When Snooping Gets Out Of Control
Invasion of privacy can often demand a heavy price.
I look over at his picture on my bedside table and, miraculously, remember that I was going to drop it. He loves me. "He loves you," I can hear friends and family chanting, pleading for me to believe.
"Where do you want to go?" I ask gently.
"Somewhere cheap," he says definitely—not out of anger, but out of pure honesty. I eventually decide on a place that's neither cheap nor delicious but potentially romantic, due to its choice of lighting and music. He suggests meeting there, but after another silence, offers to meet me at my place.
I decide to wear the dress I haven't worn since I bought it two years ago. It's perfect for my newly svelte figure. I agonize over the earrings, the necklace, which way to part my hair. I layer on enough makeup to restore the glow I've lost.
He arrives half an hour late, with white flowers that must be in the dandelion family: a last-minute, four-dollar bundle of weeds. He's wearing sneakers and an ugly green shirt, reminiscent of a putt-putt course. He moans when he sees me.
"You look great," he says. I put the weeds in water and grab my bag. We walk to the restaurant, and he tells me about his lunch with his father. He's glad he had lunch with his father; he wants to do that more often, before it's too late. I ask him what they talked about.
"I told him what was going on with you." He has his arm around me, but suddenly it doesn't feel right. My heart stops. "He said it looks like this isn't going away."
"What isn’t going away?" I shift out from under his arm.
"Well," he begins, "I also told him about the other incident." He's referring to the incident, not so long ago, that involved my sneaking through his cell phone to find another secret he'd been hiding.
"Great!" I say, brightly. I wish he would put his arm back around my shoulders. I wish that, throughout all this I-told-X-about-you-and-what-you-did, the bundle of weeds, the cheap-dinner comments, he'd keep his arm around me and hold me tightly. I wish that he would peer into my heart and see how much his opinion matters to me, how much more I want to be the person he wants me to be than he does. Maybe then he’d share himself with me. Then, maybe then, I wouldn't have to play detective all the time.
Or he could just stop walking and talking, pin me up against the side of a building or tuck me into a doorway, hold me by both of my cheeks and pull me forward so my face would dampen from his breath. He could pant and shake and shiver, and I could watch fearfully as a vein would fill with blood in the middle of his forehead. He wouldn't have to say much, just that he's crazy about me and that he's sorry. Then he could kiss me, and it wouldn't matter where we ate dinner, because my appetite would suddenly return and I'd be able to eat anything.
But at the neither cheap nor delicious Italian restaurant, I don't eat a thing. I sit across from him, watching him eat everything. I drink several glasses of wine. I talk about trust and feelings, and he pushes pieces of focaccia in front of me. I go to the bathroom. I play around with my hair and wash my hands with soap. On the way back to the table, I notice I'm not walking in such a straight line.
Discussion
I snooped in a previous relationship, but I already knew he was cheating. I would show him the "proof" and he would still deny it. I never felt good about the snooping, but I did feel vindicated that I was right.
In other relationships, as in the one I'm in now, I trust completely until I have reason not to trust. I ask questions when I'm curious and don't over-react to the answers. We both have past relationships. We've loved other people and hurt other people. It's what's happening now that's important.
It isn't easy to trust and there's always some temptation to snoop when there are private or personal things within reach. But you have to be true to yourself. I wouldn't want anyone looking through my personal stuff... ask me anything and I'll tell you the trut. To read something personal or private of your lover's doesn't give you the entire story. It's completely out of context.
As with most issues, communication or lack of communication is the real problem.
I have yet to read or hear about a woman that DIDNT find what she was looking for when she went snooping. Then you want to be hurt? Who told you to go snooping?
This is the reason i'm like Paulie Walnuts---i don't write nothin' down!
Well I think that if you are going to snoop its because you suspect something is up. And if you suspect something is up, well then 9x out of 10, something is up. I read a Reader's Digest article a long time ago that talked about how intuition is often based on concrete clues that we see and register as "out of the ordinary" but our mind perceives them as feelings.
