Would you read the messages?

Ok, actual question. Your partner says they're talking to someone and offers to show you the chat. Are you reading it?

Yes. Why offer if there's nothing to see?

Because he knows you'd wonder. Offering isn't the same as inviting you to inspect his homework.

I'd probably say no and then spend three days imagining the messages. not exactly a win.

That's what I'm worried about. I don't WANT to be the phone police. But I also don't want to be the idiot who didn't ask.

What do you need to know? That's the bit nobody's answering.

That they're not planning to meet behind my back?

Then ask that. You don't need 800 lines of flirting to answer it.

Easy to say when you're not sitting opposite someone who looks weirdly happy.

Sure. But reading the chat won't make them less happy. It may just give you twenty new things to obsess over.

So what, just trust them?

Trust plus an actual agreement. Not trust as in 'close your eyes, darling'.

I'd still look. I'm not pretending otherwise.

Fair. Just be clear that reading it is something you both agreed to, not a random search of a private phone.

I think my answer changes depending on whether they offered before or AFTER I got suspicious.

Yep. That. That's the whole thing for me.