That makes sense. After a conversation like that, would you be worried that informing your partner that you think that’s OK would then just cause the partner to be more sophisticated about hiding any inappropriate activity (I think someone raised that issue earlier in the thread)? Would you feel less secure knowing you were in a relationship with someone who was absolutely against snooping under any circumstance?
To add to what Asmovian said (which is right on): I disagree that you have a “perfectly good”, or even sort of good, relationship when distrust rises to that level. I am in the camp that thinks that if I don’t, can’t, won’t trust my partner, my relationship SUCKS. It sucks by definition, since I don’t consider a relationship to be anywhere near good if it’s not built on trust. A distrusting relationship also makes me extremely unhappy. If I can’t talk openly with my partner, and sort out issues – including trust issues – with him/her as a team, then as far as I’m concerned the relationship is dead. Either s/he’s refusing to talk/address my concerns – which tells me that s/he doesn’t care enough about me to be in a relationship with me – or we are incompatible. If we’re incompatible, it’s no one’s “fault,” but staying together would just make us mutually miserable, and what’s the point of that?
Obviously, you disagree.