Wow, this is a really difficult one. She shouldn't have been looking in his journals and letters. Aside from the privacy issue, people often write about bad feelings in journals to get them out of their system.
A big part of the problem is that the author doesn't really believe that her boyfriend loves her. She feels inadequate with him. She feels a lot younger and believes in him, but doesn't think he believes in her (and it sounds like maybe he doesn't). That could be her fault or his or both. Maybe he could have reassured her somehow, but naturally he was too mad. It's so painful reading about her waiting for him to say, but, really, I love you and convince her he believes in her.
On the other hand, I could never get past a guy who wrote "I blame her" and "she asked for it" in his journal. I would never be able to believe that he didn't really mean it. I would leave.
Even without the last bit, I'm not sure this relationship can work. The reasons behind why she snooped are pretty negative.
This embodies so many loaded topics! Breach of privacy, dating history, insecurity, playing the blame game...but all I can really go on is what the writer put down.
I have journals. I have pictures. I've always been a passionate man, and at times I needed a journal to contain my emotions so that they wouldn't over-flow and be taken out on who ever I was with. I've been in many relationships, and I've given virtually all of them the same ardent approach. Its never phoned in, its all real, and it doesn't lose something because I was like this with someone else. Its me and its how I choose to show love and affection. My journals are rife with "the one"s and forevers and all of the other romantic cliches. They were real and valid in their time, and they serve as a reminder for where I came from and show me how happy I am where I am now. There are spiteful things in there as well. Painful, hurtful, nasty things that were never meant to see the light of day, but they are there just for me, for when I needed to vent and just let the evil out. We all need to at times and its healthier if we have a healthy way of doing it. My journals and my pictures of days long gone are not in hiding. They are on my bookshelf, out in the open for the world to see. I have nothing to hide, and my GF has learned that I will answer any question she asks me honestly and openly, even if its something that she really doesn't want to know. I honestly have no problem with her reading these journals or looking at these photos, but I know she couldn't handle it because of her history.
Virtually every guy she has dated before me has cheated on her, and most of them with their ex. She took it hard when I told her that the majority of my close friends are women, and some of the closest and best are exes. We don't hang out or go out for drinks, just a phone call every now and then, especially when we need good advice from one another. My GF has learned that I'm not going anywhere, and is surprised at how well I can navigate her insecurities and the fights she tries to start when she is having a bad case of self-doubt. Given her history its not hard to learn how to diffuse the situation. Because of that we have an amazing relationship, and her trust in me is actually unquestionable. Even when she has a moment of hearing that crazy voice in her head, the one that many women would call their intuition, hearing that voice telling her that something doesn't add up because of what has happened in her past, she still knows that it is just her insecurities and that I haven't done anything other than love her as I always have.
I don't agree at all with Victoria. She completely invaded his privacy and, from what I get from the article, he hasn't done anything to even begin to warrant suspicion or doubt. Within 4 months she has invaded his privacy twice, and this would have been it for me. I know some are doing a double take...why would this end a relationship if I've said I have nothing to hide? Maybe he did leave it lying around where Victoria could see it, maybe some part of him did want her to...can't really say without his input (which it would be great to get)...but she never asked permission, and she did so under the pretense of trying to find something wrong.
Some say its always the cheater that is overly suspicious, the one that actually did something who is asking all the questions. Sometimes, the one who is asking all the questions is just so insecure that they are constantly looking for something to be wrong...and eventually they will find it, no matter how small it is. From this article, he didn't do anything wrong. His journal was for himself, and while it may show some aspect of himself honestly, it doesn't mean that it shows all of him. I'm not going to jump to the conclusion, as one commenter did, that she was raped and he believes its her fault, even though his actual words to her were loving and supportive. Something did happen to her, and he does believe she caused it, but these thoughts were written down in a journal, not spoken to any one, and they don't cover the full spectrum of how he really does feel about her. This was just one instance.
