Is It OK To Give Your Boyfriend Or Girlfriend Access To Your Email Or Phone?
A password is a super personal piece of information: it can be the key to your finances, your physical belongings, or your deepest darkest secrets. Choosing to open such a security gate to your partner – and how soon into the relationship you do so – can get complicated, real quick. Here are some general guidelines to determine when sharing a password might be appropriate, and when it’d be nothing but a bad idea.
Ideally, you shouldn’t ever need to share an email password with a significant other. But if you do need him or her to briefly access the account to retrieve something, there’s nothing wrong with changing the password afterwards to re-establish your privacy. Trust in any relationship should be established by connecting face-to-face, in person, with words – not by snooping through a partner’s private things.
Social Media
The above also goes for any social media account, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, or Tinder. (Though, why are you still on Tinder?). Yet, whereas sharing an email password might have a functional benefit (e.g. doing your partner a favor; retrieving shared information, etc.), you have no reason at all to share a social media password with a loved one, as posts via such outlets are entirely personal.
Banking
Unless you’re married, you should not share any online banking passwords with your partner. As much as you may love and trust your boyfriend or girlfriend, giving him or her access to such sensitive financial information can lead to unnecessary awkwardness or complications down the road.
There are even some husbands and wives who choose to keep their banking separate – but until you’re legally bound to one another, don’t even consider the possibility.
Phone / Computer
Sharing the security code, pin number, or password to an electronic device might have some use. If your hands are full, for example, you might need your partner to dial a number, look up some information, or take a photo for you. But only allow a guy or girl you’re dating to unlock your electronic device for you once exclusivity and trust has been established. As with email (which an unlocked phone will give your partner access to), changing your password afterwards is also recommended.
Home Security
There are some obvious benefits to sharing your garage or home alarm system passcode with your partner (e.g. watering your plants; feeding Fluffy while you’re away). There’s nothing wrong with granting a serious boyfriend or girlfriend such access… as long as the code can easily be changed if the relationship should go south. As romantic as a surprise dinner waiting at home for you sounds, there’s nothing creepier than that same surprise at-home meal when you’ve already been broken up for weeks.
Bottom Line
As you can probably tell from all of the advice given above, I don’t recommend sharing any passwords with your significant other if you don’t have to. If you and your partner truly trust each other, neither of you should have anything to hide. Sneaking around one another’s private worlds won’t permanently satisfy your curiosity – like a growing monster, it will only continue to generate suspicion and distrust.
