Question: Is my partner's phone really off-limits? I can't stop myself from reading his text messages

Esther says...

Have you ever thought that you might just be bored? Facebook, Twitter and your own, dear mobile phone have clearly trained you to fidget and twitch unless you are supplied with 120-character snippets of information every 90 seconds.

Having exhausted your legitimate access to these digital information outlets, you've had to start on your boyfriend's.

And obviously that's more fun, what with all the adrenaline generated by the fact that you know full well you're being naughty. Maybe take up a dangerous sport instead?

People bang on about the importance of “no secrets” in relationships, but that's rubbish.

Yes, of course, big secrets like sex-changes and love-children can be awkward when revealed after five years of marriage but in even the closest relationships, each partner is entitled to a certain amount of privacy. And that means no rifling through each other's text messages or emails. Ever.

The nice thing about having a boyfriend is the security. If every time he receives a text or goes out without you, you are reduced to a sweaty smudge of panic, what use is that to you?

When your boyfriend goes out on his own you ought to punch the air, shout “Bye!” through the letterbox, and sit down to a True Blood marathon with some crisps — not pace your flat in a jealous frenzy and then pounce on his mobile next day, the second he's on the loo.

Even if you're pretty sure that your boyfriend is cheating on you and you're just looking for evidence, you ought only to go through his stuff if you are prepared for it to backfire horribly.

Because if there's one thing boys love more than anything — more than pizza — it's taking the moral high ground, because they get to do it so rarely.

If you confront him with an ill-gotten text message, you'd better make damn sure that it's definitive: if it turns out to be innocent and merely misinterpreted by you, he will hold your snooping against you for ever.

Even if (especially if) he really is cheating on you with half the girls in Fulham.

Nirpal says...

Curiosity doesn't just kill the cat. It gets a nosy woman into lots of trouble too.

No man wants a paranoid woman prying into his phone. Mainly because she'll scream the house down having caught him cheating. But that's beside the point.

Your boyfriend might be a two-faced bastard who's balling your best mate all the way to heaven and back, but privacy remains the sacred basis of all our selfish individual freedoms.

Maybe he's completely faithful but you're still needy and anxious about his feelings. I'm sure you also access his email account, rifle his pockets and eavesdrop on his conversations.

A woman's spying is merely a symptom of her chronic sense of inadequacy, the feeling that he's too good for you and could leave at any time. And your feelings are right.

Could it be that you're not that hot and you know it? If that's the case, he'll be gone soon enough, so quit fretting and poking around in his business and simply enjoy the time you have left.

Your deep suspicion and self-loathing ultimately stems from one of the usual boring clichés that govern human behaviour. Did Daddy leave when you were little and now you can't trust men?

Whatever the issue is, you just have to find someone you can confide in, who'll listen, put his arms around you and say those three magic words that every woman needs to hear: “Get over it.”