Psychologist explains the only healthy way to check your partner's phone
We've all been tempted to sneak a peek, but is their phone better left alone?
During Hits Radio Breakfast it came out that Sheree Murphy had access to her husband Harry Kewell's phone. Dave Vitty and Gethin Jones found this very worrying and decided to call an expert to see if her relationship was in trouble.
Psychologist and broadcaster Emma Kenny spoke to the show and explained the healthy ways couples can share access to technology in a relationship.
Watch the full discussion here:
Emma reassured Sheree, but on one condition:
"Well, I think it's okay if your partner says it's alright, but not if you're doing it to snoop."
Which makes sense to me, motivation is a big part behind what should or shouldn't be acceptable in a relationship.
Emma also stressed the importance of honesty and communication in a relationship:
"If you're doing it secretly because you suspect your partner might be cheating or might be having conversations you're not happy about - you have an issue in your relationship because actually you should be having that conversation directly not trying to be a detective."
To reassure Gethin, Dave and Sheree, Emma also explained how access to phones works in her own relationship.
"Personally in my own relationship, my husband and me have access to each other's phone just because sometimes one of our batteries dies so the other takes it. But I wouldn't go through it, that's a really weird thing to do to sit there and trawl through it."
This reassured Sheree. However, Emma did address why this is an important issue for couples to talk about and set very clear boundaries for:
"This is a big contentious issue in a relationship because some people see denying their partner their phone details in a relationship as almost a situation where they feel like they're trying to exclude them from their life. And if you don't give me your details you're seriously hiding something."
"If you have somebody who just locks their phone and wants to respect their privacy and doesn't want to invite their partner in, that's fair enough."
Emma concluded that the best thing for couples to do is to agree together on how to access each others technology:
"So either accept that you both have access to each others phones, or accept that you have boundaries and agree that together."
She also left us with an important warning of the worst thing you can do in a relationship if you find your partner's phone:
"And don't do what loads of people do, you see a phone, you nick it and go into the bathroom and spend an hour going through messages from 1984. Because that doesn't help anybody."
You've been warned!
Does this make you feel any differently about your relationship?