What a beautiful phrase, to fall in love. It highlights that in order to experience the most powerful feeling the human experience has to offer, you need to let go of control and fully trust another person with no guarantee that things will eventually work out.
Reddit user ShabzSparq has just learned that harsh truth firsthand. Four months into her pregnancy, she discovered that the man who was supposed to take her to a happily ever after wasn’t who she thought he was. Turns out, he’s not just been snooping on her phone, but using it to contact her ex.
Pregnancy can test women in a lot of different ways
Image credits: EmilyStock (not the actual image)
But this mom-to-be never expected the biggest challenge to come from her own husband
The woman also shared the conversation her husband had catfished her ex into
Image credits: ShabzSparq
Image credits: ShabzSparq
Image credits: Wavebreak Media (not the actual image)
Image credits: ShabzSparq
Snooping is relatively common in romantic relationships, but it’s usually bad news
In a survey of 4,860 American adults, Pew Research Center found that 34 percent admit to looking through their partner’s phone without their knowledge, with women being more likely than men to say they’ve done this (42% vs. 25%).
However, at the same time, the public largely agrees that digital snooping in couples is wrong.
Seven-in-ten respondents – regardless of whether they are in a relationship or not – say it is rarely or never acceptable for someone to go through their partner’s phone without telling them.
And for good reason. According to Cortney Warren, Ph.D., ABPP, who is a board-certified clinical psychologist and former tenured associate professor of psychology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, snooping is generally associated with fights and breakups, no matter what information is (or isn’t) discovered.
To make her point, Warren cites a correlational study of 389 people in romantic relationships, in which phone snooping was a significant predictor of intention to break up. Similarly, in a study of 329 married individuals, researchers found that lack of trust was a significant predictor of relationship problems and that phone snooping partially explained the relationship between distrust and conflict. That’s because, if someone is snooping, they don’t trust their mate even if they find no evidence of cheating.
“In general, invading another person’s private space without their permission—whether it’s snooping on their phone, reading their personal journal, or invading their physical space—is unethical,” Warren explains. “As humans, we all have the right to our own autonomy. We have the right to share or not share personal experiences and information with others. Violating their boundaries through snooping is very likely to cause conflict with your partner, no matter what you find.”
But our case doesn’t stop there
The woman’s husband, however, took things even further. Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D., ABPP, is a Professor Emerita of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She says that “being plagued by the conviction that someone is cheating on you (or cheating you) can become pathological when it reaches constant and chronic proportions.”
The constant need to “test” people, particularly the one that’s closest to you — your romantic partner — can be seen as an extreme manifestation of jealousy. Even though it’s a basic and common emotion, jealousy becomes “morbid” when chronic and consistent preoccupations with infidelity frequently drive behaviors such as catfishing your wife’s ex.
“Jealousy isn’t the term that works best when applied to your need to test that carwash detailer, [for example,] but your desire to ensure 100 percent service can reflect a similar irrational fear. In both cases, you’re driven to behave in ways that do not reflect the commonsense conclusion that unless shown otherwise, there’s no reason not to trust someone,” Whitbourne adds.
According to her, people who experience obsessive morbid jealousy, know that their behavior is problematic and, as a result of shame or guilt, but their personalities are characterized by high levels of dependency, aggression, lack of trust, manipulativeness, exhibitionism, impulsivity, and a tendency to entice others, and these traits suggest that they might even have a personality disorder, including borderline, dependent, histrionic, and narcissistic.
In other words, constantly testing your partner’s loyalty may be a symptom of larger mental health issues, and while we can’t diagnose our Redditor’s husband, the woman probably shouldn’t leave things as is if she wants a calm and peaceful future.
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