It should be equal,
IMO. If the reasoning is that you should be transparent if you have nothing to hide then shouldn't that go both ways? If the reasoning is its a punishment then maybe it's not a two way street, but then you have to ask yourself if it appropriate and healthy to "punish" your spouse for wrongdoing.

It seems you want to find a way to reestablish trust in the relationship with both parties on an equal footing. If one party is going to exist in a lesser status with fewer rights than the other then that doesn't bode well for the long term. Otherwise maybe divorce is the more appropriate solution.

Thank you thepassenger, im leaning a lot more towards equal footing. transparency should be both ways.

your answer is definitely appreciated, very helpful

You're very welcome. I'm glad you found my answer helpful.

Both ways. Though to be honest, after my d day many moons ago my H stopped caring to check; which subsequently lead to more of that behavior.

I guess I'm saying that sometimes you BS's NEED to help us stay accountable, but without making us feel like we live under surveillance. If any of that makes sense...

Well, P&D, it is good to create a system that works for you both to hold yourselves to the goal of reestablishing trust and rebuilding the relationship. If you know you need him to keep you accountable by checking your email etc, then he should do that, if that is helpful and doesn't make you feel like you're living under surveillance. You just both have to be on the same page I guess.

I agree, i did tell him he needs to have his own boundaries. i also am not the type to keep tabs on people. he does though have everything in the open now, so do i. thanks P&D and TPassenger.

Just remember that too much surveillance will just cause resentment over time and will either blow up the relationship or cause the CS to find other avenues of communication. They may not even be using that new email address you don't know about to just complain to buddies about how ridiculous his spouse is about checking over his shoulder all the time. Punitive responses to emotional problems often backfire if the goal is fix the marriage. I'm not saying the CS is fault-free. I'm just saying that human nature causes people under prisoner/warden or parent/child conditions to rebel.

If there is a D Day with a full confession, then yes, a CS should allow a BS full access. But only for a period of time to allow the CS to recover from the fog when they are most tempted to relapse. Once a CS realizes the full consequences of their actions (they will tell you), then it's time to stop. If they relapse after that, then it's time to make a decision whether to go on with the marriage or end it.

This exact thing came up in therapy for us. The therapist felt strongly that boundaries be agreed to by both partners and apply to both partners (even though the CS is less likely to check up on the BS). She also felt any checking of phones and computers should be done in the presence of both people because otherwise, it is dishonest snooping. In my case, I leave my phone unlocked and logged in to social media and email.

There is a fine line to walk between healthy transparency and treating a partner like a child or property.

All great points. part of truly creating a healthier relationship includes at least for the BS truly forgiving the CS, each BS tases their time, mutual respect and honesty are things both parties need to forge. i totally agree that if a person is in a relationship were trust is eventually never given, then that impedes a healthy relationship from growing. the parent child thing really does not work for people farther into recovery.

I heard on a podcast that the BS should not to do the work of the CS in policing the relationship. The CS should be the one making effort to be transparent.

My husband and I freely share passwords, in fact we freely puck up each other phones if we need to check pictures or messages from the kids......but yeah, there is that secret account I keep to myself, he wouldn't be able to find. Strange huh? It's like my own little hidden secret box of a memory that only is there for me. .I can't seem to let it go.

This is a little more complex than a yes/no answer. So I'll attempt to break it down from my view point.

1. In general, a healthy marriage/relationship is one where both are fully transparent with each other. By that I don't mean neither can have a private diary, or time alone, or that either needs to tell any and all secrets and daily activities/encounters. Only that you don't hide anything which affects the relationship from that person, and aside from each other having full access to each others emails, cell phones, social accounts, etc., they should both be transparent about their goals, dreams, and disappointments about the relationship and anything that would affect it. IOW, you have nothing to hide from your spouse so there is no need to care whether they happen to check your cell phone, email, etc. It's not like policing or punishing, but it is due to mutual trust, the sharing of lives together, which is what marriage is about. The more of one's life that the spouse doesn't know anything about, the less united and solid the relationship. That's just general marriage 101, not taking into account any infidelity issues. Save for surprises and stuff like birthday presents, neither couple should have anything of significance to hide in the relationship. Being transparent is simply saying to the other, "I trust you and I want you to trust me so we can share the most intimate parts of our lives together."

2. Obviously an instance of infidelity that is kept hidden violates that trust and unity. It damages the relationship even before the BS finds out. Pre-dday, the CS tends to do their best to not be transparent about what is going on, living a private life the spouse has no idea exists. For this reason, once dday hits, the BS will have lost trust in the CS. If the BS is to stay with the CS, they will most likely be compelled to regularly check up on the CS for a time. It isn't so much a punishment in most cases, but a need the BS has to verify the affair is over (cause if it continues, the BS wants to know that and take whatever actions they deem necessary in their situation) as well as it is a means of rebuilding trust in the CS. The BS needs to be regularly catching the CS being open, honest, and moving in the right directions. Over a period of time when that consistently happens, the BS's trust will slowly rebuild, and the need to check up on the CS will gradually diminish with it.

