Here is the key: we trust each other. I know she won't use my e-mail account to spy on me. She knows the same thing about me. Some times we need to check each others' messages for one reason or another. I will ask her to check mine if I am away from the computer too long. When I do look at her e-mail I only view what I need too and then get off. We trust each other and so we have no problems giving each other the keys to anything. After all we are supposed to give our spouses the keys to our hearts, and how can we trust them with the keys of our hearts if we can't trust them with our internet passwords.
Jealousy, a problem that has afflicted the human race, since Cain and Abel is primarily a result of a lack of trust. The man in the story didn't trust his wife in any way, and it was completely unjustified. The woman also didn't trust her husband, but in her case it was completely justified. All of his abusive behavior stemmed from the fact that he felt he could not trust her in anything. Where does that come from? I am not sure. Perhaps it is a lack of confidence in ones self. If you don't know how you would not cheat you don't know how she wouldn't either. It could come from a supreme arrogance. Only you could be trusted with something so important, and since she is so weak and frail she cannot say no to the opposite gender like you can. There could be another reason as well. What ever is the underlying cause of mistrust it is something that can tear a family up as fast and thoroughly as anything can.
Trust is very hard particularly for those who have been hurt but it is essential in our closest relationships. For many of us we find it easy to trust in our spouse, especially if they have never given us reason to mistrust them. We also need to have trust in the Lord. I could write some time on that, but will save it for another time.
For me at least the hardest people to trust is my own children. I know their faults better than anyone else and unlike my wife, they have given me plenty of reason not to trust them. Here is the thing they will never develop into the fully functioning trustworthy adults we all want them to be if we don't give them the trust they need to grow.
So we decided to look at every one of our children and decide where they have been trustworthy and increase what we trust them within these areas. Hopefully, this will blossom until we can trust them in almost all areas, but this is still a work in progress. I hope it works. This is not to say trust your kid's word in everything. Like that saying goes, "Trust, yet verify."
My prayers to all of us. May we all learn to trust in the appropriate way. That after all is a Christ-like attribute.