access vs no access; snooping vs honesty

[once removed]

as far as passwords and access to online profiles or cell phone go:

where do you stand? ive read several stories on this subject on this board, ive had my experiences with exBPD, and my personal opinion hasnt really changed.

as far as im concerned, i value my privacy. i dont want anyone, partner or friend, going through my accounts, profiles, or cell phone. the line for me is, passwords arent necessarily necessary; im willing to have open access, ie, a person can sit down at my computer and access most of my history but, if they do, thats a big problem, and id change the extent of access promptly.

it was a huge problem with exBPD. setting a password when prompted by my computer was a problem. accessing accounts she had access to, early on, was something she did. i immediately had a problem, but my own fault for giving her my passwords very early in the relationship. throughout my relationship and after, ex took any opportunity given or not, to access my accounts, and it nearly always led to a blowout. thats not to put the entire blame on her; i snooped too, and i regret it. my thoughts are that if you snoop, you will find something that upsets you, whether it "should" or not. snooping breeds more snooping, whether you find something the first time, or not. in future relationships i dont want to snoop, and i dont want my partner to snoop. theres a difference between "i have nothing to hide so here you go" and "i have nothing to hide, so dont invade my privacy; if you do, its a serious problem".

what are you thoughts and experiences?

[Turkish]

I found undeniable evidence of her cheating looking on her unlocked phone.

Maybe couples in healthy relationships share all of these things, but a healthy r/s also has boundaries.  IMO, the "I'm you, you're me, and we should have complete transparency including full access to each others' lives and accounts," speaks to me of unhealthy enmeshment.

The implicit thing said is, "go ahead and snoop; I've nothing to hide," which to me telegraphs insecurity. In a healthy r/s, one should not have to "prove" love, including the removal of a normal boundary like passwords.

[once removed]

hey turkish, i couldnt agree more.

"I found undeniable evidence of her cheating looking on her unlocked phone."

its tricky for me. i have friends that do this. i tend to tell them it shouldnt even be to that point. you shouldnt have to snoop. communication by that point has already failed, whether suspicions are legit or not.

i hate, hate snooping, but im kind of a nosy person to a fault. in my relationship it became checking her stuff to see if she was checking mine. theres so much wrong with that if my privacy, and that of others, was a value to begin with. but i try really hard not to judge it either. particularly in these relationships we all found ourselves doing all kinds of things we probably wouldnt normally. if someone has that gut feeling, wants to prove it to themselves, and does, its harder to judge. not so good if that feeling is pathological whether theres evidence or not.

"but a healthy r/s also has boundaries.  IMO, the "I'm you, you're me, and we should have complete transparency including full access to each others' lives and accounts," speaks to me of unhealthy enmeshment."

precisely. the only exceptions are emergency stuff. bank accounts, and the like. other wise i cant come up with an exception im comfortable with. on the contrary, i suppose being too much of a private person who frequently hides things can be a red flag. not necessarily an excuse to snoop.

"The implicit thing said is, "go ahead and snoop; I've nothing to hide," which to me telegraphs insecurity. In a healthy r/s, one should not have to "prove" love, including the removal of a normal boundary like passwords."

to sit here and make excuses, i did so only in the beginning of my relationship. i was twenty one. as far back as high school, it was a common thing to exchange passwords, share accounts, etc. my BPDex confronted me on something she found, and i replied that she shouldnt have been looking in the first place, she mirrored that ideal back to me, and then it proceeded to play out through my entire relationship even while i desperately attempted to maintain my privacy. there should have been no desperate attempt about it.

as an admitted nosy person, im working on it. in fact i believe if caught snooping, i deserve to be dumped. ive mostly always believed like i said, if you go looking for "something" you will find something that upsets you, justified or not. i also, by this point, trust my gut more than enough to know if a suspicion of cheating is reasonable. so if i respect my own privacy so much, i should in turn respect any future partners privacy, for those reasons and too many more to list.

[once removed]

its also, in addition to boundaries, respecting our own and respecting others, a matter of trust. if you declare you trust someone, but from time to time for whatever reason, monitor their activity, i personally cant really see "trust". like you said, it should not have to be proven... .it cant always, necessarily, be proven.

in other words, "i trust you because you let me go through your stuff" is not my idea of trust, far from it.

