Dear Doctor Loveland,
I have been checking your site now for many week trying to get the courage to write in. I keep hoping someone else will write in with a story like mine so I can just see what you tell them so here I am on April 7 finally brave enough to write you. So I love my boyfriend. I really love him but we have both done things to make each other not really trust each other I guess. So my question is about his phone. I feel like when I am with him all I can think about is when he might leave the room for a minute so I can check it. There is never really anything on there but I found something on his phone a real long time ago and ever since I just can’t stop checking. I know he loves me. He makes me feel special a lot. How can I stop checking his phone? What if there is something on there I really need to know about? I swear I am not really this person but this is how it has been like lately. Help!
My Fake Name: Julie

Dear Julie,
Thanks for mustering up the courage to write in. Everyone should know this is a safe, anonymous place to write in for relationship help whether you are crushing or single or in a relationship or breaking up. I am here to answer your dilemmas. Julie, you say here you want to give up checking his phone. If you are committed to that, then you have all my support. Really it comes down to a choice and if you truly choose to stop, it will take some discipline and motivation but you will be able to stop. Maybe you just decide you are going to trust him and then you just will. Also trusting the universe will reveal to you anything you will NEED to know to make informed decisions about staying with him or not. Perhaps you don’t trust him but you want to stay. If you don’t trust him, I recommend that if you are sexual with this man you protect yourself from any possible incident of STI’s. That is your body, your health… not worth putting that at risk. Period. Love is a tricky thing. Sometimes it is very hard to distinguish between actual love and this things that feels a lot like love but is more like obsession- “I can’t see myself living without you” kind of feelings. I often see couples who are just looking for an excuse to leave each other but just don’t have the proof yet. It is too painful to leave without substantial evidence, and confusing and causes lots of repetitive getting back together. I am sure you are aware that if this man wanted to hide anything on his phone or in his life from you, he easily can. Unless you are some kind of tech hack that knows more than the average person who is phone snooping, it would be very possible for anyone to cover their tracks. That may be a reason to justify giving it up. You aren’t going to find hard evidence there anyway so therefore it is a waste of your time and your serenity you are freely giving away. Sometimes we are just looking for a reason to justify leaving. We are not told to go with our guts. We are told to find the proof to back it up, that seeing is believing but when we have this sick “I know I am going to get hurt” feeling we ignore it and so continues the cycle of abuse. Self abuse. Because you have a choice to stay or go, to check the phone or not. Think of all the things you could be doing with your time besides waiting for that small moment to snoop on your boyfriend’s phone like actually connecting with your boyfriend! My suggestion is spend that same time reaching out to others, being a good person serving, and getting out of your own head of hurt. Getting out and seeing the world can give you a clear head to move forward in a more clear-minded way and give you the courage you need to make logical choices for yourself. Love is emotional. But healthy love is also logical. You are writing to me because you know you have jumped past logic and right into what can feel like insanity. Any bad habit, like phone snooping (which most of us are guilty of at some point so no judgement here!), can make anyone question their own sanity. How did I get like this? I went to college? How did I stoop this low? Have I got nothing better to do than check up on some man I could easily live without? The “easily” part may not feel doable now but it will become it. I have never in life met a woman who does not eventually learn how to do a break up with grace and rise up like phoenix above all of her past love stories or tragedies. We gather. We console. We inspire. We get busy living. We comfort others. We find our road less traveled, our own Julie-specific road and on that road we rise so high like that phoenix. Drop the phone. Go outside. Feel the sun on your face. There is hope and grace in it.