Free Bag Diva

Thou Shalt Not Snoop
by Diva Rebecca

One of the biggest mistakes you can make in a relationship is snooping. We are all guilty of it. We have all been suspicious of our partner's activities and have resorted to digging through the personal effects of our lover's life trying to find proof that the suspicionswe feel are not unfounded. Unfortunately, it is the actual act of snooping, and not that innocent love letter you found which was written 10 years ago and before you two even met, which will cause strain, harm and even end the relationship. In most cases, the snooping itself is the real crime, not any evidence you might find.

Everyone who has been in a real and committed relationship has resorted to snooping in one sense or another. Don't worry about it, I am not condemning you. It is normal and we are all curious about the ones we love. We all have a normal desire to make sure that we can really trust the person who is in charge of our hearts. We worry that if our beloved is not being honest or faithful, our heart will be broken. Is he or she lying about anything or being devious behind our backs? Sometimes the curiosity or belief is so great that we cannot help ourselves and we begin a slow process of invading our loved one's privacy.

The problem with snooping is evident. Most likely you have convinced yourself that your mate has been untrue. Instead of believing him or her when that person tells you nothing is going on, you decide to go through all personal belongings to prove your intuitions are correct. You might go through his or her private papers, his or her desk and private drawers, check through incoming and outgoing phone call lists and even try to break into his or her email and view online activities. When you start to rummage through your lover's personal belongings, a mental switch flips in your head. You become entranced and almost hell bent on finding some artifact which might prove that he or she has been deceptive in the integrity of your relationship. When that happens, the smallest and most innocent finding could be turned into a monumental grievance in your own head. In short, you start making mountains out of molehills. If you start snooping through your lover's personal effects, you will always find something you don't like. And to make it worse, you might then even convince yourself that he or she was hiding this piece of evidence from you purposefully. Does this sound familiar?

If you do find something that is upsetting to you and you feel as if your partner has been untrue in some way, the evidence you found will only harm your relationship. You think that by digging out parts of his or her private life will help your relationship. What you seek is to know every little dark and dirty secret, unveil any sins and bring them to light and then demand that he or she make it up to you. It is almost as if you want some sort of vindication and you believe that outing any past misgivings will cause your lover to break down, beg forgiveness if needed and reaffirm his or love for you. Well, that is the exact opposite of what is going to happen. Instead, your beloved will only be completely irritated with you for snooping. You have no excuse for this. And it will make matters even worse if what you found is really insignificant. Instead of your lover becoming more open with you, which is what you desire, your paramour will only retreat into more privacy and will keep a tighter grip on his or her personal life. Passwords and codes will be changed and doors will be locked. Why on earth should he or she let you in if all your are going to do is try to find something to yell at him or her about?

In a healthy, loving and trusting relationship neither one of you will keep any locked doors. Meaning, neither one of you will keep anything hidden from the other person. This is what will prevent any snooping in the future. If you are in a serious and committed relationship, you should make sure that your lover never has anything to worry about. It is almost as if your lives fuse into one and secrets are not kept. You still need to have a personal life but you can do so without purposefully hiding things or keeping secrets. Make sure the one you love has all of your passwords and pass code, be sure and tell them about anything naughty that you might still have (anything from old love letters to porn on your computer), make sure that your lover is always invited out when you go out with your friends and family and do not keep any secret relations with people that you should not be in touch with. If it is a serious relationship you want, then you need to learn how to live in one and promote a healthy relationship. If you do not, your lover will become increasingly agitated, will begin to argue with you on trivial matters, will undoubtedly become suspicious and will eventually resort to snooping. However, if you unlock all doors to your lover, he or she will never have reason to doubt you. The trust will grow and grow to the point that he or she will never doubt you and will never have the desire to snoop. Voila....you have just created your own personal space which will never be violated by your lover because there is no need.

Finally, if there are too many tell tale signs in your relationship which are causing you to have the urge to snoop, you should have a talk with your lover to discuss them. Sometimes you don't need intuition to know that your lover is being dishonest. For example, when your lover steps out of the room to talk to someone or quickly hangs up when you enter, if he or she refuses to ever let you see his or her email, if he or she never brings you out with his or her friends and things of this nature, of course you have good reason to believe that this person is hiding things from you. If you bring these issues up to your lover and get little to no response or a defensive response, you can pretty much assume that he or she is hiding important things from you. When a person is this secretive in a relationship, he or she is hiding many things from you. You don't need to snoop to figure this out. Either demand that he or she change his ways and let you in completely or just leave because this is not a healthy relationship. But don't resort to snooping if you still want to keep working on you relationship. It will only make you upset and cause the relationship to crumble. If you decide you want to leave but don't have a good enough reason, go ahead and snoop. Most likely you will find some incriminating evidence which you can use as an excuse for saying goodbye.