# Are You Concerned Your Spouse May Cheat?



## AlmostYoung (May 24, 2012)

Do you spy, snoop, or monitor them?

Why or why not?


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## Maneo (Dec 4, 2012)

No. There are no indications whatsoever to suspect anything and trust is an essential IMHO for a healthy relationship. We are both in a second marriage.


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## over20 (Nov 15, 2013)

No...Marriage is a very transparent walk....But...my Dh and I have discussed certain situations where there might be temptation and how we can avoid it...Why do you ask?....Do you need boundaries?


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## As'laDain (Nov 27, 2011)

i spy whenever warning signs go up, but its incredibly rare. 
well, i guess i dont really spy. my wife gives me access to her phone, facebook, email, etc. i have a lot of faith in her because she never really shows me that she is trying to hide something. 

once or twice i have had my concerns because of her work schedule, but she has consistently been an open book. so, i really very rarely snoop. i can count on one finger the number of times i felt i needed to in the last few years. 

so, i guess i dont monitor my wife. she knew about my random snooping the one time i did it. i picked up her phone and told her i was going through it. it didnt phase her. after reading some of her conversations, it became clear why it didnt phase her. she had nothing to hide.


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## Kylie84 (May 4, 2012)

Nope! I don't believe it's healthy to spy on a spouse unless you have many indicators already to make you suspect that something shifty is going on. 
I don't ever need to check on DH, we tell each other everything anyway I am lucky that its a non-issue


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## Caribbean Man (Jun 3, 2012)

Spying presupposes that something is hidden and antagonisms might exist between two parties.
In a healthy relationship , if there is full transparency , then how does the issue of " spying " even arise?
In a healthy relationship , both partners see themselves responsible for all of the issues in that relationship , and communicate on every level . Differences will arise , but care and respect for each other needs make it possible not only to resolve these differences , but to protect each other , 
And the marriage.
There is absolutely no need to " spy " on my wife because she has always been consistently open.
There are times I'm tired and just want to relax. I ask her to answer my cellphone and just take a message.
There are times she is otherwise indisposed , maybe shampooing her hair , or in the shower , she asks me to handle her calls , take a message. 
My wife is the techie and I have very little patience with gadgets, she handles any problems on my phone and sometimes download apps and music when I ask her. 
Our transparency goes even deeper than that , because we're a team together and not two rival superpowers.
There are no files labelled " Classified information" between both of us.
No need to spy.


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## I'll make tea (Oct 11, 2013)

AlmostYoung said:


> Do you spy, snoop, or monitor them?
> 
> Why or why not?


I am not concerned my spouse may cheat.

_ Why not?_ 

He is not the kind of guy who would ever do this. I would never spy / snoop / monitor. That would hurt his feelings if he would find out.


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## Coffee Amore (Dec 15, 2011)

No, I don't spy, monitor or snoop. Neither does he. We're both transparent and very open with each other. We can check on each other if we wanted to. We know each other's passwords, but neither one of us looks for the purposes of spying. Either he's all in or he's not. I don't want to be the parent to his teenager...the parole officer to his parolee... if he's cheating (and he's not), I'll know soon enough and it will be the end of our marriage.


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## jld (Dec 1, 2013)

Nope, never felt the need. I am transparent with him. 

I don't know his passwords. I don't know how to access his phone or computer. I am not a techie at all.

There is just tremendous trust. Without that trust, we could not have the kind of relationship we do.


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## ScarletBegonias (Jun 26, 2012)

I've been cheated on so many times and never saw it coming.Totally blindsided.

I put nothing past anyone. If I neglect my husband he has choices. He can cheat,he can talk to me,or he can leave. He seems to be a man of integrity and he seems to be an honest man. But it's literally impossible to know the depths of a person's soul like you know your own. Anything could happen. 

I trust but verify on occasion. My husband knows this about me and accepts it. At the beginning I was constantly checking. Now I can barely be bothered. Trust is a big issue for me.I realize it's my issue and nothing he has done to cause it. I'm glad it's finally improving.


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## unbelievable (Aug 20, 2010)

No point in snooping. I'm not holding any hostages over here. If she's not with me because she wants to be, she needs to be elsewhere and I'll help her pack.


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## hawx20 (Jan 10, 2013)

I never did until I started seeing strange behavior. I dont know if my wife is just this dumb or arrogant, but she never hid her phone from me. I went through it all the time once I started noticing flags.

Funny thing is, she was busted by a text on her phone when I was legitimately using it because I couldnt find mine.


Me on the other hand, I have nothing to hide and have no problems with her looking through any of my stuff if she ever wanted.


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## jld (Dec 1, 2013)

unbelievable said:


> No point in snooping. I'm not holding any hostages over here. If she's not with me because she wants to be, she needs to be elsewhere and I'll help her pack.


:iagree:
That's exactly how I feel, unbelievable. I don't want to be with anybody who doesn't want to be with me. Way too much work, that.

