Electronic spying: Impact on couples in the Modern Information Age

By Garth Mintun, LCSW, ACSW

In this modern information age with the Internet, mobile phones and GPS systems, we can share or obtain information at a breathtaking speed. The playing field between the small entrepreneur and the corporation is more equal then ever before, as information is much more widely available and accessible at all levels.

For relationships, this comes as a mixed blessing. While this technology certainly has its advantages, it also provides ample opportunity for crossed boundaries and a lack of privacy. For example, one’s wife, husband, partner or significant other can rather easily spy if they think their partner is not being truthful. Your partner might do this by checking your emails, text messages and phone numbers on your mobile phone, your history on the internet, and transportation monitoring via the GPS locator system.

In the years of being a practicing professional working with relationships and families, it is becoming much more common for me to hear about “evidence collected” via information technology. My sense is that, in adult relationships in the modern age, there is a growing dynamic involving the lack of direct communication about emotional needs and desires. Often, couples state that they quite simply “don’t have time” for this level of communication, given the combination of most people working over 40 hours per week, responsibilities of children, and the pressures of the economic recession.

This “busyness” impacts couples by increasing the possibility that their needs will not get met. The hectic schedule and lack of quality time together tends to reduce communication to purely the essential, and prevents the repair of past emotional wounds. Often the result of this involves one partner blaming the other excessively and the other partner passively resisting the blame by either “stonewalling” or “shutting down”. Couples play the roles of “chase and run.” This can play out when one person is the pursuer in the relationship and the other “runs” by shutting down and not responding (the silent treatment). Couples may reverse roles week by week or day by day. However the pattern created prevents the relationship from growing and old emotional wounds are not healed as the problems intensify.

When emotional wounds are not healed in the relationship, trust breaks down and partners can become fearful that the other is meeting their needs elsewhere. That is when the cell phone monitoring begins to take place and the history of the internet sites comes into play, as one of the partners “collects evidence”. In this modern information age, the information is easy to collect and privacy is invaded. Often then the partner confronts the other with the allegations of betrayal and both partners feel like the victim. The partner that “collects the evidence” feels betrayed because of the traces they had found of their partner’s intimate communication with another individual and the other person feels violated because of the “spying”.

When confronted with marital crisis, couples will sometimes turn for help to a psychotherapist at the point when the “evidence is collected”. The couple begins to work to overcome trust issues, anger, and sadness. The couple also begins to address the breakdown from a chronic period of time when the couple did not significantly repair their emotional disconnect. The relationship can be repaired at this stage if the couple chooses to prioritize time and attention with one another. This step involves setting time aside for weekly therapy and arranging “dates” or time together during the week to “wipe the slate clean.” This provides the couple with a basis to engage in the process of rediscovering why the couple originally came together in the first place.

In summary: if you find yourself “collecting evidence” on your partner, or if you find you are beginning to shut down, then it is time to receive professional help for your relationship. A psychotherapist can be very helpful by assisting you with making time for your relationship. Secondly, once the couple feels the relationship is a priority again, they can work on the emotional barriers that have been keeping them from intimate connection. Thirdly, as the trust builds, the need for electronic tracking will become obsolete. Psychotherapy can help both partners remember the initial “sparks” in their relationship and he provide guidance as both individuals to work together to rekindle those sparks.

Men Following Traditional Gender Roles Often Won't Accept Help or Counseling

by Garth Mintun, LCSW, ACSW

You are not alone among men who feel they cannot receive help. You cannot help it; you have been socialized to not receive help and are a part of learned gender roles that have existed in our North American society for over 300 years. Here are some facts regarding men.

1. Men, like the western lone hero solve all their problems and other peoples problems by themselves.
2. Showing emotions is a weakness to avoid at all cost.
3. Being close or emotionally vulnerable to another man could be perceived as “gay” and that makes me withdraw emotionally and want to appear invincible.
4. Suicide is the leading cause of death for white males between the ages of 15 to 24 and the rates increase dramatically as men age.
5. Men commit suicide up to 8 times more then women and twice the amount of women are diagnosed for depression. 50% fewer men are in counseling then women.
6. Men die in this country 7 years on average before women die.
7. 90% of the homicide/suicide offenders are men
8. Men bond through drinking together or sports activities, fact or Myth? ( myth-relationship is at a superficial level)
9. Men often rely on one woman usually to meet all emotional needs.
10. Boys are nine times more likely to suffer from hyperactivity then girls

Along with these facts are certain “ codes of masculinity ( Pollack and Levant) which requires men to be aggressive, dominant, achievement oriented, competitive, rigidly self –sufficient, adventure seeking , willing to take risks, emotionally restricted and constituted to avoid all things feminine” Quotes from “New Psychotherapy for Men, by William S Pollack and Ronald F. Levant

How Men can take Action

Your personal crisis is your opportunity to change. Take advantage of this experience, i.e., failed relationship (s), career burnout, events that lead to depression, anxiety, and isolation and reach out for help. Please don’t try to be a super hero from Hollywood and ask for help from your support system or receive professional help.

