Should you allow your SO to go through your cell phone messages, contact list, and call log? What about your internet browsing history?
Depends on you, them, and your relationship to them, and the boundaries of that relationship, and the meanings each of you attach to things.
Is this a matter of establishing important personal boundaries in a relationship, or establishing trust based on transparency?
It is often seen to be about either or both of those. When one person thinks it’s all about one and the other thinks it’s all about the other, you get to enjoy processing each of your stored emotions and arguments about it. Welcome to disagreement city, and the growth opportunities it holds. ;->
Personally, I think it’s offensive and intrusive for my husband to even request access to every part of my life, but obviously, he disagrees.
I’m with you, generally, unless he is fantastic at accepting, allowing, understanding, not drawing conclusions, and so on. And even so, if he were good at understanding, allowing and accepting, then why would he feel the need to go through your stuff and fail to accept your boundaries.
In my personal opinion, wanting to go through someone’s browser history in almost any circumstance (other than e.g. trying to find content you’d like to see again, diagnose a software bug, or find out what you might have been doing before you were abducted) is, to put it mildly, evil fuckery. Or, to tone it down even further, it’s boundry-less control-maniac paranoia and disregard for privacy, an assertion of domination, and all sorts of other BS. It indicates an unhealthy state of mind, to me, not to mention an annoying/stifling one.
I have been in relationships (and am in one now) where there’s really nothing to hide and I wouldn’t care, but not-just-coincidentally, I also entirely trust her and neither of us feel any need or reason to do such things, and we also wouldn’t just out of respect and acknowledgement that it’s a kindness to not do such things.