Woman holding her finger to her lips in a gesture for silence. (iStock)
Ever feel like she doesn’t really trust you? Maybe she insists on knowing the password to your phone—or hovers over your shoulder while you scroll through Facebook. She claims it’s harmless curiosity, but you feel like she’s constantly eyeing everything you do.
Related: 5 Ways Happy Couples Deal With Mismatched Sex Drives
Your suspicions may be warranted: 43 percent of women admit to spying on their partner, according to a recent survey of more than 1,000 men and women from Online Spy Shop, specialists in surveillance equipment in the U.K.
What’s more, 58 percent of women say they just don’t trust their partner—only 21 percent of guys feel the same way. (Here are five problems that can sink your relationship.)
To what extent may her snooping reach? Nearly 40 percent of women that admit to spying on their partner prefer to dig through texts and Whatsapp messages, while 19 percent have given their S.O. a call while they were out. Following that, 18 percent have logged into their partner’s social media accounts, 16 percent have checked GPS history, and 13 percent went old school by reading through emails.
Rest assured that 41 percent of women in the survey say they’ve never spied on their partner.
But 16 percent would consider it if they thought their partner was cheating. That’s because people snoop when they’re suspicious about something, explains marriage and family therapist, Paul Hokemeyer, Ph.D.
Related: 62% Of Women Fantasize About Cheating With This Person
“People who snoop look for confirmation that their partner is up to no good,” says Hokemeyer. “Just like a successful prosecutor needs hard evidence to convict a person suspected of a crime, a snooper feels they need more than just their intuition to prove their partner is untrustworthy.”
Even if you have nothing to hide, don’t brush it off—it might be hurting your relationship more than you realize, he says. If you find her scrolling through your old messages, here’s exactly what you should do if you catch her snooping.
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