First educate yourself on how the myths of gender are unrealistic in real life and often consists the opposite for us. Never being vulnerable means emotionally “breaking “sooner or later and becoming more vulnerable. Paradoxically, becoming more vulnerable and giving your restricted feelings a voice may make you stronger.

Secondly, go into a consulting or counseling relationship to work on emotional crisis, depression, situational crisis to “stop the emotional bleeding”, help repair some of the relationship (s) and learn how you catch yourself personally in the Male Myth or gender role bias. A therapist/consultant who is aware of male issues and has done his own work on himself is a must with this kind of work.

Thirdly, after one to one counseling, go to a men’s therapy or support group and learn how to interact with other men who want to become more authentic and break out of the gender role box. The combination of education, one on one counseling and therapy/support group is the best combination promoting authenticity with inner peace in the world.

Do you need Help with Depression?

Garth Mintun, LCSW, ACSW

How do you know if have “clinical depression”? The best way to find out is to talk to a mental health professional. A few “red flags” may help you decide to seek help.

1. Do you feel tired or have low energy all the time?

2. Do you either get too much sleep or not enough sleep?

3. Do you either eat very little or too much?

4. Do your friends tell you that you have changed and “are not yourself”

5. Do you feel isolated and alone?

6. Have you lost your support group, i.e., friends, family, relatives, work buddies, partners, spouse, boy/friend or girlfriend?

7. Do you feel sad and not know why?

8. Do you sometimes day dream of what the world would be like without you?

9. Do you notice it is difficult to focus at work and home and your productive nature has suffered?

10. Do you notice that you rarely smile, laugh or joke?

11. Do you sometimes become angry at the slightest provocation beyond the scope of the event?

12. Do you feel at a loss but don’t know what to do about it?

13. Do you find your concentration at work and at home is decreased, as though you feel you have an intermittent memory problem?

Saying yes to three or more of the above would indicate that you need to talk with a mental health professional and if you answer yes to eight, this is a strong indicator that therapy or counseling could be generally helpful.

You might also consider the strength and nature of your support system, and ask yourself if it is adequate and responsive to your needs.
Isolating and withdrawing from your normal activities can be a strong indicator of depression.
Both depression that is related to an event in your life and clinical depression tend to present with similar symptoms and both can benefit from mental health services

Research is consistent in finding that depression has best treatment results when the client receives a combination of medication and talk therapy services. Recent research indicates that when the side effects of medication are accounted for, talk therapy does at least as well as medication and perhaps better (see webMd.com for more details). Also indicated in the research is that talk therapy is mandated when the symptoms of clinical depression are severe (see depression-guide.com for more details).

Often a mental health professional and/or a psychotherapist can help you find a therapeutic group as well as individual counseling to help address the symptoms and causes of depression. When nurturing and caring people are seemingly absent in your life professional help in the form of individual therapy and group therapy can be very beneficial. The therapist and /or group can become the support you need until you find a natural support structure.

Often clinical depression has ramifications for a marriage, relationship and/or if one has children. Sometimes there are secondary effects on families and couples in which the other person becomes angry, sad or feels like they lost their “old friend, they once knew”. Whatever is the case for a person suffering from depression it is imperative to receive help quickly because depression has the potential to escalate to suicide or death wish ideation? With extreme severe depression, with suicide and death ideation, hospitalization inpatient/outpatient intensive such as partial hospitalization or ILP may be necessary. Insurance generally covers treatment for this service as well as out patient therapy.

How To Heal Your Broken Heart

By Margy Davis-Mintun, LCSW, ACSW

Please answer the following questions (true or false) to rate your coping after a break up. ( answers at the end of the article)

1. T F I had high expectations of my significant other and the person did not live up to my ideals.

2. T F I felt blindsighted by him/her leaving me.

3. T F I felt that I was in love until we became married, and then he/she was not the same person.

4. T F I feel the pain of being rejected by not only her/him and am re-living every rejection in my life.

5. T F I keep asking myself , what if……. and I seem to obsess about being dumped.

6. T F I will never allow myself to be hurt again and refuse to have another relationship.

7. T F I can’t stand to be alone and will quickly establish a new intimate relationship.

8. T F I don’t want to talk to anybody about this break up and I can handle it all myself.

9. T F Sometimes professional counseling and group work can help me map a strategy to heal my emotional wounds after this breakup.

10. T F I am basically a good person and will use this break-up to reflect on how I can make changes in my next relationship.



In relationships there is always the matter of coping with disappointment and loss. This begins in the early phase of relationship in which you meet someone and feel this instant connection. In the early phase of relationship we are enchanted with the illusion of who we believe we have met. We begin by having a relationship with our idealized version of our partner. Slowly over time we begin to replace the mental construction we’ve developed of who they are with the facts as they slowly build in the context of time together. This process of the early phase of relationship is very important as we slowly deconstruct our fantasy of our partner so that we can build a more authentic relationship with the person they are. Often relationships that move very fast can bypass this process and the relationship continues to be based on “fill in the blanks” that we have created, rather than based on who we actually are. The fact is that no one is a perfect match and each of us will have to come to terms with aspects of the other that are not to our liking.