As another commentor put it, journals are for the writer themselves, and they may show an ugly truth about us, but people forget that truth is fleeting, lasting long enough for the ink to dry on the page and then, for most people, forgotten about, set aside so that life can continue. The words in my journals are all true...in the moment they were written. A journal from 2 years ago has just as much relevance in my life right now as a journal I wrote when I was 15...it has no impact on my current life other then to show how much I've grown, like series of lines on the door jamb when we were kids.
Victoria has even stated that she will continue to look for something to justify HER feelings. She has nothing to base any of her suspicions on, or else she would have listed them in the article. Her strongest reason for doing it is really weak...her belief that there isn't supposed to be privacy in a relationship, that there are no secrets. For those of you out there who haven't really matured enough for a healthy relationship, everyone, and every couple, needs privacy, and there are always a few *secrets*, things left unsaid that don't need to be said as they would serve no purpose other than to hurt the person you are with. Aside from that one, lame duck , excuse, Victoria gives no real reason or purpose for the action of breaking his trust, but shows us almost right away that this is a habit for her. Her personal jargon of "Jump Reading" and how to catch the Big words, and how, with EXPERIENCE you can create the sentence without actually reading anything but the Big Words...all of this indicates that this isn't the first guy she has done this to, not by a long shot, and that she has major trust issues that will get in the way of every relationship she gets into.
Everyone has a few skeletons in their closets. We have to, because we have to learn from them to better ourselves. If you dig then you will find. Kinda like if you go looking for trouble then you will find it. Until Victoria resolves her issues with intimacy and trust, she won't have the relationship she wants. It won't matter how great the guy is, how communicative he is, how affectionate, outgoing, or attentive he is, because it won't be enough. She will dig until she finds something, and then she won't be satisfied until she gets an apology, spoken or unspoken, that is worthy of being in a major Hollywood Romance. Victoria admits to this herself as she speaks of not making any moves to fix the situation and expecting him to do something REALLY BIG to let her know that she is loved and wanted...because that is what this whole thing was about. Her insecurities make her feel unwanted, and wanting some sort of huge emotional display that would forever live as an epic anecdote in her memory to tell her daughter isn't real, which is why she wants it because it keeps her insecurities alive. What he was doing, making attempts to talk, to do things, to work past it, that was real. Victoria needs counseling. At least he has his father to talk to, and it sounds like Dad has a good head on his shoulders.
This isn't a guy taking the guy's side either. I saw a few comments that chalked this up, or their behavior up, to their man's not opening up. Are you sure he was really hiding? 9 times out of 10, what you are getting from your guy is who he really is. He may surprise you occasionally with a dimension of depth that you hadn't seen before, but asking him about past lovers and relationships isn't asking about him. That is just asking to feed your insecurities because you want to hear that they were all skags and that you are the best of the best. If you want your man to open up, then ask him about himself. His past relationships aren't his total reflection, and he is with you. If he journals and allows you to read it, remember that its just a journal. The feelings and thoughts written were relevant WHEN THEY WERE WRITTEN. Now is a different time, and new growth happens every day.
This describes me. I have been on both sides- a cheater, and cheated on. Was what she did the right way to go about things? no. but since when do men share their pasts and feelings? Especially when they don't, we feel insecure. And maybe I still need to grow up more, and I acknowledge that. No one is just spontaneously insecure, either. Things had to have happen to make a person so. But she isn't crazy. She was eventually sorry. And he is a good guy for still wanting to work it out. Neither is perfect. But I would wish them luck. Although unrelated, I do think that Scarlett Johansson has a point when she said something to the likes of " I do not believe that we are naturally monogomous." And this is coming from a woman.
I often refer to women(including myself) as cats and sometimes coureousity does get the better of us. However, if the men in our lives are attentive enough of us, there would be no snooping.
I have also been on both ends of the stick, so to speak. During the times that I would mind someone reading the words that I write is because I have something to hide. I really have no problems with my boyfriend reading anything that I have written in my journal. It has improved our relationship in many areas.
