Should your spouse have the password to your phone?

Seth gets home from work, tired but satisfied he had slain the proverbial beast during his nine hours of toiling away at his job.

As he walks into the house his wife asks him about his day, tells him of hers and acts as a sounding board for his concerns of the day.

Seth and Cass have a good relationship. They love each other, working toward a joint goal of a happy family and long life together.

Later that evening, as Seth prepares for bed, he gets a text from his buddy. He walks from the bathroom to the phone, which is plugged into a charger near his side of the bed on a nightstand.

He glances at it, chuckles softly and then places it back down on the table and heads back into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

"Who was that?" Cass asks.

"Just Jaden from work. No big deal," Seth says.

"Well, what did he want? It's kinda late for texting," Cass says, noting that it's almost 10 p.m.

"I told you, it's no biggie. Don't worry about it," says Seth, a little annoyed.

Cass, a tad suspicious, grabs Seth's phone and tries to unlock it. Oddly, the password she types in doesn't work.

"Hey hon, did you change your password?" Cass asks. "Your phone won't unlock."

"Oh yeah, I just changed it for security reasons," Seth says as he reenters the room.

"Oh, well what's the new password?"

"It's a new one. Don't really want to share it."

"Um, not even with your wife?"

"Look Cass, let's not make this some big thing. I changed my password, That's it. Don't worry about it."

"So you don't want me to look at your phone?"

"I told you, it's for security reasons and that it's no big deal. Can't you just let it go? Geesh. I'm going to go watch the news."

As Seth leaves the room, Cass's eyes start to moisten a bit. "What is he hiding?" she thought to herself.

So she did as every red-blooded modern wife would do. She turned to social media.

This is a real post from a Facebook page today:

"Posting anonymously because there are a lot of people in this group who know me. This is a controversial topic here. Should spouses be able to have access to the other spouses phone? For example... my husband has full access to my phone, knows the password and can get it anytime he asks. It's not that way for me. He refuses to keep the same password, and won't give it to me when he does change it. I get told no if I ask to use his phone. I have literally no access to his phone. What are your thoughts? I'm not sure how I should feel about this. If I bring up the topic he gets upset and comes up with some excuse as to why I can't. Let's have a legit talk about this. How do I go about it without it causing a fight?"

Dozens of members weighed in, most telling Cass that her husband definitely has something on his phone that he doesn't want her to see.

One poster wrote this: "It was never an issue for me, until I had something to hide. I'm not perfect and at one point I was up to no good and that's when I put a pass code on my phone when I never had one before or had an issue sharing my phone, even for a quick minute. The topic of whether it should be "allowed" or not, is controversial and a bit subjective.. there should be a conversation of boundaries in the start of a relationship.. and a refresher doesn't hurt. Now in my personal experience of only 30 years on this planet but still relevant experience.. it's 2024.. never go through a man's smartphone, unless you're 100% ready to leave."

I'm no marriage therapist, but I happen to believe (and so do a lot of the commenters) that marriage should be an open book between husband and wife, with no secrets -- including passwords.

Said one commenter: "If he won't let you into his phone, he is definitely hiding something."