It's sort of like every once in a while I'll put my shoe on, and I feel something wiggling around my toes. Then I go, "Oh no," because I know what's coming. For some reason, scorpions like to get into shoes, and once you feel one of them in there, you know you're going to get stung. For the next several days, I'll be looking inside my shoes before putting them on to make sure there's not another scorpion in there. But after a week or two, that need diminishes and go back to just sticking my feet in. Thankfully, it has been a few years since that happened.

3. The BS's need to check up on the CS should be temporary. For me, I think that began to diminish some after 3 months post dday, then I gradually did it less and less as I became convinced that it was over, it wasn't going to start back up, and other indicators told me she was headed in the right directions. But this need to check up on the CS isn't why the CS needs to be transparent. It is part of it because the BS needs to be able to in order to regain trust, but being transparent should be the default mode of operation for the relationship. In that sense, the BS should be equally transparent with the CS. The CS doesn't usually have a driving need to check up on the BS, short of suspecting a revenge affair going on, but that doesn't mean the BS shouldn't likewise be transparent as well.

Pre-dday, for many years Gabi and I lived what I'd call parallel lives with moments of intersection. She had her interest and I had mine, and we both weren't fully transparent. Primarily about financial matters. But also we didn't fully share our lives together. Lots of "reasons" for that I won't get into, but we both had our secrets we didn't want the other to know about. After dday, as we discussed things over on our anniversary trip (4 days after dday), I realized my need to be transparent with her about my "secrets." So I told her a few things she didn't know of maybe only suspected. Nothing earth-shattering like infidelity, but I realized those secrets had been part of the problem with our marriage. Note, before Gabi became involved with AP#1, she and I both felt we had a good marriage and we loved each other deeply. The problem was we weren't showing it or acting like it a good hunk of the time. But I realized if she was going to be transparent with me, I needed to be with her as well.

4. There is some exceptions to #3, however. The BSs that seek help on forums like this may need to keep it a secret so they are free to vent, say what is on their heart without fear of offending or enraging the CS. I never felt a need to do that; Gabi's been on this site with me from the start. But we're the exception. Especially if the CS isn't cooperating well, the BS may need to have a "secret" place to get help in dealing with this.

This goes back to my open/close window suggestion to BSs. If a CS is keeping a window of their life closed to the BS (IOW, not being transparent about something) then the BS should respond in kind, not only for their own protection and sanity, but to mirror back to the CS the state and direction the relationship is taking. So in the case where a CS isn't being transparent, I wouldn't suggest that the BS should remain transparent.

5. While transparency should be a default mode in marriage and not a punishment, a BS who holds onto that in order to control the CS rather than just rebuilding trust, while keeping their own secrets and life private from the CS, it can certainly feel like a punishment, as if the norm in a healthy relationship is to keep a lot of relationship issues private, especially when that is shared with another but not your spouse. Using infidelity as an excuse for the BS to regularly "police" the CS for years in order to satisfy some desire in the BS like control or ego boosting, etc., is abusive and destructive to the relationship. Checking up should only be done as long as the BS feels a need to "trust but verify" in order to rebuild that trusting relationship. Checking up on one another in general shouldn't be a standard mode of operation in a marriage. It does indicate a lack of trust for one to do that much. Of course, in the months following dday, there is a big lack of trust in the BS, which is why they need to do that. But it would be unhealthy for that level of checking to continue for years. It indicates either the BS is using it to develop a "parent-child" relationship because they feel safer controlling the CS, or the CS is doing or not doing things that prevent the BS from regaining trust again, usually due to a lack of transparency in one or more areas on the CS's part.

Of course I'm talking about general principles here. None of us tend to be perfectly transparent. Either through ignorance, human error, or shame, we all have our private secrets to one degree or another. It is easy to let them build up in a marriage over the years. Spouses begin to accept it as the norm. She doesn't need to know this. All she'll do is yell at me . . . again. Better to keep this private. But that's why several years into a marriage, an affair can be so tempting, because you are no longer as close and intimate with your spouse as it started out being. Then when one comes along that is more like that, it is a bigger draw.

Yet, circumstances differ. Sometimes there may be very valid reasons to not be transparent about something, but that doesn't mean it still won't affect the intimacy and trust of the relationship.

But I think a distinction needs to be made between being transparent which should be a normal mode of operation for a healthy marriage, and continual checking up on one another which does indicate a lack of trust or other marital problem going on. For instance, right now, 5+ years after dday, I can still check Gabi's phone, email, log onto her FB account, etc, anytime I want. Likewise she can do the same with me. But it has been months since I last checked anything, and several months before that checking up since the one before that. But if she was to password lock her phone and not want me to know the password, well, that would be a huge red flag because it says she has something she doesn't want me to know about; she'd be hiding something. Doing so would be trust destroying. Same thing if I did that to her, even though as far as I know, she's never checked up on me. She has no reason to, but might become concerned if I changed my login code without telling her and she found out about it.

So that's my take. Sorry for the length, but like I said, I don't think there is a simple “one-size-fits-all” answer to this. Depends on what is going on.

Amen to that answer Cole50!! Such an eloquent way to explain this issue many of us go through.