Snooping Through Your Partner's Phone Can Actually Strengthen Relationship, Study Finds

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Snooping is something more people do than will admit. But can secretly scanning your partner's phone actually help your relationship? A new study says maybe.

You know it's wrong, but your partner's phone is just sitting there and maybe you've had your suspicions, so you open it up and dive in.

"Sometimes you go through your partner's phone, you find out something that you needed to know and then that relationship is over," one woman said.

"I understand why people feel inclined to do it, but at the end of the day, people's privacy is their privacy," one man said.

According to a new study from the University of British Columbia and the University of Lisbon, about 20% of subjects who had their texts or social media "snooped" through by their significant other, decided to break off the relationship.

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Surprisingly though, 25% of study participants who had been snooped on decided to stay in the relationship and found that the partnership got stronger because of it.

The study concluded that this strengthened bond came from a heightened desire among both parties to solve trust issues.

"For most people in a relationship, there is something that makes them feel like they should check on their partner," said Dr. George James, a licensed marriage and family therapist with the Council for Relationships and Thomas Jefferson University.

"I know all my boyfriend's passwords, passwords to stuff not because I don't trust him just because if you don't have anything to hide, then there's no reason to not know," one woman said.

James feels that the strengthened conversation post-snooping should be had before any breach of trust is made by scrolling through your partner's phone without permission.

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"What people don't talk about is that it's also very addictive and it's not just a one time thing," he said. "Once you start, you end of doing it pretty frequently."

He recommends that a significant other who may be feeling suspicious and tempted to dive into their partner's phone or social media accounts, first ask themselves if this trust issue stems from their own general inability to trust others, or if it has to do with specific actions of their partner.

If it is the latter, a conversation is needed, not snooping.

According to the study, the most frequent cellphone snooping times were when the other person was in the shower or using the bathroom.