12 March 2024 , 19:00
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A woman has confessed to reading her boyfriend's private messages only to stumble across something 'disturbing'.
It's universally accepted that you should never snoop through someone's phone. Not only is it a huge violation of trust, you are likely to find things you don't want to see.
And that's what one girlfriend quickly found out when she went through her partner's archived conversations on WhatsApp.
In a message sent in to Slade's Dear Prudence advice column, the woman revealed she had come across some messages her boyfriend had sent to an ex, who had dumped him back in 2020.
"These messages show he drove to her place in 2021 at Christmas and tried to give her a present and beg her back," she wrote. "I know it's wrong to snoop, and I've never told him I read these messages. But any time he mentions how he would never get back with an ex (particularly that one), I feel really unsettled. I don't know what to do - should I say something?"
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In response, Prudence opened by saying: "If you looked back over three years of messages and that's all you found, I'm thrilled for you! Your boyfriend hasn't been in touch with his ex since you've been together, he hasn't been talking to his friends about how much he still yearns to be with her, and there's no evidence of misconduct with other women. If at all possible, you should relax."
However, while she said there was no need to discuss the snooping with her boyfriend, Prudence did urge the woman to look at why she wanted to go through the messages in the first place.
She suggested paying more attention to that 'unsettled feeling', noting that a huge and important aspect in any relationship is listening to yourself - and trusting how you feel "without requiring outside evidence to validate it". "What made you want to snoop?" Prudence asked. "What made you question his honesty or his commitment to you?"
Prudence concluded by asking the woman to consider how she would feel if the phone technology simply didn't exist and she wasn't ever able to read her boyfriend's messages. "How would you feel in this relationship? Just think about it."
It comes after a woman revealed that she found out her husband was cheating on her with her cousin when their messages kept showing up on a tablet before he had the chance to delete them. And she had the screenshots to prove it.
Rather than confronting the pair immediately, however, she decided to wait to exact her revenge. She explained that her grandparents gave each of their grandchildren enough money to buy a house when they graduated from college - including her cousin.
"I waited almost six more months," she confessed on Reddit. "A month before she graduated from university I went to my grandparents and broke down. I told them that I just found out about the cheating and that I was shattered that my own family would do that to me. I stayed with them for a couple of weeks.
"My grandparents are old school about marriage and family. They are beyond p***ed. They said that they couldn't fix what she did but they could make their displeasure clear. They gave me her money. She had taken out student loans since she knew she could pay them back. She also chose a degree that was not exactly in the STEM areas so she will not be making a great salary coming out of school," she revealed in the explosive post.
"My ex is begging me to let him stay because he loves me. I said that he would not sleep with other women if he loved me. I know he doesn't. He just did the math and found out how f***ed he is."