, and he has access to anything i do on this computer or my phone. i can envision a number of scenarios where he'd need access.
but i'd go medieval if he was snooping or demanding explanations for what i do. nor would i consider sharing my life with a man whom i couldn't trust.
khairete
S.

There is a certain level of privacy that you can no longer expect once you get married. Yes, you should share all passwords and other such information, for security reasons for instance, if one of you dies. As well, I don't see any harm in a little snooping based on realistic suspicions. I don't see how a little snooping to prove there is nothing going on can hurt. Trust is earned, if your spouse is not acting trustworthy, there's also nothing wrong with trying to find out why.
A boyfriend/girlfriend relationship is different. It's just not cool to snoop or spy in a relationship like that. If you suspect something, and you can find some evidence of wrongdoing outside of invading their privacy, either work it out or break up. But you do have a reasonable expectation of privacy in that kind of relationship.

eta
After thinking about this a little, there is one discussion board he is not allowed to look at, one I've belonged to for many years and there is a lot of personal stuff on there that's not mine that he doesn't have a reason to see.
[And then I wrote a bunch of personal stuff and realized I had already answered the question and didn't need to be so defensive, so I deleted it :) ]

um No.

We do play "I Spy" together....we have several books of "I Spy" and we see what we can accomplish TOGETHER....

If my husband were to ramble through my stuff? He wouldn't find anything interesting....my stack on my desk? Candidate resumes with notes...nothing fun.

What exactly is going on here? Is he reading texts on cell phone? Opening e-mails? What?

If I ask my husband to get something for me out of my purse, he brings the whole purse to me because he specifically doesn't like to go through my personal things. The joke is that there's nothing in there that's even remotely personal. He's just not a jealous type of person and neither am I. Some people are just more suspicious that others maybe?

Not at all...

I spy is a children's game.

Adults just ask a pointed question and are upfront and frank if there is anything suspicious.

Are you behaving in a way that would make your husband feel insecure about your relationship? Or is he just neurotic and controlling?

Get it out in the open..this is no way to have a mature and loving relationship. One is always suspecting the other to be up to no good..and the other ends up hiding meaningless stuff because they know the other is looking for "ANY" evidence. A vicious cycle that will surely drive a wedge between each other.

No. That sounds at best childish and at worst psychotic.

ramble through her things, yep. is it a secret, nope. she goes through my stuff. it actually cracks both of us up when we're doing it. when she grabs my phone she always says "let me see what's going on here" I act like I'm trying to get the phone back saying "stay outta my stuff woman". That's the joke for us.

No. Although he could...he set up my PW for email, voicemail etc... But why would he?

Not to long ago I ask my husband to get something out of my underwear drawer. He didn't know which drawer it was and we have been married for almost 18 years😉

My wife can "spy" on me all she wants. If she wants my passwords she can have them. I don't care.

If she wants to wonder where I go at night, she is welcome to go with me.

If you want to stop the "spying", give him all your information and offer to help him look.

You can always tell him to search you. It might be interesting to see if he can "find" anything he "likes". ;~)) If my wife told me that, I know right where I'd look. 8~)).

Good luck to you and yours. (Have fun ! ! ! )

I am in agreement with MandA M.

No spying around here, even as a game. If for some reason he were to feel the need to spy on me and choose to spy vs communicate with me, then we have some major issues. I would not consider spying on him either... I am not his mother and he is not my dad. We are partners.

We do not have each other's passwords, share email, or anything like that. We have mutual respect for each other and maintain communication.

We do feel it is perfectly ok to have privacy. Just because we got married almost 25 yrs ago does not mean we lose our sense of self.

I could if I wanted but I really don't care to. He won't even look in my purse to get my cell phone out of the side pocket. I get so frustrated. I always say I don't have anything in there that bites!

Nope. My husband doesn't spy on me. I'm not hiding anything so there isn't much spying he could do even if he wanted to.

No. I would find that incredibly offensive, unless of course his suspicions were valid. I PW protect my computer, phone and everything else but that's because I don't want some stranger going through my phone at will if I lost it and my computer is used for work and must be well secured at all times. If we shared a computer I wouldn't care if he saw my browser history or FB page or e-mail because I have nothing to hide but I would be annoyed if he were going through things in secret trying to find something. I would hope that if he suspected me of something he'd have the balls to just come right out and ask.

My husband and I are transparent with each other. We trust each other. We have no reason to "spy."

How about having conversations with each other and actually communicating? Talk with each other about what concerns you.

"It concerns me when _____ happens because ______ and I feel _____."

"I heard you, and I'm sorry about that. When I'm _____, what I'm doing is ______ and you don't have to worry because _____ but from now on I'll keep in mind that it makes you feel ____."

Or, you know, get marriage counseling.

Why would he? I have no secrets. Can't "spy" if there's nothing to pry.

My ex and I had all of each other's passwords and PIN's and never used any of them unless asked to do so.
Neither of us had anything to hide from the other, but we respected each other's privacy and personal space.

Or HE could be very insecure, .... with some people you don't have to do anything or say anything to make the other feel insecure, It's just the way some people are, very insecure about themselves, (low self esteem often times) and they project it onto other people. If you don't have trust in each other how can you have anything else ? C. S.

Guess he doesn't trust you.