In the older days, snooping on your spouse due to the trust issues between you meant checking your spouse’s pockets, going through a wallet or purse, or looking through letters or other documents or even reading your spouse’s diary or journal.
Today’s digital world offers endless opportunities like reading email messages, viewing text messages and call histories, logging into your spouse’s social media accounts, or listening to your spouse’s voicemail messages. If things get downright nasty, some spouses have indulged in more extreme forms of snooping like hiring a private investigator to follow their spouse and report back on their activities, using GPS tracking devices attached to their spouse’s vehicle to monitor their whereabouts all the time or other such serious invasion of their privacy.
Snooping on your spouse is actually bad for your health and wellbeing. Chronic worrying on account of your suspicion, which has led you to snoop, can actually change the way your brain functions. It may get into a pattern of producing high levels of cortisol and adrenaline that’s associated with increased anxiety, thereby raising the risk of developing an anxiety disorder. High levels of cortisol can affect your memory too. The stress will leave less blood and oxygen for the part of the brain responsible for problem-solving. Constant stress can also speed up your heart rate which will raise your blood pressure. On one hand you might feel guilty for spying on your loved one and afraid of damaging the relationship in case you’re caught snooping. On the other hand, there is also the anticipation of probably finding something incriminating against your partner. All of this will end up taking a toll on your mind and body and marriage.
Spying can consume your life. You will spend your time and energy focussing on how to check on your spouse’s activities. This energy can be better spent improving your relationship. So if you or your spouse find yourself in this position, it’s time to address the real cause of this behaviour.
Examine your reasons for not trusting. When you don’t trust your spouse, it’s necessary to look at the reasons for it. Have you been hurt in past relationships and are afraid of being hurt again? Do you think that spying will be helpful? Will your spouse then be prevented from cheating or deceiving you? It’s important to remember that your snooping is not going to help the relationship.
Is your distrust getting addictive? There are all the chances that your distrust will get addictive. You will need to constantly satisfy your curiosity, snooping just to make sure that your spouse is still faithful. Your spouse has a right to privacy. Constantly spying on them violates this right. You will damage the relationship and likely lose a lot of trust when your spouse finds out.
Repaire your marriage. If you don’t trust your spouse, it’s important that you seek help. A healthy marriage is built on trust, respect, and loyalty. If your marriage lacks them, it’s likely there are some serious issues that need to be addressed. Building trust takes time.
Seek professional help. If for some reason you don’t trust your spouse, consider professional help. Spying on your spouse will not manage your jealousy, anxiety or negativity. If you are snooping, it may signal that your marriage has some significant problems. As for the victim of snooping, they too have a responsibility. Don’t blame the snooper. Instead, eliminate the conditions that made the snooping seem reasonable to your spouse. If both of you have lost trust, it is important to seek professional help right away.
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