This is normalising pathological behaviour.
I agree that it should not be normalized, but calling it pathological is a pretty callous description for it. I have had many girlfriends go through my phones and I really had nothing that was upset them, so I didn’t care, but I was always curious. The more I understood it, the checking comes from insecurity that is rooted in trauma. They did it in an effort to protect themselves from being hurt. It was not logical to me because I had given no reason to have them doubt; but the level of hurt and distrust caused them to have extremely careful precautions.
So what you're saying is that because the world has hurt them before, they engage in behavior that, while hurtful in itself, was really only ever intended to help them protect themselves even though they might not be in the situation where the behaviors in question would benefit them anymore?
Congratulations, you've defined "pathological behavior".
A lot of shitty behavior is motivated by trauma.
Honestly… who does that?
That sounds whacky af.
(going through a loved ones phone I mean)
I did. I'm thankful I did. I would have never had light at the end of the tunnel. About 25% of the population has an anxious attachment style, where this sort of behavior is expected when they are in an insecure relationship.
About 25% has an avoidant attachment style, who have a high likelihood of infidelity.
50% are secure. Secure types naturally help anxious types feel secure, so they don't do this shit. Avoidants actively make anxious styles feel much more insecure. As do anxious types on avoidants. Guess who gets a lot of consistent matches? Anxious and Avoidant. Secures don't stay in the single pool for long, neither do anxious. Avoidants are dating a long part of their life.
An individual can change their attachment style, but avoidants have the worst time doing so.
You can get a general sense of attachment style from the post.
- If you could understand this from your partner, and see why they would do this, and would accept an apology, you're secure.
- If you find that you see yourself doing this in certain situations and that it would be very relieving, you are probably anxious.
- If this plain disgusted you, made you feel violated, or made you very angry, probably avoidant.
There are subtypes of course, and lots of other traits. One thing to note is that the last significant (albeit tiny) proportion is disorganized. They experience traights of anxious and avoidant, and typically have very unstable relationships.
Edit: Wow, a lot of y'all are missing what I'm saying. I never said it was healthy or good. I said it was an insecure relationship. As in the person doing the digging is ignoring other red flags that are causing their anxiety to get to this point.
Seeing the responses here I want to add something to make people more upset: Co-depenancy is a myth.
No. I can't support being in a relationship with someone you don't trust enough to HAVE to look through their phone. Same with the other way around. I have zero interest in combing through my partners phone, it's their private device. If your partner wants to look through your phone, they're telling you they don't trust you. At that point, you have bigger problems
As someone with an disordered attachment style this behavior isn’t ok. It’s feeding the fear by invading privacy. You can ask for permission. But unless you have genuine reason to suspect something is up invading privacy isn’t ok. People with secure attachment styles may be able to keep going after this, but it’s still a violation of them.
And beyond that, anxious, avoidant, and disordered attachment styles while deserving sympathy are still unhealthy attachment. Secure is healthy. My anxiousness is a burden on my secure wife that I’m actively working on.
If you don’t feel secure in your relationship with someone you need to ask yourself if it’s you or them. If it’s you, you need to be working on it. If it’s them you need to start talking or planning to leave. Invading their privacy isn’t a healthy response to insecurity regardless of whether or not they cheated.
Source: it came to me in a dream
If you are in a relationship, just talk. People aren't perfect machines and behave irrationally at times. That's perfectly normal.
But simply saying, "Well, I'm just an anxious type" and engaging in extremely controlling behavior jeopardizes an already tenuous relationship.
If you need help, get a professional involved. But don't just go on, without ever trusting the person you love.
Everyone is getting what you're saying, but what you're saying is useless, victim-blaming nonsense.
