I was at the bar with my best girl friend sipping – no, sorry, guzzling – pink martinis and talking over her recent breakup. Since the start of her most recent relationship, she had always felt insecure and intuitive that all was not well in the land of love. She was telling me the story of all the crazy antics she had been up to during the week of her breakup, antics that revealed who she was really living with.

It took four cocktails and a nasty, heated shot to give her the courage to come home one night and finally put to rest her insecurities about her relationship. They were living together, they were going to get married, and she needed the truth. Now.

She started with the simplest: getting the phone. It took some quiet finagling and constant worrying over him waking up, but she finally got it off the charger and downstairs for investigation. It was a goldmine. His phone held text messages from several other women, most of them naughty. Normally, I would have been impressed. I had no idea so many women were interested in this man. I always thought he was dull and unattractive – the safest choice of boyfriends for my oldest and dearest friend. Damn, was I wrong.

Next, she tried the computer. It was locked with a password. She tried as many combinations as she could, but the computer remained obstinate with its black, glaring screen. Even his electronics were disapproving. She finally gave up and joined him in bed, giving him the ass. She couldn’t look at him.

The next morning she awoke to him rushing out the door, completely forgetting to turn off his computer. Jackpot. She slowly, sneakily went to his computer. She opened the pictures folder. There was nothing there, only pictures of the two of them and his family vacations – boring. There was one solitary folder that didn’t have a real name, only a jumble of random letters, “JuHHdk.” She clicked on it anyway. Her jaw dropped. It was filled with naked pictures of women, several women. Some she knew, like his ex and a girl from work, most she didn’t recognize. It was heartbreaking.

Her now-ex had always been weird about his phone and computer when she was around, something that poked near the edge of irritation, but she let it go. He always had an excuse that made so much sense: She needed to use his computer, but she had one of her own, why did she need to use his? She should respect his privacy. If it seems like he’s hiding something, he’s just working on a surprise for her.

Though she’s relieved to finally know who he really is, she still feels guilt at having to admit to herself, and to me, that she became “that crazy bitch.” She snooped and violated his privacy.

Relationships are tricky. Women complain that men can be too distant and men complain that women can be too “crazy.” What do we do that’s so crazy? We snoop through your phone and computer, we get insecure about other girls constantly, and we can often be found cyber-stalking our boyfriend’s exes. Sure, we immediately feel guilty afterward. But we shouldn’t. My friend told me about the things she did and hated herself for her “crazy” behavior. As we were talking, I started to consider: why do we feel so guilty?

Recently, one of my other girlfriends told me she realized her boyfriend is really weird about his phone and computer as well. It really bothered her. So, she went through his phone and found inappropriate texts from other girls. Her curiosity went deeper and she went through his email. Those also revealed inappropriate pictures and conversations about hookups with other women. Sure, it was wrong to snoop, but she only did it because she knew he was hiding something. His fault.

Another friend of mine struggled constantly during her relationship with insecurity about other girls. Everyone thought she was crazy because she constantly compared herself to other women, wondering if her boyfriend preferred that cup size or that hair color over her own. She didn’t like him hanging out with other women or socializing with female co-workers outside of work. Later, it came to light that he was sleeping with a couple women from work. Her insecurities had been right. She wasn’t crazy, her intuition was screaming at her that something was wrong.

Unfortunately, we’re all known for checking out our boyfriends’ exes on the internet. We can lie and pretend we don’t, but we do. Often. Some women, however, take it further. I have a girlfriend who cyber-stalked the ex of her previous boyfriend. It started off innocently enough, she just checked out the ex’s Facebook page to get an idea of what she looked like and to find out if her boyfriend was telling the truth about not talking to her. Though they weren’t friends on Facebook, she did discover they were talking. She got into his account and found messages back and forth between the two. It was like they had never broken up. They were obviously still in love and had been talking behind her back frequently. It was heartbreaking to find out. Yet again, a girl was coerced into doing something crazy because a man made her feel like she had to by hiding something.

If you think that a woman is crazy, then maybe there is someone who made her that way. We shouldn’t feel guilty for finding the truth. We deserve to know who we’re trusting, loving, and spending our time with. Snooping may not be the best way to go about finding out, but we shouldn’t feel guilty if it does come to that. If a girl feels compelled to snoop, it’s because she’s not getting the answers she deserves from the person she loves. Take the time to get to know someone before rushing in to moving in or getting married, watch out for the little things that poke at women’s intuition because those little things could reveal something huge, and don’t let trust issues from the past affect judgment. Investigating (and yes, that includes snooping) should only be used if a woman feels that there is something really wrong in the relationship. Intuition and distrust leftover from a past relationship are two different things, don’t confuse them.

I’m not advising snooping, but I am advising everyone to love wisely. Know who you’re sharing a bed with and trust that feeling in your gut that tells you something isn’t right. That feeling telling us to get crazy can often be a good one.