It is so difficult to avoid checking your partner’s phone, out of curiosity, insecurity or whatever, did you know that this law is in force in our country?
Reviewing what the couple does with other people has never been easier thanks to new technologies. The temptation is in the form of whatsapp whistle or friend request from Facebook; however, crossing the line is, in fact, illegal: last year a judge in Spain sentenced a man to two and a half years in prison for spying on his wife’s cell phone. As if respect for the privacy of the couple and the law were not enough, there are other reasons that advise against this practice.
«The curiosity to know the secrets of the couple is something human and understandable»Explain Alicia Canabalclinic of Research Center for Applied Psychology and Psychotherapy CIPAP (Madrid). But as in so many areas of life, curiosity must be kept at bay. “Otherwise, we will be talking about a lack of trust in our partner”, clarifies. According to the psychologist, when espionage occurs it is because “the pillars of a healthy and balanced relationship are missing”.
Social networks are an example of this, adds Canabal: «They are a double-edged sword where we can make assumptions about past relationships that generate greater insecurity, instead of giving peace of mind, which is what someone who secretly snoops into the private space of the other is supposed to be looking for». Also, because we could find ambiguous messages that, far from appeasing the anxiety about the possible infidelity of the other, will increase our uncertainties. When in doubt, according to the doctor in psychology Emma Ribas, “The healthiest thing is to ask directly. If they are a committed couple, they will try to clear up doubts by reinforcing complicity and nurturing trust in the relationship”.
With Facebook, specifically, you have to be very careful, since it has shown to be in the eye of the hurricane in terms of jealousy. A study by the University of Roanoke, in Virginia (USA), revealed how this social network affects relationships by generating jealousy, especially in women. The research also observed some differences between men and women when it comes to suspiciously interpreting signals such as the emoticons present in the answers, which seem to arouse jealousy mostly in men.
“The healthiest thing is to ask directly. If they are a committed couple, they will try to clear up doubts by reinforcing complicity and nurturing trust in the relationship” (Emma Ribas, doctor in psychology)
In the case of mobile, men and women will interpret text messages in very different ways. Other research led by scientists from the Cardiff Metropolitan University (Wales, UK) He presented a population of students with some imaginary messages of two types, either sexual or emotional, to see how they responded. After measuring how they stopped their gaze and analyzing their eye movements, they concluded that women spent more time looking at messages with emotional content than sexual ones, just the opposite of male students. So don’t be surprised if you and your partner interpret the same message differently, leading to a misunderstanding.
According to Ribasthe person who spies does not always respond to the typical profile of pathological jealousy, which is the one who “looks for signs and obsessively pursues or controls the other, confusing love with possession”. Many times it will respond to a reality. In his daily work he contemplates cases in which «The person is truly deceived and sees himself without other resources to discover what he already intuits, because he objectively notices that his partner has changed his habits, hides to answer the messages, or lies».
And what to do in case we do receive a mischievous message, for example, from a colleague or co-worker? Nor is it necessary to show it to our partner to prove our innocence. «It is natural to share our intimacy with the couple, but from the will and spontaneity», explains Ribas. «It’s about reinforcing complicity, not feeding control and obsession that the other may have.»
Have you ever been caught going through someone’s phone? Comment here.
Taken from El País