When it comes to relationships, smartphones and trust, a little privacy goes a long way.

I learned this the hard way a few years ago when the person I was in a relationship with took it upon themselves to look through my emails on my smartphone while I was in a restaurant restroom. What he found was an email from a male colleague asking me out for coffee. He freaked. He wanted to know why the man in question was under the impression that I was single (“because I don’t announce my relationship status to every person I meet of the opposite gender!” I wanted to say.) The invite was completely unsolicited and I wasn’t even remotely interested in this other person, but I didn’t even have a chance to mitigate the situation before it turned into one of our worst fights ever. After this incident I always got the sense that he no longer trusted me and in turn, I didn’t fully trust him after he snooped through my phone.

Since then I’ve adopted the following stance: I don’t mind giving you access to my phone, but you shouldn’t need it to trust me. In order to feel happy and secure in a relationship, I need to know that I have a certain level of autonomy and I want any future partner to feel the same way. As demonstrated above, it’s so easy to jump to conclusions, so when it comes to my phone I now like to keep a degree of privacy. But, everyone is different.

If you’re grappling with how to handle phone and social media privacy in your relationship here are a few things to keep in mind.

1. You both have to agree on what you feel comfortable with.

Whether you decide to keep everything on your phone completely accessible to your partner, or keep things 100% private, you have to be in agreement. Freaking out when your partner even comes near your phone is just as unhealthy as insisting that the other person give you unrestricted access (whether they want to or not.) You have to come to an agreement on what feels good for you as a couple. If you can’t respect your partner’s viewpoint or privacy, you might want to reexamine the relationship and whether it’s right for you.

2. It all comes down to respecting your partner’s boundaries.

Even if the person you’re dating has given you access to their phone, that doesn’t mean you have permission to snoop through all of their emails and texts. You can’t have a healthy relationship without trust.  As my friend Jennifer says, “if my guy went through my phone I wouldn’t care but I do expect him to respect my privacy as I do his. He also wouldn’t care if I went through his phone but it just isn’t something either of us would do. To each his own and all that, but there should be a healthy amount of trust in a relationship. We do have each other’s lock codes and passwords to certain things if needed in emergency or whatever.”

As renowned sexologist and relationship expert, Dr. Anne Ridley shared with me, “in an exclusive relationship, access should be offered but not insisted upon. Trust is established when privacy is respected.”

2. If you’re not sure, ask.

There’s a big difference between asking the person you’re dating, “hey can I use your phone?” and riffling through their text messages while they’re out of the room. If you’re not sure where you stand on phone access, ask first. For example, maybe they’re totally cool with you using their phone but they want to unlock it for you first. The point is, like everything else in a relationship, you need to ask for consent. Not only is it the right thing to do, it’s crucial for establishing trust.

3. Some things are better left private.

For many people, a smartphone is viewed like a diary. I don’t have anything to hide, but do I want the person I’m in a relationship to be able to read all of my neurotic, vent-y texts to my best friend or see that I’ve listened to “The Thong Song” eight times in the past 24 hours? No, of course not. No one needs to know about that. We all deserve to have a private space where we can kvetch and google weird stuff like “Sisqo’s real age” + “Teletubbies + are they human?” to our heart’s content with zero judgement.

4. More access often means more problems.

Having full access to your partner’s digital life can just be a recipe for disaster. As my friend Brit points out, “if you look hard enough, you’ll drive yourself crazy and always find something you don’t like.” Also- even if you’ve got “full” access to their phone- you can’t control where they go. You can’t stop cheating (if that’s what you’re worried about.) If it’s gonna happen, let it. And move on.”

5. No privacy = no trust.

Giving up your privacy doesn’t mean that you’ll get trust in return. It’s normal to feel insecure from time to time when you’re in a relationship, but if you or the person you’re dating needs access to your phone in order to trust in the relationship, that’s a sign that there’s deeper issues at play that need to be examined.