Is my girlfriend cheating on me on Facebook?

I'm glad you're not asking for her password because even if I was some sort of uber-mastermind hacker genius I can't see how I could reverse engineer and figure out someone's password on Facebook. Even if I could, though, it's clearly ethically wrong and illegal anyway, so it's not about to happen.

You've asked for something a bit different, though, which is novel. Usually I just see incessant requests to share passwords of other people or help people -- ostensibly -- regain access to their own accounts, even though their email address is completely unlike the previous that they had, or their previous Facebook account ID, or similar.

Still, whether you're asking for access to chat logs, private email or anything else from someone else's Facebook account (or any other secure account for that matter) you're asking me to violate the law and I'm not going to do that, regardless of circumstance.

There's a bigger issue here, however, and it's a relationship and interpersonal issue. If you're in a relationship with someone that you don't trust, if you suspect that they're cheating on you or aren't faithful when you've both agreed that you will be faithful then your problem isn't technological at all, it's a human issue.

If you can't sit down and ask them to assure you that things are good and that they aren't cheating, or if you just don't believe them when they tell you that it's all fine but they need some privacy in their life too, well, maybe you don't have as strong and deep a relationship as you think.

I'm being blunt because I see these suspicious partner queries quite often and I just think that the computer's the least of your worries. If you have a partner who isn't faithful, it's not a Facebook issue at all, is it? If you can't talk with them and have a meaningful conversation where you figure out what's going on and are candid to each other, what kind of relationship do you have?

So I encourage you instead of asking about how to poke around in someone else's account to just confront your girlfriend and ask her what the heck's going on. It'll yield much better results in the long run and will also show you as mature and a person of character. And just in case you're wrong it's a lot easier to explain than if you're busted rummaging through her account, which I would imagine is a huge, huge red flag and likely relationship killer.

Good luck. You've got a tough road ahead of you...

• How do I stop Facebook notification email bugging me?
• Create a secret group in Facebook?
• Can I start a multi-person Facebook chat?
• Can I email someone a Facebook status update?
• How can I have Pinterest updates appear on Facebook?