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Ask any couple what they think the most important things in a relationship are, and I will bet you that trust is in the top three. Without trust, the relationship will fail; there will be suspicions, paranoia, and eventually, a reason for that trust to be lost. Trust, though, is hard, because you are trusting your partner with your deepest, innermost feelings. Trust of this kind involves a huge risk, with your heart at stake, because the truth is, we can never really know the secret thoughts and desires of another person. It's probably a good thing we don't. We can know their habits, their moods, their routines, but we are not mind readers.

How then can you know if your partner is being faithful? For one, we live in an age of electronic papertrails. If your boyfriend or girlfriend has been talking on a cellphone, you can see who they called, the duration of the call, and how many times they called. You can see text messages, and the pictures and videos they took; you can see who is on their instant messenger list, and who they emailed, or met at match.com. You could easily keep a sharp surveillance on your mate's communication...but would that breach the barrier of trust?

It is a difficult question to answer. I have been on both sides of the privacy v. prying issue. Three years ago I was dating a man, and was waiting on his couch while he was in the bathroom. His phone buzzed, an indication of a text message. Now, readers, I will ask you: what would you do, if you were in the same place, with a guy you had been seeing about two months? Perhaps you would have more restraint than I did, but I picked up the phone and pressed 'view'. The message read, "Goodnight sweetie". I scrolled down, reading the others: "I miss you baby", "Have a good day at work", and "Are you coming over tonight?". Snooping may be wrong, but it saved me from continuing a relationship with a man already in a relationship.

On the other side of the equation, I had a boyfriend read through my email. He went through the dramatic proceedings of printing out several correspondences and confronting me with them. I had been emailing back and forth with *gasp* another man, arranging a time and place to meet! However, if he had only pried a little further into my past, he would have seen I was arranging to meet with a local artist at my school to purchase his latest watercolor. I was angry with him for doing exactly what I had done a few years earlier. The results were different, but the action was the same.

My personal opinion on the matter is, if you have reason to be suspicious, and you have access to a means of confirmation such as a cellphone bill, by all means check it out. However, if you regularly read your partner's email, check his internet history, etc., then maybe you should reconsider the relationship.

Learn more about this author, Kat Derrig.
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