Dh and I are together because we love each other, period. We _want_ to be together. Even if there weren't such a thing as *marriage,* we would just be mates. We just fit together.

Sounds like there are no big control issues in your marriage, either.


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## Cosmos (May 4, 2012)

If I was concerned he might cheat, I'd end the relationship. Insecurity and jealousy are negative, debilitating emotions that erode trust, and if my SO was _doing something_ to trigger those emotions I'm afraid I'd have to cut him out of my life.

In the early stages of our relationship he was doing things that worried me (my reason for joining TAM), but I promptly addressed those issues with him and he made the necessary immediate changes. No problems ever since.


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## Rowan (Apr 3, 2012)

I never snooped. There was no need. We were both casual about our phones and he wasn't guarding his or anything. We had trust. Besides, only irrationally jealous, crazy, high-maintenance women checked up on their husbands. Right? 

That is, until I started to notice a few things that might have been actual red flags, rather than me just being "too sensitive" or "irrational". And then he started to "forget" to bring his phone in from his vehicle at night. The first time I snooped, I found evidence of his long-term affair. Which, as it turned out, had been going on for nearly 3 years. And was only the very tiny tip of a _very_ large iceberg. 

I wish I had snooped earlier. If I had, I might have saved myself a good deal of time and pain. In future relationships, I'm afraid I'll probably fall into the trust-but-verify camp. And I'm okay with that.


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## PBear (Nov 16, 2010)

I'll put my spin on this... Anyone who thinks their spouse will never cheat on them is dillusional. 

How to combat that? Keep treating them like you did when you were initially dating them. Be aware of their needs, wants, desires... Don't become complacent that they'll love you even if you put on 50 pounds and shower once a week. Or go out drinking with your buddies more often than you go out for dinner with her.

In other words... Don't try to keep your spouse with you by using chains. Try to keep them with you by using love. And if they leave you anyway? You didn't have much to lose.

C


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## alexm (Nov 29, 2008)

ScarletBegonias said:


> I've been cheated on so many times and never saw it coming.Totally blindsided.
> 
> I put nothing past anyone. If I neglect my husband he has choices. He can cheat,he can talk to me,or he can leave. He seems to be a man of integrity and he seems to be an honest man. *But it's literally impossible to know the depths of a person's soul like you know your own. Anything could happen.*
> 
> I trust but verify on occasion. My husband knows this about me and accepts it. At the beginning I was constantly checking. Now I can barely be bothered. Trust is a big issue for me.I realize it's my issue and nothing he has done to cause it. I'm glad it's finally improving.


This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say about myself and my life (in my second marriage). The bolded part above is how everybody should view their spouse. And that's not me being jaded. The fact is, you never know, and will never know. We can be more sure about our SO than we've ever been about anyone else, but at the end of the day, it's just that: "more" sure. Nothing is a given.

On that note, I do not spy on my wife, and she does not spy on me. We are open with our emails, Facebook, etc. We share the same computer, and she doesn't even own a cell phone.

Does this mean I have nothing to worry about? Of course not. Nobody should ever let their guard down. At the same time, keeping your eyes and ears open doesn't imply distrust, either.


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## gumtree (Jun 1, 2013)

PBear said:


> I'll put my spin on this... Anyone who thinks their spouse will never cheat on them is dillusional.
> 
> How to combat that? Keep treating them like you did when you were initially dating them. Be aware of their needs, wants, desires... Don't become complacent that they'll love you even if you put on 50 pounds and shower once a week. Or go out drinking with your buddies more often than you go out for dinner with her.
> 
> ...


Love it, PBear. So well said. 

I was the spouse who read 'affair-proof your marriage' and all the book before our wedding, beleiving I would never be a nasty cheater. Then times got tough, he stopped romancing me, I gained 20kgs and we both turned into slobs. And then guess who checked out of the marriage with an affair? Me. Cowardly selfish act, and even he commented on the irony that it was me who would ever cheat.


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## 3Xnocharm (Jun 22, 2012)

I snooped on a bf when my gut would not shut up about the red flags that were being raised. And my gut was right. Then the XH after that bf was cheating as well, and yep, I snooped then too. So in my next serious relationship, there will be a need for trust but verify, I'm afraid, and I like to think that once the verifying finds nothing, I can get back to a place of trust, where I will only start searching if my gut talks to me again.


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## John Lee (Mar 16, 2013)

My wife had a brief EA once. So did I. I think hers never turned physical, but I'll never know for sure as she did have the opportunity. I have to content myself with the fact that she cut off contact from him (I even snooped and saw the e-mails where they agreed they had to stop contacting each other). 

That was many years ago. Since then, I haven't really wondered until I started reading TAM. I briefly got paranoid and started checking her phone and e-mail, but it was nothing but mommy group messages and the like. 

Generally, I trust her as much as I think I could trust anyone. She's a very loyal and moral person. Still, you never fully know.


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