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Many years ago, I made a half-hearted attempt to spy on a man I was dating. I had been seeing him for a few months and something just felt … off. He claimed to be separated, but the stories about his ex-wife didn’t add up. He claimed to be living in an apartment, but it didn’t look at all like a home. I knew I was being gaslit, I knew he was hiding something, but I couldn’t figure out the shape of the lies.
One evening, crazed by the need for answers, I tried to log into the man’s email account. I’m not very tech-savvy, so I didn’t get much further than two lame attempts at guessing his password. But as I sat there, my fingers hovering over the keyboard, I had a flash of realisation.
Here’s looking at you. Credit: iStock
I didn’t need “answers” to confirm my suspicion that something was wrong and I didn’t need to violate the man’s privacy. My suspicions of him were the glaring red flag. Without trust, the relationship was doomed.
I was reminded of this man when I read about the fight against “stalkerware”, technology products used to surveil people without their consent. Had I been a different kind of person, I could have secreted a spying app onto the man’s phone and found out, in real time, who he was messaging and where he was going. I could have eliminated – or, more likely, confirmed – my darkest fears.
But I had nothing to gain from spying on him because I already knew what to do. In intimate partnerships, the desire to spy can only mean one of two things: that something is terribly wrong in your relationship, or that something is terribly wrong with you. If it’s the former, the solution is not to dig up answers; the solution is to get out of the relationship.
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Of course, I understand the desire to gather evidence when you’ve been lied to. I understand deeply that frenzied need to uncover the truth. There had been moments in my relationship with that particular man when I felt I was becoming a little unhinged. But, as I realised, I didn’t actually need “evidence” of a betrayal to leave my relationship partner. The only evidence that mattered was the lack of trust. And if the trust was gone, I needed to walk away, no matter what the “truth” may have been.
Stalkerware is predicated on this notion of spying on untrustworthy partners. Still, users of surveillance technology – who are generally men – aren’t necessarily being lied to or betrayed; they may, instead, be incapable of trust. They may be tracking their partners to keep them in check or to gain “evidence” of misdemeanours for which there will be punishments and retribution. The apps gratify their pathological need for control by violating the privacy of the partners.
And this is never justified, no matter what behaviour is discovered. Healthy adults need to learn to live with uncertainty, particularly the uncertainty that comes with intimate partnerships. There will always be things we don’t know about our partners and there will always be the chance they will betray us. One of the prerequisites for a healthy relationship is to be able to manage this discomfort and to build trust through communication. If we are incapable of trust – if we’re compelled to track our partners’ every word and move – we need therapy, not stalkerware.
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