We have a hard time hearing one another out on issues that bother us. We always want to get our word in the conversation and tend to be to busy thinking of the next thing to say, rather than really listen to what our partner is stating. My journal has been a release for me to say things that I want to and he can read it without feeling threatened and overwhelmed. Writing tends to defuse situations, gives us both time to calm down and you can't yell at each other in a journal. I keep my journal in one place and sometimes I know that he reads portions of it out of curiousity, but this has become a way of communication that works for us.
As far as insecurities, who is it for one person to judge anothers actions. So what if she is insecure. Women do have intuitions and maybe she was just following hers. If she was incorrect about her feelings,these types of issues can be addressed with a couple who really care about one another. They just need to find their route of communication. Obviously she was right on the nose with her intuition.
Crazy, insecure.....we are so easy to judge. I try to think of things from her perspective. Who knows what the history of their relationship was. Maybe she needed the slap in the face to move her toward a different direction in life. Don't be so easy to throw stones. From one womens point of view of coarse. Let me know if there are others with this same feeling. Guys????
I often refer to women(including myself) as cats and sometimes coureousity does get the better of us. However, if the men in our lives are attentive enough of us, there would be no snooping.
I have also been on both ends of the stick, so to speak. During the times that I would mind someone reading the words that I write is because I have something to hide. I really have no problems with my boyfriend reading anything that I have written in my journal. It has improved our relationship in many areas.
We have a hard time hearing one another out on issues that bother us. We always want to get our word in the conversation and tend to be to busy thinking of the next thing to say, rather than really listen to what our partner is stating. My journal has been a release for me to say things that I want to and he can read it without feeling threatened and overwhelmed. Writing tends to defuse situations, gives us both time to calm down and you can't yell at each other in a journal. I keep my journal in one place and sometimes I know that he reads portions of it out of curiousity, but this has become a way of communication that works for us.
As far as insecurities, who is it for one person to judge anothers actions. So what if she is insecure. Women do have intuitions and maybe she was just following hers. If she was incorrect about her feelings,these types of issues can be addressed with a couple who really care about one another. They just need to find their route of communication. Obviously she was right on the nose with her intuition.
Crazy, insecure.....we are so easy to judge. I try to think of things from her perspective. Who knows what the history of their relationship was. Maybe she needed the slap in the face to move her toward a different direction in life. Don't be so easy to throw stones. From one womens point of view of coarse. Let me know if there are others with this same feeling. Guys????
I often refer to women(including myself) as cats and sometimes coureousity does get the better of us. However, if the men in our lives are attentive enough of us, there would be no snooping.
I have also been on both ends of the stick, so to speak. During the times that I would mind someone reading the words that I write is because I have something to hide. I really have no problems with my boyfriend reading anything that I have written in my journal. It has improved our relationship in many areas.
We have a hard time hearing one another out on issues that bother us. We always want to get our word in the conversation and tend to be to busy thinking of the next thing to say, rather than really listen to what our partner is stating. My journal has been a release for me to say things that I want to and he can read it without feeling threatened and overwhelmed. Writing tends to defuse situations, gives us both time to calm down and you can't yell at each other in a journal. I keep my journal in one place and sometimes I know that he reads portions of it out of curiousity, but this has become a way of communication that works for us.
As far as insecurities, who is it for one person to judge anothers actions. So what if she is insecure. Women do have intuitions and maybe she was just following hers. If she was incorrect about her feelings,these types of issues can be addressed with a couple who really care about one another. They just need to find their route of communication. Obviously she was right on the nose with her intuition.
Crazy, insecure.....we are so easy to judge. I try to think of things from her perspective. Who knows what the history of their relationship was. Maybe she needed the slap in the face to move her toward a different direction in life. Don't be so easy to throw stones. From one womens point of view of coarse. Let me know if there are others with this same feeling. Guys????
