Coach Ziana -- CBT Practitioner & Life Coach. | Coach Ziana -- CBT Practitioner & Life Coach

The Secret Stash:

Why are you keeping pictures of other people in your phone, or in your computer?

Let's skip the bullshit for a minute. I'm not interested in telling you that everyone who finds another human being attractive is secretly a narcissist, emotionally unavailable, sexually repressed, or some other diagnosis currently making the rounds on TikTok.

Humans notice attractive people. Big stinking deal. That's not the interesting part.

The interesting part is what happens when someone deliberately collects provocative pictures of other people, keeps them on their phone or computer, hides them from their partner—and knows damn well that their partner would be devastated if they found out.

Why do we do things in relationships that we'd be horrified to have exposed? Here are the uncomfortable questions:

1. Is secrecy itself significant? Firstly, not every private thing is a betrayal. People are entitled to some private mental and personal space. We all know that. We pretty much all want that, too. But there's a difference between: “This is private” and “I'm hiding this because I know my partner would object.”Those are NOT psychologically identical situations.

2. What does the person get from the collection? It could be sexual stimulation. Novelty. Fantasy. Validation. Escapism. Habit. A sense of abundance or choice. Ego gratification. Something to revisit when bored. Sometimes the person may not have examined the behaviour at all. Which raises another uncomfortable question:

How much of our behaviour is intentional—and how much have we simply repeated until it became normal to us?

3. Does “I never intended to do anything with them” settle the issue?

Not necessarily. Hell, no. A person can have no intention whatsoever of physically cheating and still engage in behaviour their partner experiences as a violation of the relationship's implicit or explicit boundaries because intent matters.

Impact matters too.

Then there's the really interesting bit: If you already know the behaviour would hurt your partner, why is their knowledge the thing you are managing rather than your behaviour?

Right. That is the Underbelly Bar question.

4. And what about the partner? A relationship doesn't eliminate individuality, but relationships do involve negotiated expectations—sometimes explicitly, sometimes through assumptions, sometimes through previous conversations.

What have two people actually agreed constitutes acceptable behaviour inside their relationship? If you know the answer to that, and you know that collecting pictures of other attractive people on your phone or computer is NOT okay with your partner, then we get into the territory that swings us right over the "Privacy" line and into "Secrecy." And secrecy is a relationship killer.

Let's dive into the psychological machinery.

Why hide something?

Avoiding conflict.
Fear of rejection.
Wanting the benefit without paying the relational cost.
Compartmentalization.
Rationalization: “It's not cheating because I didn't touch anybody.”
Entitlement: “I'm allowed to do whatever I want.”
Minimization: “It's just pictures.”
Cognitive dissonance: “I'm a loving partner” sitting right alongside “I'm deliberately doing something they'd find hurtful.” Please.
Habit and reward learning.
Novelty seeking.
Sexual fantasy.
Sometimes simple selfishness.

Look, none of those automatically applies to every person doing it. That's important. We're investigating the machinery—not handing out diagnoses. But the question still remains hanging there: If you wouldn't do it in front of your partner because you know it would hurt them, what does the secrecy accomplish?

Does it protect privacy? Or does it protect access to something you don't want to give up? What are you protecting—the relationship, your privacy, or your ability to do something your partner wouldn't knowingly agree to?

Those are the questions we ask ourselves. They don't come with tidy little explanations--at least not here in The Underbelly Bar. Down here we just ask, "What the HELL are you doing?" And just leave it at that. You get to decide for yourself.

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THE UNDERBELLY MENU

Links to each article will become active as they are written and added, so bookmark the page and come back now and again.

The Secret Stash: Why are you keeping other people's pictures on your phone?
Screw the Grey Areas — privacy, secrecy, and “It's nothing.”
You Are Not Responsible for Other People's Feelings — and where that statement gets abused.
When Understanding Becomes Excusing.
Why Do We Keep Calling Bad Behaviour a Trauma Response?
The Psychology of “I Didn't Mean It Like That.”
When Boundaries Become Weapons.
“That's Just Who I Am.” — personality or convenient excuse?
The Difference Between an Explanation and an Excuse.
When “Self-Care” Becomes Selfishness.
Why Some People Need to Be the Victim.
When Honesty Becomes Cruelty.
Why We Stay in Relationships We Know Are Bad for Us.
The Things We Do When Nobody Is Watching.
Can You Understand Someone Without Forgiving Them?