A response to a search query… A comment on privacy on the Internet and personal relationships

So one of the nifty benefits of WordPress is that I can see at least some of the search terms people use to get to my blog. Often they’re amusing, most of them are predictable, and some of them are downright scary.

I wanted to address one of them here, though, because on the off-chance the searcher sees this page again, I have something to say to her.

The search query was this: “How can I keep an eye on what my husband is doing on the computer?”

Now, you may think I’m going to answer her question. It’s a question that, for the majority of non-expert computer users, I could probably answer. All of those years in school have to be good for something, after all.

But no, that is not what I’m going to do. I’m just going to respond to her question.

Let me state upfront that I happen to know, in some detail, the story of a marriage (not my own) where the wife wanted an answer to that very question. Very badly. And she did, in fact, finally get one. Her husband had (probably correctly) assumed she was a novice and wouldn’t know how to observe his activities, but he had also underestimated his wife’s ability to find answers when she didn’t know them herself. So she did find out what he’d been up to. And the answer did not make her very happy.

There are two real possibilities if you’re the one asking the question the search query addresses, though: either 1) you’re paranoid, or 2) your husband is up to something on the computer. You may be surprised to note that neither possibility makes you feel very good about you or your situation. And that should tell you that regardless of whether your husband is up to something or not, there is already a problem that needs to be addressed.

My feeling – and this is not all armchair philosophy here, I promise – is that if you’re asking that question, something is already deeply broken in your marriage. If you need to keep an eye on your husband and invade his privacy to satisfy your curiosity or concerns about what he does when you’re not watching, then there are serious trust issues in the relationship. Either you’re having problems trusting, or you know he’s not trustworthy. Either way, something’s already broken. The evidence isn’t going to make you feel better (custody and alimony battles excepted, I guess), and if you don’t find it, once you’ve entered someone’s private sphere, it’s awfully hard to stop doing it. You got away with it once – what is to stop you from doing it again? The lady I mention above is still, to the best of my knowledge, known to read her husband’s e-mail, and this is several years after they resolved the issues that led to her trolling through his computer files in the first place. Which says to me that there are still issues – they may be issues that both spouses are aware of and are willing to accept in the marriage, but it’s something you really need to consider before you walk down that road.

The questions you should ask yourself is what exactly do you intend to do if you find something you don’t like, and what you do if you don’t find anything. If you find something you don’t like, are you going to leave him? Hold it over his head? Keep it to yourself and beat yourself up with it? You’d better be damned sure you understand the possible consequences of whatever you do. And if you don’t find something, how are you going to feel about yourself? Will you keep looking, using your suspicions to continue to dig deeper into your husband’s private activities? Where does it end? Will you feel deeply guilty for having such suspicions? Or will you feel justified in having done so even if there is nothing to be found? And what if your husband finds out you’re doing it, especially if he’s not doing anything? I guarantee you, he’s going to be pretty pissed off.

Think very carefully about this. For many people, whether they find what they’re looking for or not, the consequence of the slippery slope of privacy invasion is that they can’t stop looking. You should really think of it like reading someone’s diary, though… if you read something that folks would generally consider to be covered under a reasonable expectation of privacy, the first person who has to accept the consequences of what you find is you.

Keep in mind that I’m a strong privacy advocate (and I do see the irony in my addressing a search query that the user probably thought was private… No one ever said I was perfect…). That does not mean, however, that I’m supporting people who cheat on their partners, or folks who are up to illicit activities behind their spouses’ backs. Far from it. I’ve seen a lot of relationships fall apart when the husband or wife decides to fool around with someone on the Internet, although I must say that I have yet to see one in which the relationship wasn’t already broken or headed for disaster before that happened. I can understand, when you know something is deeply wrong in your relationship, the compulsion to find out what’s going on. But don’t blame the Internet – whatever may be going on on the computer is a consequence of what is wrong, not the cause of it. Look at the relationship first. I have a very hard time stomaching folks who say that their online liasons are due to an Internet addiction, rather than the result of something missing or wrong in real life. As I said, I’m not a doctor, but I’ve seen it up close – a lot.

You seriously need to consider your motivations for doing what you’re thinking about doing when you ask yourself how you can see what your spouse/partner is doing on his/her computer, and what that may already say about your marriage. I’m not a doctor, but I’m willing to risk stating with a fair degree of personal certainty that you’d be doing yourself a greater favor by entering marriage counseling and confronting the issues that lead you to suspect your spouse (and confronting your spouse, if that needs to be the case) rather than sneaking around behind his back to get information.

Take the high road on this one. You’ll feel better about it in the end.