[Turkish]

if you go looking for "something" you will find something that upsets you, justified or not.

Exactly.

I told her, in the possible week long recycle where I thought she might knock it off, "if I feel the need to tell you, 'I'm not going to cheat on you,' then I might. I shouldn't have to state that which should be implicit, nor should you feel like you have to ask me that question."

Of course, I answered that question for six years, and in the end, it was her 

It's anther form of "proving our love," which s really validating their fear. That is to say, validating the invalid, thereby feeding it.

[once removed]

oh man, lets not forget projection in this matter.

the person that needs to snoop is deeply insecure and often times guilty themselves.

same here turkish. sorry that happened to you 

it seems like the kind of person who is hypervigilant about your activity is the kind of person who wont leave you. even before my BPD relationship i was learning from others relationships that thats often not the case. the whole thing just validates my value 

[enlighten me]

If your happy and content then snooping shouldnt be an issue as it shouldnt happen. I think people only snoop if things dont feel right. I never did but wish I had when my relationships went wrong. At least then I would have found out about their cheating.

[once removed]

"If your happy and content then snooping shouldnt be an issue as it shouldnt happen."

i agree enlighten me. only thing is i know people who arent BPD, and im sure they exist on this forum, who disagree, who havent even really thought about it, and think like turkish said, "IMO, the "I'm you, you're me, and we should have complete transparency including full access to each others' lives and accounts,"

its a decent chunk of the message out there of what love is. in my own opinion, its nearly or certainly dooming a relationship. its a willingness to give up your autonomy, your privacy, your boundaries, etc. its a willingness that will come up repeatedly.

[enlighten me]

I disagree. Having nothing to hide and being open about it isnt neccessarily giving up your boundaries. It says I trust you not to abuse this information. If they then decide to snoop then they are obviously not secure in the relationship.

I see it as more of a test of their boundaries than giving up our own. As I said before I never snooped. I could probably hack my exs accounts but I wont. I used to know their passwotds but I never looked. To me it was a personal boundary that I never crossed.

[once removed]

i think i partly agree with that. i dont believe in putting a padlock on everything. my pc for example, i wouldnt want to go to the trouble of having a password on. people can use it. they abuse that and go through my stuff, things change.

what i dont believe in, and im not sure if we agree or disagree, is having this conversation where both parties are like "here are all my passwords. but dont use them."

[going places]

what are you thoughts and experiences?

I did not snoop... .not for 25 years.

His wallet was HIS my purse was MINE.

If he needed something out of my purse, he brought it to me.

If I needed something out of his wallet, I brought it to him.

To me, that was respect.

I never went thru his phone, nor did he go thru mine.

On Aug 14, 2011 the Lord tapped me on the shoulder and said: You need to look... .

So I checked the bill on line to see who he was talking too. That's when I caught him having an affair.

It had been going on for 8 months, and I had NO idea.

I found out A LOT of things (on the phone, computer, etc) that had been going on for 25 years... .that I had, NO IDEA.

That is because I fully trusted him.

I like personal space.

I like to extend and receive personal space.

I do NOT want to be in a relationship where I feel like I need to look into someone's email accounts or cell phone. I do NOT want to be with someone who feels they need access to my email and phone.

I would rather be alone than to be in that kind of relationship.

[once removed]

thanks for this, going places.

as ive stated, i think many of us did similar things and its not useful to beat ourselves up.

and on that note, in fairness, i dont really think checking the bill (that you presumably had normal access to) is snooping, either. im quite confident that i personally, upon finding that, would have checked the other stuff. like you, i want to get to that place where i align my values and boundaries with what i want. no snooping, no reason to snoop; should a similar problem arise, acting on my gut rather than snooping.

i like to extend and receive personal space too, but ive got that nosy quality i mentioned before. its not limited to romantic partners either. its something about me id like to completely eliminate and in my case i think all that really requires is practice.

in a lot of ways i dont think its much different than my incessant facebook peeking post relationship. even though i know that viewing someone elses behavior on these mediums is actually likely a shallow view, its fed some level of understanding the other person for me. even though i know that when we do this, we are generally looking for things that will hurt us, ive felt the need to find it.

bottom line, its against my boundaries and values, with regard to me personally, and how i view and treat others, and i want to live by that. i want to show it by my actions.