WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW WON'T KILL YOU

 
Mobile phones have made our everyday activities easier. We can communicate with our loved ones and do business easily by just pushing a few buttons. When we are waiting in a long queue we can plug in the earpiece and listen to our favourite collection of music. We can also watch a movie on the bus or check out what is new on the internet. With the cell phone in your hands, you virtually have the world in your hands.

Unfortunately, nothing good comes without a price. The cellphone, despite it's many advantages, also has a share of its bad side. Many relationships have been broken because of the cellphone.

Picture yourself in this situation. Your wife is in the bathroom and you're sitting alone in the living room reading the daily paper. Suddenly, your wife's phone starts vibrating on the table where she left it. It is an incoming call. You decide to ignore the ringing phone and continue reading the paper. After all phone etiquette is that you should not answer another person's phone unless you have been given instructions to do so.

After ignoring it the first time, the phone starts ringing again but you still ignore it. On the third attempt, you pick it up and look at the caller I.D. There is no name. You press the answer button.

"Hello"

Instead of hearing a voice on the side, the call is cut. You put the phone down and wondering how rude some people could be. Immediately your wife comes out of the bathroom you tell her that there was a call and when you answered it the line was dead. She quickly picks up the phone top check the caller's identity.

"Who is it?" you ask.

"I don't know" she replies but when the phone rings again after an hour or so, instead of answering it in your presence, she moves away out of earshot.

In most cases, this is a perfect scenario for an argument or an interrogation. Many people would be suspicious that their spouse is having an affair. If that is true or not, the biggest mistake that anyone can do is to move away their spouse's earshot to answer a call. The best thing that anyone can do is after answering such a call, you must tell your partner who it was that you were taking too.

The cellphone has just complicated the cheating game and it is becoming harder to catch a cheating partner using the cellphone. Some ingenious people have created Apps that make it even harder to do this.

For example, Slydial mobile app allows a cheating man to call his mistress at anytime even when her husband is around without being found out. This app directly calls the voice mail and plans for  rendezvous will be communicated. Another app called CATE (Call and text eraser) helps adulterers by maintaining a hidden log of messages, calls and contacts. The information is stored in the app and can be deleted with just one touch. If someone walks in while you're reading the secret message and you don't want to be seen closing the app, all you need to do is shake the phone and everything will be minimised.

Another app is called Tiger Text app which allows a cheater to send messages with a deletion timer. After a designated amount of time passes, the message will be deleted from the recipient's phone. Blackberry has an app called BlackBook which allows users to create a list of hidden contacts and accompanying text messages that are kept separate from the regular phone address book and inbox.

There is no doubt that these apps and many others like them have made it even harder for victims of cheating partners to get hold of any incriminating evidence through the phone. However, not every phone can install these apps and many people especially in the developing world are still grappling with how to use apps effectively.

Not to be left out, there are also apps that will help you track down a cheating spouse. The iPhone has an app which you can use when you suspect that your spouse is cheating. This app is loaded with software which can let you spy on text, email accounts, computers, learn how to find hidden passwords, spy on cellphone records, secretly install spyware on a cellphone, GPS tracking and much more. There are many more apps available for Android phones too.

But above all this, there is the old traditional way of spying or checking your spouse's phone activities and this is by physically going through his or her calls and mailbox. This may be an outdated method but it has helped catch many cheaters. No matter how clever someone is one day they will lose their guard and leave unwanted information for the snooping partner.

Couples go through each other's phones trying to find any clues about their suspicious movements and in many cases this hasn't been well received by the owner of the phone. Many people believe it is wrong to snoop around in other people's phones because it is an intrusion in their privacy. On the other hand, some argue that their is no such thing as privacy between married couples. The other partner has a right to check the phone records if they suspect something is going on.

Here are a few comments from a debate on Facebook on whether it was right to check your partner's phones when they are sleeping or in the shower.

"I think the best thing is to mind your own business and ask God to give you a partner whom you won't suspect of cheating and one who won't cheat"

"It is wrong but it is not a big deal either. If you have any reason to do that, the best time is when he is watching and not when he is sleeping"

"A right and successful marriage holds no secrets. Whatever the husband is doing the wife should know and whatever the wife is doing the husband should know. But when one is hiding phones from the other that means that person is not straight."

"It's not okay. In the first place why date a person you don't trust?"

"Checking with their consent is okay but snooping is not right. You will find something that will kill you. Every person has a right to privacy and let us respect that. What you don't know wont kill you."

I don't agree with the last part of the above comment. I don't agree that what you don't know won;t kill you because many people have died in situations where if they had known, they would have had a choice to save themselves. Nothing is as cruel as a person infecting a spouse  with HIV when the woman was ignorant about his promiscuous lifestyle.

Moreover, it is human instinct to probe when you suspect that something is wrong and most people who snoop do this because they suspect that their partner is having an affair and in many cases this could be true.

A parent may occasionally check her children's rooms and if one day that parent finds a condom in one of the drawers, would you blame her for snooping and that it was her fault that she found the condom?


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