Should You Do A Background Check On Your Fiance?
Doing a background check on your fiance is a controversial thing to do, but there are a few situations where it definitely makes sense. Or perhaps it's not your fiance you want to check up on, but a friend of yours or a family member is getting married to someone they've only just met and you want to make sure they're not about to make the biggest mistake of their lives.
Before you jump straight in and do a background check on someone though, you have to consider the implications.
Firstly, you're invading their privacy. While a background check is perfectly legal and safe to do (all the checks do is collect information from various public records libraries and collate it together into a single report that you can quickly skim through), it is still quite an invasive thing to do especially if that person is trying to move on from a past life they'd rather forget about.
But if they have nothing to hide, why would they be upset if they found out? I think it's more that it shows a lack of trust on your part. You don't trust them well enough to take them at face value and you want to find out more about them but you don't believe they'll give you a straight or honest answer so you do a background check.
It implies that you think there's a chance they could be a criminal or have a criminal past that they'd rather keep covered up, and that can be hard to take.
Also consider what happens if they find out you checked up on them behind their back without telling them. How will they take it? How will it affect your relationship with them, or the relationship with your friend or family member? Think about how you'd feel if you found out the parents of your new partner did a background check on you.
But on the other hand, sometimes you have to do these things to protect yourself and your family and friends. You're not doing it to be malicious or spiteful, but you want to keep yourself safe and that's OK. After all, would you rather find out some terrible secret now or 5 years down the line after you've been married and entwined your lives?
At the end of the day, it's up to you whether or not to background check your fiance. If you've only just met them and they're cagey about their past, perhaps it's worthwhile if you're going to spend the rest of your life with this person.
Before you jump straight in and do a background check on someone though, you have to consider the implications.
Firstly, you're invading their privacy. While a background check is perfectly legal and safe to do (all the checks do is collect information from various public records libraries and collate it together into a single report that you can quickly skim through), it is still quite an invasive thing to do especially if that person is trying to move on from a past life they'd rather forget about.
But if they have nothing to hide, why would they be upset if they found out? I think it's more that it shows a lack of trust on your part. You don't trust them well enough to take them at face value and you want to find out more about them but you don't believe they'll give you a straight or honest answer so you do a background check.
It implies that you think there's a chance they could be a criminal or have a criminal past that they'd rather keep covered up, and that can be hard to take.
Also consider what happens if they find out you checked up on them behind their back without telling them. How will they take it? How will it affect your relationship with them, or the relationship with your friend or family member? Think about how you'd feel if you found out the parents of your new partner did a background check on you.
But on the other hand, sometimes you have to do these things to protect yourself and your family and friends. You're not doing it to be malicious or spiteful, but you want to keep yourself safe and that's OK. After all, would you rather find out some terrible secret now or 5 years down the line after you've been married and entwined your lives?
At the end of the day, it's up to you whether or not to background check your fiance. If you've only just met them and they're cagey about their past, perhaps it's worthwhile if you're going to spend the rest of your life with this person.
