Snooping: When is it okay, if ever?

[kidneyfailure]

Moving my responses from that thread to here:

@jsgoddess

It isn’t a court of law. There is no burden of proof.

I never take relationships lightly, including when it comes to ending them. I need proof before I end one. If I snoop in the emails and find totally platonic, normal content I’d just forget about the whole thing. If I found anything sexual or romantic I’d send her packing.

@Asimovian

I can’t figure out how you could feel that distrustful of someone and then think that if you don’t get your proof, you can go back to trusting them.

Because I acknowledge that I might just be the one who is wrong. I know I’m not always right and that, lacking any evidence, weird behavior may just be that: weird behavior. She gave me reason to believe something was going on with her weird behavior, she didn’t give me a straight answer, I had no choice but to get my answers another way, I found nothing, I acknowledge that I was wrong, I move on. What’s so hard to get about this? Everyone second-guesses themselves.

@Creole_Tomato

This brings me back to my original musing: is there anything you could find which would convince you there was NOTHING going on? I don’t think so.

I can only speak for myself, but I’d be fine with “nothing incriminating.” As long as there weren’t any overtly romantic or sexual chats or emails I wouldn’t worry about it anymore. YMMV.