Fire Needs Air

By Mary Claire Schibelka

“I went through his phone.”  “I hacked her Facebook.” “Give me your Instagram password so I know I can trust you.”  “Share your location with me.” If you haven’t been on the giving or receiving end of one of these statements, I’m willing to bet that you know or have heard of someone who has.

In the digital age, cheating seems easier than ever.  Twenty years ago, infidelity meant risking being seen in public together or, at the very least, calling the house phone, never knowing who might answer.  Now, we have the ability to silently converse through text messages, dating apps, Instagram DMs, and Snapchats. We no longer share phones and other devices with each other.  Instead, we keep them tucked away in our pockets and often protected by passwords.

For some who fear betrayal, the antidote to their anxiety is total access.  If they can see their partner’s activity, then they can prevent cheating, or at least eliminate the opportunity for it.  This goes hand in hand with the belief that if two people are really in love, they are completely transparent with each other, and doing so increases trust and intimacy.  But what if just the opposite were true?

Esther Perel, famous Belgian psychotherapist and relationship researcher, asserts that in order for desire to endure, partners must maintain a certain degree of independence and privacy.  In fact, the ability for members of a couple to be both autonomous and connected is one of the trademarks of intimacy. Without mystery, novelty, and some elusiveness, the flame of desire can very quickly burn out, thus creating the exact relationship problems we all wish to avoid.

Knowing every detail of your counterpart’s digital activity might not be helpful, anyways.  Typically, when we look for trouble, we are likely to find it, even in things that might not otherwise upset us.  A harmless text message could be misinterpreted by a snooping partner who is hyperaware of any threat to the relationship.  The discovery of a mindlessly “liked” photo might lead to undue suspicions and heartache. While these things are often meaningless, discovering them might feel like a betrayal.

Rather than demanding control and total entry into your partner’s online world, have a discussion and negotiate what is appropriate and what is not.  Is liking pictures posted by the opposite sex okay? A “happy birthday” text to an ex? What about deleting a dating app from your phone but not deleting your account altogether?  The answers to these questions will be different for everyone.

Once boundary lines have been drawn, the next step is to allow room for trust to grow.  Having a hard time trusting your partner? That is a different conversation. Just remember, eliminating privacy is not the answer.  Intimacy and desire need space, or in the words of Esther Perel, “Fire needs air.”