Have you ever met someone, and you think you know who they are and then, as you get to know them, “they are not who I thought they were”. This is a common phenomenon in many relationships, including friendships. Taking time to get to know who you are dating and “falling in love with” allows you to more fully grasp the nuances and discover the gifts and the not so wonderful parts of who they are.

In short term relationships/marriages, often the discovery of your partner’s actual identity will create much conflict and ultimately terminate the relationship. This occurs because who they are is not really who you thought and as you begin to loose interest and hope, you disengage from the relationship.

The other important aspect of getting to know someone has to do with the bottom line of what compromises each of you is willing to make against your ideal version of who you want as a partner. Common interests, values, belief systems, and the ability to accept who they are become critical factors in relationships. Often there is a false belief that if you continue in the relationship you can change them so that you can tolerate the parts you don’t like. It can be very disillusioning when a partner either doesn’t change and/or you find yourself increasingly less tolerant of them. These are common factors that bring stress and frustration to relationships that end in breakups or divorce.

The focus of this discussion will be on the recovery process of a “broken heart” and hopefully help deter the “lonely heart” experience. One of the least emphasized aspects of relationships is the repair of oneself after a difficult and heart rendering end of relationship. It is common for individuals to experience a sense of failure, self criticism, rage, isolation, self righteousness and depression, just to name a few reactions to loss.
Grief is a time to allow oneself to begin to let go and mend from sorrow and loss. Within grief, the emotions are in an active state of change. Despair about being alone is a strong pull that can keep you in a very unhealthy state of trying to hold on and digging yourself deeper into depression. Sometimes there can be a belief that what you feel at the time a relationship ends will last forever. We tend to project this desperate feeling of loss into our entire future and overwhelm ourselves with a sense of urgency to fix everything right now. This can be seen in relationships that are “on again off again” as avoidance of the ending and the fear of never finding someone again. These endings can be very destructive to the couple as the only string that holds then together is the fear of ending and not the desire for the other.

So the first step in the break up is to allow yourself some time to sort out the decision to let go of the relationship, and/or the impact of the decision made by another to end the relationship. This allows you to review the factors that brought you to this point, and let yourself experience the feelings that emerge without taking action, just being in the moment of loss. This is not a time for action, rather a time for reflection. It may be that fear and anger flood you emotionally, which is a natural reaction to loss. The feeling of rejection and the angst of rejecting are also common powerful emotional responses to ending a relationship. These feelings of guilt, rage, and/or rejection can often cloud the process of allowing yourself to experience grief.

The healing process is not rapid, and often triggers other past losses and sorrow. As these feelings blend, the emotional response often intensifies and coping becomes more difficult.

For healing, it is important to reach out to loved ones, utilize your support systems, engage in physical activity, write in a personal journal and begin to understand what your part was in the breakdown of the relationship/marriage. We often come from hurt/anger and want to blame others; it’s easy to find fault in our partner. Another common response is to accept full blame and feel self loathing.

Healing and change come from being able to understand and discover our contribution to the relationship ending. This understanding enables us to grow and to make changes in behaviors that are destructive to our relationships. This allows us to feel empowered instead of hopeless about the future. If it’s all their fault, we are absolutely powerless and helpless. If we can claim our part, however, we have something to take hold of to become stronger and more capable in future relationships.

Support groups and therapeutic groups that address grief associated with the loss of a relationship create a structured environment for learning together how to cope with loss. This offers an opportunity to get feedback and to hear observations from others. We can learn from others’ experiences and minimize isolation within a positive environment which promotes growth and change.

Sometimes individual counseling in conjunction with group work provides added help as you cope with loss. This is particularly useful to address past triggers that often are surfaced in times of grief and loss.

Sometimes individuals want to give up on any possibility for future healthy relationships. Many close down emotionally, fearing they cannot ever succeed in relationships. Other times individuals will throw themselves into random relationships to avoid the pain of being alone and try to turn off the feelings of grief. Both of these methods of coping have little success in creating growth or change for positive future outcomes.

Choosing to be reflective, going slow with any new relationship with a long courtship phase, and joining either a therapeutic therapy group for “broken hearts” or a support group is important. Try to remember to “go slow” and do not succumb to extreme thinking of giving up on relationships or quickly moving into another intimate relationship. In mapping out your strategy, you may want to seek professional psychotherapy or counseling. (See other articles in Psychotherapy Perspective blog for assistance with seeking professional help)


****Answers to emotional I Q on relationships

1. true
2. true
3. true
4. true
5. true
6. true
7. true
8. false
9. true
10. true

If you answered one question true (or 8. false) you have awareness of your “broken heart” and, with reflection and help, can emotionally heal yourself.