I’m a 60-year-old man who has been divorced for eight years now. Since my divorce, I have not remarried and have ended two significant relationships because of behavioral and substance-use issues. Currently I’m in a relationship of 16 months with a recently separated woman. We don’t live together, but we spend most of our time together, functioning like a married couple. I’m employed in a higher-paying job and cover most of our expenses. When things are good, the relationship is deeply fulfilling and our romantic life is exceptional.
Over the past year, however, we’ve had recurring disputes about device privacy. The first incident involved my girlfriend secretly accessing my password-protected phone and finding a topless photo of an ex-girlfriend and an unanswered email I had sent to that ex to retrieve personal items. (The topless photo was among my 3,000 unorganized photos. I forgot to delete it.) My girlfriend confronted me weeks later, suspecting I was still involved with my ex. I assured her I wasn’t and deleted the photo and other past mementos, but we could not agree on device-privacy boundaries moving forward.
Since then, my girlfriend has viewed my devices at least two more times. Once, she misinterpreted a text from a lifelong platonic friend as evidence of infidelity. Another time, she saw me delete a message from a different female friend — whose health issues were most likely the topic, though I couldn’t recall weeks later when she raised it — and again accused me of hiding something. Now I use my devices in another room for private communication, which she sees as secretive. I view it as private, not deceptive.
I respect her privacy and don’t snoop on her devices. And though I’m open to couples counseling, I believe my girlfriend’s mistrust issues need individual attention first for therapy to be effective.
Is there an ethically accepted standard for accessing a partner’s devices, with or without permission? If a partner demands to see a device, is the other partner ethically required to comply? Am I misguided to consider continuing this relationship? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
Let me take up your questions in order. First, there isn’t any settled convention about whether people should be able to see what’s on the devices of a romantic partner. Nor could there be. A universal open-access policy wouldn’t work: For one thing, doctors and lawyers are generally required to keep client information confidential, even if using a personal device. Whatever a couple’s policy, though, it’s clear that gaining access to a password-protected device by stealth or guile is a violation of trust.
But then we quickly approach something of a paradox. Partners can (putting aside those professional obligations of confidentiality) waive their privacy rights, and doing so is often a sign of a deepening intimacy. If snooping is inconsistent with a trusting relationship, an insistence on keeping everything locked down is also bound to seem untrusting. Ideally, your partner isn’t barred from your accounts but doesn’t feel the need to monitor them, either. (You should still be able to plan a surprise birthday party, if that’s your thing.) It’s like giving your neighbors a spare house key; they have access when it’s necessary, but you don’t expect to find them rummaging through your wardrobe.
Second, being in a relationship doesn’t mean forfeiting all claims to privacy, individuality and autonomy. So no, you’re not obligated to turn over access to your devices on demand, as if you’d been served a warrant for your phone. Indeed, the request is itself troubling: It means you’re already a suspect — and it catches you in a double bind. A refusal to comply is bound to arouse your girlfriend’s suspicions. But with a partner who tends to jump to unwarranted conclusions, acquiescence won’t solve the problem either. Surveillance isn’t a shortcut to trust.
The habits of mistrust in your relationship seem to be feeding on themselves. When you take precautions against her prying — engaging in private communications in another room, for example — you’re reinforcing her suspicions. The result is a self-sustaining cycle of doubt. Can it be broken? The poet Jane Hirschfield has written about lovers bound by the scar tissue that grows over a wound, stronger than “the simple, untested surface before.” That’s the optimistic scenario. There are others.
Consider, too, that your girlfriend’s conduct may be controlling, not just fearful. (For some readers, the possibility will be more apparent if they switch the genders and think about a man who insists on inspecting his girlfriend’s phone.) The question is whether this tendency is likely to grow or subside in time. Is your girlfriend snooping because of something in your past, or because of something in hers? Does she acknowledge she has a problem?
Which brings us to your third question. A couples therapist could help the two of you figure out whether (and if so, how) this relationship can be rescued. I’m certainly in no position to weigh in on its prospects. Still, the obstacles are obvious. You think she needs to work on herself before couples therapy would be worthwhile, but if you take that line with her, there’s a good chance she’ll hear it as reproachful or punitive. Offer to go to therapy together and you’d be saying that there’s something worth saving.
Either way, continuing the relationship without sorting out these issues strikes me as unwise. Trust isn’t something you can fake, or force. It’s a foundation you build together — until it’s strong enough to hold the weight of both of you. For some couples, it comes naturally. For others, it never comes at all.
Readers Respond
Last week’s question was from a reader wondering if she and her husband should pay their gardener in cash to help him reduce his tax burden. She wrote: “The man who mows and trims our lawn has asked us to pay him in cash instead of by check. We have little doubt as to why he has made this request. … It makes me angry to see the number of obscenely rich Americans continue to rise while most people, like him, work hard and long and likely have to pay for their own health insurance. If he wants to nick a bit off the I.R.S.’s take, it may be illegal, but I don’t consider it immoral. What is the right thing to do in this situation?”
In his response, the Ethicist noted: “For someone like your landscaper, underreporting can create long-term costs as well. Social Security calculates retirement benefits based on your highest 35 years of reported earnings, and while lower earners typically receive a higher replacement rate of their income, unreported wages still reduce total benefits. … You shouldn’t jump to conclusions about your landscaper’s request for cash. According to the F.D.I.C., about 5.6 million U.S. households had no bank or credit-union account in 2023, and check-cashing services charge fees that can be burdensome for people with modest incomes. Even if tax avoidance is the lawn guy’s motivation, nobody is asking you to falsify records. You’re not obligated to police anyone’s tax compliance. You may pay him as he prefers, and let him tend to his own financial garden.” (Reread the full question and answer here.)
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A good response from the Ethicist, but another factor to consider: the immigration status of the gardener. The I.R.S. recently agreed to provide ICE with confidential personal information about anyone that ICE believes is not legally in the United States. Given that, continuing to file taxes could have profound repercussions for this gardener and his family. — Robert
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The Ethicist’s final paragraph is perfect. But the advantages he lists for reporting income apply only to United States citizens. If the gardener is not a citizen, he may be paying his Social Security tax without ever getting anything back. — David
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Another nuance to this discussion is that the landscaper could be undocumented. If that is the case, and if he were to declare the cash income on his taxes, much of it would fund Social Security and Medicare benefits that he would never be in a position to receive. A fairer solution would be to have benefits accrue to everyone who pays into the system, but that is unlikely to gain much traction in the current political environment. — Jerry
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People who cheat on their taxes are thieves of the worst kind because they steal from everybody. Taxes pay for schools, roads, firefighters and food assistance for the poor. When vendors ask me to pay them in cash, I tell them point blank that I don’t work with people who cheat on their taxes. They make excuses, but I’m not interested. — Shaun
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It’s easy to assume that the homeowners know why the landscaper wants cash. Maybe they are wrong. Some people have no bank accounts. The letter writer didn’t indicate that the landscaper said he was cheating on his taxes. They don’t actually know that information. The homeowners are making assumptions that they have no information about. — George
Kwame Anthony Appiah is The New York Times Magazine’s Ethicist columnist and teaches philosophy at N.Y.U. To submit a query, send an email to [email protected].
The post My Girlfriend Keeps Looking Through My Phone. Should We Break Up? appeared first on New York Times.