I started making a diary/journal when i was 13 yrs old. I am a very emotional person i wanted to jot down all memorable/significant things that happened into my life. When i begun to have crushes w/ girls, "like the character in the story". All my activities of the day will be jotted down religiously. I even logged a calendar to monitor my GF's menstrual cycle. A great advantage because it gives me an idea of her mood of the day which i can anticipate. Of course tensed moments w/ her or any other encounters. It is the highlights of my journal. Sometimes a page is just too small to accomodate what i wanted to write.
I was even fond of keeping pictures, postcards, receipts and letters. I comfiled my things each year and kept it in an old vault in my rm.
I got married untimely to a girlfriend 5 months because she got pregnant. [we are on a pre dominantly catholic nation where abortion is not very popular specially if you are at the right age to get married] We hardly known each other. Because i am in a construction business and i travel to various construction sites.
There was of consolation i could offer to my wife's insecurities. Cellphones, wallets, handkerchiefs will be examined by her. [ if im not around]
I continued having a journal but it is dedicated to my wife only. One i night, she called and asked me go home early because she's making a special dinner for us w/o reasons. Because of the nature of my job i was not able to do so.
I arrived late when i opened our masters bedroom, i caught my wife naked stimulating herself. she's reading my old journals which she have discouvered recently.
From then on, she use it as a source of her arousal. she imagined the things i've done with my previous GF while we are making love. It makes our sex life satisfiying
I've been on both sides of this sword, and I believe there is no easy answer. Both sides are at fault, but of course, that conclusion never satisfies us.
I was in a year long relationship when I was younger with a guy that kept me constantly on edge. Looking back, I see that he loved me deeply, despite our emotional issues, probably even more than I loved him. But, at the time, I can honestly say that I would have looked through anything that was at my disposal, if I thought it would have helped me understand what was in his heart. We were often away from each other, so I never had anything to look through, be it journal or cellphone or whatnot. Even so, I tortured myself everyday with just little bits and pieces he'd let me gleam off our conversations, about past girlfriends, our mutual female friends, and the like. I see now that he acted (whether deliberately or not) to fuel my insecurity, by always mentioning girls that were interested in him, his high regard for previous girlfriends, his emotional (though platonic) intimacy with everyone but me, etc. I was never overtly jealous, but boy did I feel it inside--and it definitely took its toll on our relationship ultimately. My point is, I agree with the previous poster in that we're not programmed to be difficult. If I ended up feeling this way constantly, without a tangible reason on my end, he must be doing something to encourage it.
From the other point of view, I have kept a journal since I was a pre-teen. With my current boyfriend, I resort to it when he does something to annoy me, not enough for me to legitimately bring it up and discuss, but enough to irk me a little. These are often the most superficial and casual violations, but they are often the most hurtful to read. I write them in my journal to vent, with the full realization that they're petty, mean, and are essentially meaningless. We as people (women especially hah!) aren't perfect, and have from time to time, imperfect thoughts and feelings. So, a journal to me is a place where I can be as rude, obnoxious, delusional, cruel, and most of all, as honest, as I want. Violating it's sanctity would send me reeling: it's like forced entry into your emotions, and like physical imposition, emotional imposition carries heavy tolls. It would do no good for him because all those little things I complain about don't even really matter to me. Few people write extended entries about how happy and satisfied they are, they go and enjoy their happiness and satisfaction. We tend to write in our journals more when we are upset and feel somehow alienated from everyone else, so a journal, especially a quick glance through one, is predisposed to say bad things.
All in all, drop it if you can, and focus on all the good things he's trying to show you, not all the piccadilloes he's hiding away. If you can't, then the issue is bigger than a journal entry, and you have to evaluate your happiness and devotion to the relationship.
privacy is important, but from the story it sounds like he left the stuff there because he wanted her to look. Because maybe it was the only way he could be honest. It really bothered me that he thought her rape was her fault. I couldn't stay with someone if they felt that way about any victim.
I once flipped open a tablet on my boyfriend's nightstand to write him a note and found a journal entry instead. It said he wanted to marry me. I shut the tablet and decided not to bring up the private writing I had happened upon. A week later, he broke up with me and refused to give me a reason. I'll always wish I had never read that journal entry. It made it so difficult to make peace with the break up.
P.S. - Besides, I think she may just have been expressing her art - she is a writer . . . and writer's tell us their thought processes in live color. . . HEY, we all go a little crazy sometimes. :)
Yes, she seems a bit snoopy and high-strung, especially if they've only been dating for 4 months. But still, if u feel seriously about someone and are in a committed potentially long term relationship you have to trust and respect your partner, not think things like . . . "It might be something else that he doesn
Boy this story really made me think! It is true that snooping is a sign of insecurity. But what causes that insecurity? We aren't born that way. And we aren't born angry either. Anger is usually caused by hurt. I think something must have happened to her in her past to make her not trusting, and I think that what he wrote about HER (not about his past) must have hurt her very badly. Instead of waiting for him to make it up to her or make her feel better, she should have just left him. That is the oposite of insecurity: confidence.
I'm fairly alarmed by the responses of the commenters. There is no denying that the writer has serious trust issues and snooping isn't the answer, but love is hardly a one-way street. Ascribing all the blame to her is incredibly naive. How can no one mention his fault in all of this?!? She obviously knew the relationship wasn't right but wasn't ready to let go. Did she go about it in the right way? Of course not. What he wrote about her in his journal was horrible, and while it never should have been read, only proved her misgivings in the first place. Instead of being so quick to slam the writer, I think people would do well to see two imperfect souls in a doomed relationship.
Best of luck in the future, Victoria!!! Your prince is out there...just be more confident and trusting!
From this man's point of view, this type od snoopying is thens END!!! I have been maried to the same woman for over 30+ years and we do not even open the mail unless it has only our name on it. Reading and snoopying is a sign of a very insecure person. Only onme that has very strong trust issues would even think of it. It uysualy means that that snooper them selves has things to hide and is looking for something to blame the other person about first! Just buuy a cat or two and learn to live alone because that is how you will end up and very soon!!!
I think she's crazy for caring about his past loves, because they are in the past, but I think she has a right to be angry about what he wrote about her character, because you know that is truly his opinion of her, and I wouldn't want to stay with someone who called me lazy, regardless of what I did to find out. I have been happily married over 12 years, and we don't keep secrets from each other, because they always blow up in your face.
Wow...this woman is completely unbelievable. She has mega issues that she really needs to deal with. As far as I'm concerned, what she did was unforgivable. I've been in relationships before, and ones longer than 4 months, and it would have never occurred to me to snoop into his personal memoirs or his cell phone. All you have to do is think about how you would feel if someone did that to you. I happen to be an active journal wrtier myself, and if someone read my private musings and dared to judge me or condemn me because of them, he would be out the door. She was darn lucky to have someone so understanding....but she has to realize that if she can't be secure enough not to snoop, then she is never going to have a lasting, happy relationship.
I do hope that the author realizes that her trust issues will eventually leave her alone. It is ridiculous to me that she seems to seek sympathy for her lack of respect for her significant other.
seriously, a nut is an understatement. this woman needs to work on her trust issues before being in a mature and healthy relationship. everyone has skeletons in their closets but as long as they are kept out of sight why bother with the past. this guy is brave in wanting to work things out with her, i wish them the best... but i donot see a change in her part anytime soon and this habit of hers will eventually end up in heartbreak and an unhappy relationship.
This woman is a nut. She is the offender by spying and has the nerve to be upset with him about his private writings. Later in the article she sounds even loonier by playing games and not speaking to him. To her HE should make the move. In my opinion, she needed to apologize. If he wanted her to know or see something he would offer to SHARE the info/letters/journal/whatever. She needs to work on her own trust issues and act like a grown-up. Learn how to communicate and not act like some spy. If you don't trust him and feel the need to snoop his cell and his apartment, maybe he's not for you!
